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I ordered a beautiful Heritage H-575 in chestnut burst from 2006. The upgrades include an ebony fretboard, extra binding, a single pickup, and Sperzel tuners. I ordered it from Singapore. It was shipped on Monday and arrived on Thursday. That's amazing. I couldn't get it shipped from Michigan to the West Coast in a full week.
The guitar arrived well packed and is as stunning as the pictures. The neck felt great. The problem is the binding. The rear body binding is fragmenting with pieces separating all along it. I thought about it a short while and decided I don't want to negotiate on some partial refund for me to get this binding replaced. There would be a significant wait time for the work and possibly some disagreement by the seller on the cost of repair. I requested to return the item. The seller saw the pics, apologized that they missed it, and approved a Reverb refund and shipping label.
I would have been thrilled to have it except the binding issue. I don't want to get into multiple recurrent reglues and don't want the problems with getting the whole binding strip replaced.
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11-05-2021 07:21 PM
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Too bad. It’s a beautiful guitar.
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Bummer.
Well done for coming to a logical decision on it. Sometimes it is hard to turn away an otherwise nice axe. This is generally why I have the 'no excuses' rule. It saves me from endlessly negotiating with myself over condition.
There are occasions of course when the condition is fair playing wear. Anything more than that; I reject.
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I’d have kept it if the seller negotiated a discount. The guitar is too nice not to keep it. Is the seller going to relist it?
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A guitar made in Kalamazoo, Michigan, finds its way to Singapore. Years later, it is sent back to Kalamazoo, then returned to Singapore, without even seeing the factory where it was made.
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But they say that for every door that closes, another opens. Tomorrow I get a Cherry Golden Eagle that belonged to a friend.
I had this for six months about two years ago. I was basically holding it for someone but did play it some. At the time I wasn't big into red guitars, but this and Danny's red L-5 won me over.
It's a parallel braced single humbucker. The bridge now is ebony. The pickup is a Heritage HRW, which sounds excellent.
These pics aren't the best, but they give some idea off what it looks like.
It sounds fantastic, and I didn't want to like it at first. The neck feels natural and comfortable.
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The factory where it was made isn't the factory where it was made anymore. Heritage won't do repair work on instruments belonging to a second hand buyer, at least they really don't want to. If I thought that was a reasonable option, I would have pursued it. What are the guys going to do with the guitar in Singapore? The binding needs repair and, more appropriately, replacement. It makes sense Heritage would do it, but in the last couple of years they weren't interested in that sort of work. The only one I'd trust in Kalamazoo is not a fan of doing binding replacements because of how time consuming it is and the extra care it takes to not ruin the nearby finish. It would take six months to get it back from him.
Originally Posted by Litterick
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I'm likely being naive but I would make a template of the back and top, turn that into a forma, vacuum press a thin piece of ply in the shape of both top and back and router a flat edge around the perimeter of the ply replica plates. I would then place the ply plates on the body and router the binding off using those replica plates as a router guide. Originally Posted by Marty Grass
Then clean up the area for gluing and re-bind.
If I had experience in such an endeavour I would imagine it could take 4 days and cost £1k?
1 day to make the cast for the top and back, a day to make the forma from the cast, half a day to form the new plates and router off the original binding. A day to reapply the binding?
The tricky part would be around the neck. Here I would use my template plates to score the finish and then remove binding with a very sharp chisel.
Either way the replica plates should protect the top and finish.
Alternatively you could use the sides as your router guide but that might not be as stable.
Sure would be fun to try.
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Mark, how could the seller of that H-575 NOT see the binding issues?! I call BS on their claim of innocence.
Good for you returning it to Singapore.
And congratulations on the new Golden Eagle. That looks like a rare and beautiful find. Play it in good health.
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A cherry Golden Eagle. I've not seen many of them. Beautiful. Looks very clean too.
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I discovered Kalamazoo in 1978 when I saw Blue Collar, the crime drama directed by Paul Schrader, (his directorial debut), starring Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto, with a score by Jack Nitzsche.
Many years later, I found myself having to use a Kalamazoo book-keeping system for my employer, at a time when the rest of the world had moved on to MYOB.
My Gibson L6-S was made in Kalamazoo, in the last year of Gibson production there.
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When I was a kid there were 2 places that were considered far away and exotic, as in “Where’s he from, Kalamazoo?”
The other was Timbuktu.
My parents also used to talk a lot about Murgatroyd. Never figured out who that guy was.
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Well sorry to hear about the first one—beautiful guitar. But the second one is nice too.
Depending on how much I paid, I might have been tempted to negotiate a partial refund and keep the first guitar. And then stabilize the binding with glue or get it fixed.
But you know what they say about opinions…life’s too short, get what you want!
On another note, shipped from Singapore in 4 days?!? Unbelievable. And they say there are shipping problems all over the world.
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One of our kids lives in Singapore. His businesses ship products around the world, and he owns a Sonoma winery that exports its entire output to Singapore. He told us last week that he’s had no difficulty at all with logistics except inside the US. So I’m not surprised that a good carrier got that guitar here in 4 days. It was undoubtedly sent by air and routed efficiently. Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
One problem he cited is that shipments are affected by orders, and orders are way down in business segments affected by Covid. So those huge containers that used to be filled and moved regularly now sit awaiting enough content to make putting them on a ship economically practical. For example, fine wines are not being bought for restaurant cellars right now because they have no reasonable hope of selling them within their best drinking window. So there are many problems in shipping right now, but a lot of the world is less affected by them than we are in the US.
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Too bad about the binding issue, that was an otherwise-fine-looking instrument. But big congrats on the Golden Eagle, and play it in good health!
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Mark the red Golden Eagle looks great and my guess it will be a winner guitar. Now that I have a transparent red guitar I have to say the red is growing on me like you would believe. Now I am thinking wow a red what do I want?
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