Ian Elson Guitars - AVOID!!

Warblington

To be fair to Ian Elson he did tweet that the guitar was going to have a life of hardship and abuse.How prophetic  https://imgur.com/6EEVERM

skunkwerx

ICBM said:

I was worried it might be a case of buyer's remorse or needing to hear both sides of the story too, but the guitar speaks for itself.

Appalling. Worse than most DIY builds and 'luthier course' guitars I've seen... not remotely acceptable as a commercial product he's charging money for. There's also a horrendously bodged fingerboard inlay dot in the first pic, which seems to have been overlooked in the catalogue of other faults.

Add shady business practices and outright lies on top and it really isn't a good picture.

I thought that too about the inlay! 

I think its the 12th fret though, and what we see is one of the outside markers going by the website pic, but yeah it still looks like it’s been drawn on with marker pen. 

The screws are a joke too I thought. I’m not sure what screws are correct for the job but they look like general diy screws I would buy from b&q to put a shelf up with, and theyre half mangled already lol. 

skunkwerx

Warblington said:

To be fair to Ian Elson he did tweet that the guitar was going to have a life of hardship and abuse.How prophetic  https://imgur.com/6EEVERM

Haha, he also said its a non-wobbler, but I feel like throwing a wobbly over it and I didnt even buy it! 

mendy

  

carlos

Shocking. I've also been the victim of a custom guitar cowboy builder but in their defence I asked for something very far from their comfort zone and accepted a risk doing that. 

mendy

 

TeleMaster

That nut slot!!! Shocker. 

skunkwerx

mendy said:

carlos said:

Shocking. I've also been the victim of a custom guitar cowboy builder but in their defence I asked for something very far from their comfort zone and accepted a risk doing that. 

Did you ask for a set of drums?

Made me laugh that. Comedy goodness!

scrumhalf

TeleMaster said:

That nut slot!!! Shocker. 

At last there's competition for Cleartone's nuts. 

carlos

mendy said:

carlos said:

Shocking. I've also been the victim of a custom guitar cowboy builder but in their defence I asked for something very far from their comfort zone and accepted a risk doing that. 

Did you ask for a set of drums?

Nice.

russpm

He uses a rat to gnaw the nut out!

WezV

I'm normally quite forgiving of a few cosmetic flaws on a handmade items, my own builds often have a couple I could point out that I am more aware of than anyone else. It's part of the charm. I'm often surprised when people expect CNC perfection from  a handmade item. ..... so I was fully expecting to defend a handmade item here for showing minor signs of being handmade.   As long as it plays well and sounds great I could overlook a sanding scuff or  an imperfect finish

But yeah, that nut slot, those fret ends, that neck join... all totally unacceptable.

octatonic

WezV said:

I'm normally quite forgiving of a few cosmetic flaws on a handmade items, my own builds often have a couple I could point out that I am more aware of than anyone else. It's part of the charm. I'm often surprised when people expect CNC perfection from  a handmade item. ..... so I was fully expecting to defend a handmade item here for showing minor signs of being handmade.   As long as it plays well and sounds great I could overlook a sanding scuff or  an imperfect finish

But yeah, that nut slot, those fret ends, that neck join... all totally unacceptable.

Afraid I agree.
I'd be embarrassed to sent something that looked like that out.

mendy

 

chris78

Jesus.
I opened this expecting this to be one of those horrible fretboard “I’ve not got exactly what I want so I’m going to slag off the builder, hope this appears in google searches and put the poor guy out of business” threads.
In this case though, he should be near building guitars or taking hard earned money. My 10 year old could cut a better nut

Lebarque

Crikey, what a mess! Nice of you to go to such lengths to help your client, @jimcroisdale ;

rossi

Why are you all moaning ?You can install a Harley Benton upgrade kit for 200 quid .it comprises a neck .body all the bits and bobs and even finished  and assembled to a fairly good standard

dindude

I’ve seen guitar shaped cakes that were better built 

Sassafras

I normally equate hand made with well made, but not in this case.
He doesn't seem to take any pride at all in his work.

SquireJapan

dindude said:

I’ve seen guitar shaped cakes that were better built 

I think this one at least has better fret markers: