Ebay Content........Ibanez.

Alnico

The guitar is why I started the thread, not the person.
Who he is and why he does this isn't something I have an opinion on at all and just because he did show up here a while back doesn't really make it that much different to the almost daily "OMG look at this heap on eBay" threads,.....does it?

If people are going to attack him then fair play and you're correct, that's wrong but his work is awful and having that opinion isn't wrong, hence my reply earlier that he's "Exercising his right to make a complete mess of a guitar".
I agree with those that say it's ok if that's what he wants to do but that doesn't stop the rest having an opinion on that work does it?

As for his Rep on eBay well again, fair play and yes @bingefeller is right, that is the kind of person you'd want to buy from on that place.

I didn't post this because it's 'Him', it was purely about the guitar and I was only doing what happens here at least once a day with failed attempts on eBay. This one just stood out to me, mainly because of the Vai / Universe thing, not the MDP aspect.

I certainly didn't post it to be "Uncharitable". I'm being honest here, I'm not sure I know how to be that, I literally spend my whole time every day being the complete opposite, but a bad job is a bad job and me posting it here wasn't meant to come across as *that*!

I'll apologise if it did.

bingefeller

No need to apologise dude, not to me anyway.  This is a forum and we're all entitled to have our say and post what threads we like.

Bidley

@Alnico I was just remarking in a general sense on the time when bitching about him was flavour of the week, nothing to do with this thread or your intentions

Alnico

bingefeller said:

No need to apologise dude, not to me anyway.  This is a forum and we're all entitled to have our say and post what threads we like.

I totally agree and that's why I've tried to keep my comments subjective.
I would apologise to anyone that thought me uncharitable though and that's what I meant. I wouldn't dream of attacking someone's personality or calling *them* names for what they've done etc.

Bidley said:

@Alnico I was just remarking in a general sense on the time when bitching about him was flavour of the week, nothing to do with this thread or your intentions

I remember it well and it did get embarrassing actually.
I think I posted this in one sense to include him in the normality of what gets posted here like I said, almost daily.
In doing so, I think I was trying to steer away from singling him out and trying to include his work in the same category as the others we all post about.
Maybe I haven't explained that the right way but it was definitely about the guitar and not him as a person.

He's clearly successful because he's still doing it all this time later!

Maybe he's inventing the 'Rat Guitar',.......like we have 'Rat-Rods' and 'Rat-Bikes' in the automotive world and just maybe he's inventing a sub-culture with it.

Like I've said, it's not my thing I think his approach and his work is awful but fair play to him for at least being original.
 

StormshadowGuitars

My good fucking god, how can i unsee that??
Welcome to the Stevie Wonder School of Guitar Modification!!

bingefeller

Alnico said:

bingefeller said:

No need to apologise dude, not to me anyway.  This is a forum and we're all entitled to have our say and post what threads we like.

I totally agree and that's why I've tried to keep my comments subjective.
I would apologise to anyone that thought me uncharitable though and that's what I meant. I wouldn't dream of attacking someone's personality or calling *them* names for what they've done etc.

Bidley said:

@Alnico I was just remarking in a general sense on the time when bitching about him was flavour of the week, nothing to do with this thread or your intentions

I remember it well and it did get embarrassing actually.
I think I posted this in one sense to include him in the normality of what gets posted here like I said, almost daily.
In doing so, I think I was trying to steer away from singling him out and trying to include his work in the same category as the others we all post about.
Maybe I haven't explained that the right way but it was definitely about the guitar and not him as a person.

He's clearly successful because he's still doing it all this time later!

Maybe he's inventing the 'Rat Guitar',.......like we have 'Rat-Rods' and 'Rat-Bikes' in the automotive world and just maybe he's inventing a sub-culture with it.

Like I've said, it's not my thing I think his approach and his work is awful but fair play to him for at least being original.
 

No mate, just to be clear I didn't mean you specifically.  I re-read my comment and didn't think I came across as referring to you directly.  Sorry if I did come across this way.

To be honest, I have joined in taking the piss outta him in the past (even in PM I had a laugh about him with someone on this forum about 2 years ago) and his work but my personal views have changed a lot over time.   

Alnico

bingefeller said:

...............

No mate, just to be clear I didn't mean you specifically.  I re-read my comment and didn't think I came across as referring to you directly.  Sorry if I did come across this way.

To be honest, I have joined in taking the piss outta him in the past (even in PM I had a laugh about him with someone on this forum about 2 years ago) and his work but my personal views have changed a lot over time.   

Not taken badly at all, I think I was concerned that my comments had come across badly as well.

Yeah, at first I did but events in my life have shown me another side of things so whilst I will take part in reasonably friendly jibes, I don't ever mean harm with a joke, it's meant in humour whatever it is.

Some would argue that jokes can be hurtful but I believe that people who put themselves out on the internet like *that* should be willing to accept criticism and opinion, be it good or bad and you have to admit his work is 'Bold' to say the least so it invites that from most people who see it.

Thanks for replying directly to my comment though @bingefeller .
I was concerned I'd come across wrong so it's nice to know I hadn't.

I used to be a Biker years ago and there was a magazine that ran a monthly feature called "I need my tools taking away", featuring some of the lash ups that people called motorbikes. I suppose in my mind I think back to those days when I see stuff like this but it's meant with humour and if I knew it was genuinely hurting someone I wouldn't do it.

What happened here a couple of years ago when it became specific and degrading towards him as a person was quite horrible and I'm ashamed that I was part of that at first and glad I left it alone when I did.
We live and learn.

Evilmags

Someone should probably tag reverb as a courtesy... 

Sassafras

Not often you come across a thread where we all expiate our guilt.
I for one certainly feel better and lighter of heart for it.

prowla

professorben said:

Why is he doing this? 

He's on a mission to fight for all the fat-fingered folks in the world.

Strangefan

Wow have we gone back in time to 2015? in all fairness, he deserves the ribbing, he has no guitar centred talent and puts himself out there so the ridicule is soley on his shoulders. 

boogieman

bingefeller said:

fair dues to him, his wife is kind of cute and he has a sweet looking daughter.  Bit shitty that he's the butt of a lot of jokes on here by people who shouldn't actually be laughing at him as it's uncharitable, all things considered.

Plus, the guy has 100% eBay feedback and I bet he's the kind of seller a lot of us would want to buy from.  

And before anyone says it - yes I know he was offered advice on here and he threw it back in your faces.  Is it any surprise when he had the piss ripped out of him before hand though? 

I agree with some of the sentiments of your post but really don't see what having a "kind of cute wife and a sweet looking daughter" has to do with anything. Does that somehow make him a nicer bloke? *Shrug*

His attitude was arrogant and pretty appalling when he came on here and people tried to give him some advice. He seemed to think he knew more than professionals with decades of experience between them. That's what got him the shitty reaction, not him personally. 

He's obviously still selling enough of the bastardised things to make it worthwhile. I don't bear him any ill will but I think we're still entitled to point at the standard of his work and say "bloody hell, that's crap."

hywelg

This guy is addressing a problem the mainstream guitar industry does not. Nut width.

For all those being rude about people with sausage fingers, most players with true sausage fingers actually prefer slim necks with narrow nuts. The problem of nut width is mostly for people with BIG hands. My hands are enormous, my left hand spans 272mm from tip of little finger to tip of thumb when splayed out. And I have slim fingers.

I find 41mm nuts very diffcult to play, 43 are OK, 44.5 (Ibanez Wizard and Gibson 2015LP necks are this wide) is better but over time experimenting with Warmoth Superwide necks I have settled on 45.5mm as being just right for me.

Now  I do not have an issue with the criticism of the way the guy goes about this, when all said and done the neck width on this Ibanez bastardised guitar is still less than one of the regular 6 string Ibanez Wizard necks, pointless. And his bridge work is a bodge.

But, the guy still has a point. necks wider than 43mm are still very hard to find. Yes Gibson went to 44.45mm for their 2015 offering and got slammed for it (amongst other things) . But thats because they didn't offer it as an option.

boogieman

hywelg said:

And his bridge work is a bodge.

And that's the rub, everything about his work is a bodge. He may well be addressing a problem that the industry doesn't but it's done to a really poor standard.

 I think what gets people on here annoyed with him is the way he presents his ads. Reading them, if you didn't know much about guitars you would assume he's knowledgeable; he's even used words like "professional" and "luthier" in his ads. Both words imply some sort of skill level, craftsmanship and pride in the work.

 Is he "Professional"? Moot point. Yes he charges for his work, so in the strictest sense yes he is, but he doesn't demonstrate much professionalism. "Luthier"? Err, no. He screws bits of pre-made guitars together. I put some Ikea units together the other day and modified them a bit to fit, that doesn't make me a carpenter. I also can't imagine a luthier would do some of the things he does. Just out of pride, where he's taken tuners out I'd  glue a bit of dowel in to fill the hole, not just bung in a grommet. Similarly he just puts on odd tuners, mismatched knobs and odd pickups at random and yet somehow conjures up the image that he's some guitar guru, lovingly crafting these things in his workshop, "reglazing the frets". 

I've never figured him out. But whether he's deluded about his skill level or not, people still buy his stuff. 100% ebay feedback suggests he has plenty of happy buyers at the point of purchase; I'd like to see some feedback from owners of his guitars after a year though. 

Sassafras

To be fair, his prices don't exactly reflect professional 'luthier' levels of skill.
He caters more for the tight-arsed sausage fingered unfortunates.

carlos

hywelg said:

This guy is addressing a problem the mainstream guitar industry does not. Nut width.

For all those being rude about people with sausage fingers, most players with true sausage fingers actually prefer slim necks with narrow nuts. The problem of nut width is mostly for people with BIG hands. My hands are enormous, my left hand spans 272mm from tip of little finger to tip of thumb when splayed out. And I have slim fingers.

Mate, if giant hands like Steve Vai and Paul Gilbert can all shred on 43mm (regular) width guitars, then the problem is you, not the guitar. Also the vast majority of Wizard necks are 43mm.

bingefeller

hywelg said:

This guy is addressing a problem the mainstream guitar industry does not. Nut width.

For all those being rude about people with sausage fingers, most players with true sausage fingers actually prefer slim necks with narrow nuts. The problem of nut width is mostly for people with BIG hands. My hands are enormous, my left hand spans 272mm from tip of little finger to tip of thumb when splayed out. And I have slim fingers.

I find 41mm nuts very diffcult to play, 43 are OK, 44.5 (Ibanez Wizard and Gibson 2015LP necks are this wide) is better but over time experimenting with Warmoth Superwide necks I have settled on 45.5mm as being just right for me.

Now  I do not have an issue with the criticism of the way the guy goes about this, when all said and done the neck width on this Ibanez bastardised guitar is still less than one of the regular 6 string Ibanez Wizard necks, pointless. And his bridge work is a bodge.

But, the guy still has a point. necks wider than 43mm are still very hard to find. Yes Gibson went to 44.45mm for their 2015 offering and got slammed for it (amongst other things) . But thats because they didn't offer it as an option.

I think @bigjon on here is well over 6ft and plays a regular guitar, I wonder if how he would get on with a wide nut guitar?

bingefeller

boogieman said:

bingefeller said:

fair dues to him, his wife is kind of cute and he has a sweet looking daughter.  Bit shitty that he's the butt of a lot of jokes on here by people who shouldn't actually be laughing at him as it's uncharitable, all things considered.

Plus, the guy has 100% eBay feedback and I bet he's the kind of seller a lot of us would want to buy from.  

And before anyone says it - yes I know he was offered advice on here and he threw it back in your faces.  Is it any surprise when he had the piss ripped out of him before hand though? 

I agree with some of the sentiments of your post but really don't see what having a "kind of cute wife and a sweet looking daughter" has to do with anything. Does that somehow make him a nicer bloke? *Shrug*

Is that what you think I was saying when I wrote that?

Bucket

Thankfully, that's not an actual Universe - it's a bottom-of-the-bottom-range cheapo Ibanez 7.

Funkfingers

If the guy were modifying guitars to order, I would understand. 

Doing it on spec and, then, toting the result in the hope of finding a buyer is taking a big gamble.

Bassists may be aware of the lengths to which American session maestro Anthony Jackson went to get a six string bass guitar with his idea of the most suitable string spacing and tension. Jackson commissioned a succession of master luthiers until he eventually arrived at what he needed. The finished instruments look finished.

If anyone requires a professional quality instrument with some unconventional design elements, the wise option is to commission a luthier to build from scratch. Trying to achieve professional results on the cheap is doing yourself a disservice.