Issues with custom guitar - advise please!

Blaendulais

bertie said:

Blaendulais said:

You know what. It plays and sounds great.  I'd be running with that.  

for a guitar minimum north of £3k (based on their website) with that finish ? -  I wouldnt

Well i wouldnt buy a guitar unplayed from the other end of the earth ...but there you go 

Offset

Blaendulais said:

Well i wouldnt buy a guitar unplayed from the other end of the earth ...but there you go 

That's a fair point.  I would buy a mainstream big-brand from abroad (and I have successfully done so, twice) but I wouldn't be brave enough to take a £3k+ punt on a boutique build from 3500 miles away.

Each to their own however.

brucegill

@Jtaylor ;
Dibs! Looks stunning. Hope you get it sorted and you’re happy. 

stickyfiddle

Offset said:

Blaendulais said:

Well i wouldnt buy a guitar unplayed from the other end of the earth ...but there you go 

That's a fair point.  I would buy a mainstream big-brand from abroad (and I have successfully done so, twice) but I wouldn't be brave enough to take a £3k+ punt on a boutique build from 3500 miles away.

Each to their own however.

Some of us don't have enough of a local market to have a choice. There is literally one half-decent guitar shop in the entire Middle East and everything is overpriced AND the stock is relatively limited compared to a Coda or Peach. I bought an Atkin remotely, and tried to buy a Danocaster the other week (released at 4am my time...) but was too slow on the checkout. 

That said I just checked their page and saw a CS Jazzmaster relic that went for AED 11000 (GBP 2400) recently, which feels like a bargain in this neck of the woods

Jtaylor

thanks @brucegill, it is a great guitar. Am just waiting for a quote from Feline guitars and then providing Frank Bros are happy, it should all get sorted

Benm39

Necro thread resurrection... did this story have a happy ending with issues resolved in the end?

ArchtopDave

From my point of view, keep things simple and don't faff about.

I had a custom guitar made by Nathan Shepherd many years ago. OK we were both in the UK, but the biggest mistake, when he first sent it out to me (I ended up sending it back at least three times because, he would correct the mistake, and then manage to sent the guitar out with something else wrong!) was the areas of finish were substandard plus the edge burst was actually a much broader sunburst, and not the finish originally stipulated.. I took photographs of the substandard areas, and then packed i up and sent back to him.

After the courier had collected the packaged guitar from me, I rang him up and told him the guitar was on it's ay back to him. It wasn't good enough, in particular that the finish needed stripping back and respraying to the agreed in the spec THAT HE HAD WRITTEN OUT FOR ME. He winged like mad to begin with, but duly got the finish redone….it was better than before but still a bit over done. Then. of course, he managed send out with a different error, so it went back again for correction. AND SO ON.

You should have made certain that the Builder had written out your agreed spec before starting making the guitar. You've paid substantial mount of money to have a custom guitar made to spec. If it has not been made to specification then take photos, get it in the post back to the guitar maker. Then ring, or email, them telling them the guitar is already on its way back to them, include your complaint about the guitar plus relevant copies of photos of the areas that need putting right.

Jtaylor

@Benm39 a happy ending indeed. Frank Brothers gave me a partial refund to cover the cost of getting it fixed and the guitar has quickly become my number 1. So much so that I no longer really play any of my other guitars and have sold one and am selling another as they don't get played anymore as the Frank Brothers works so well for me. 

@ArchtopDave sorry to hear about your poor experience with Nathan Shepherd. You are absolutely right to suggest getting a written agreed spec before a custom guitar is made, I did have this and they did work to that with the exception of a few minor finishing flaws

ArchtopDave

I have just done an inflation adjusted calculation.

 I recently sold my nightmare of an NSG 26, simply because someone on here wanted a guitar to experiment on, when he soon got his home workshop set up.
OK…. I was very glad to be rid of what was a useless guitar, which I hadn't played for two plus decades, so I priced it very modestly.

Having deducted the courier charge, inflation adjusted I received just 6.5% of what it originally cost me.

I was very happy, because as the composer Mozart once observed " The difference between no money and a little money is enormous".

Benm39

@Jtaylor ;Ah, really pleased to hear it got resolved and that it's become your favourite. 

@ArchtopDave , that does indeed sound a complete nightmare

PhilKing

ArchtopDave said:

From my point of view, keep things simple and don't faff about.

I had a custom guitar made by Nathan Shepherd many years ago. OK we were both in the UK, but the biggest mistake, when he first sent it out to me (I ended up sending it back at least three times because, he would correct the mistake, and then manage to sent the guitar out with something else wrong!) was the areas of finish were substandard plus the edge burst was actually a much broader sunburst, and not the finish originally stipulated.. I took photographs of the substandard areas, and then packed i up and sent back to him.

After the courier had collected the packaged guitar from me, I rang him up and told him the guitar was on it's ay back to him. It wasn't good enough, in particular that the finish needed stripping back and respraying to the agreed in the spec THAT HE HAD WRITTEN OUT FOR ME. He winged like mad to begin with, but duly got the finish redone….it was better than before but still a bit over done. Then. of course, he managed send out with a different error, so it went back again for correction. AND SO ON.

You should have made certain that the Builder had written out your agreed spec before starting making the guitar. You've paid substantial mount of money to have a custom guitar made to spec. If it has not been made to specification then take photos, get it in the post back to the guitar maker. Then ring, or email, them telling them the guitar is already on its way back to them, include your complaint about the guitar plus relevant copies of photos of the areas that need putting right.

At least you got a guitar!   I got lots of promises from him after putting a substantial deposit on it and then he went off the radar.  He came back on, only for me to fall for his story again and send him some parts to help finish the guitar, and then silence.

spir4L

PhilKing said:

ArchtopDave said:

From my point of view, keep things simple and don't faff about.

I had a custom guitar made by Nathan Shepherd many years ago. OK we were both in the UK, but the biggest mistake, when he first sent it out to me (I ended up sending it back at least three times because, he would correct the mistake, and then manage to sent the guitar out with something else wrong!) was the areas of finish were substandard plus the edge burst was actually a much broader sunburst, and not the finish originally stipulated.. I took photographs of the substandard areas, and then packed i up and sent back to him.

After the courier had collected the packaged guitar from me, I rang him up and told him the guitar was on it's ay back to him. It wasn't good enough, in particular that the finish needed stripping back and respraying to the agreed in the spec THAT HE HAD WRITTEN OUT FOR ME. He winged like mad to begin with, but duly got the finish redone….it was better than before but still a bit over done. Then. of course, he managed send out with a different error, so it went back again for correction. AND SO ON.

You should have made certain that the Builder had written out your agreed spec before starting making the guitar. You've paid substantial mount of money to have a custom guitar made to spec. If it has not been made to specification then take photos, get it in the post back to the guitar maker. Then ring, or email, them telling them the guitar is already on its way back to them, include your complaint about the guitar plus relevant copies of photos of the areas that need putting right.

At least you got a guitar!   I got lots of promises from him after putting a substantial deposit on it and then he went off the radar.  He came back on, only for me to fall for his story again and send him some parts to help finish the guitar, and then silence.

Just curiosity: did you take any legal action against him?

OilCityPickups

PhilKing said:

ArchtopDave said:

From my point of view, keep things simple and don't faff about.

I had a custom guitar made by Nathan Shepherd many years ago. OK we were both in the UK, but the biggest mistake, when he first sent it out to me (I ended up sending it back at least three times because, he would correct the mistake, and then manage to sent the guitar out with something else wrong!) was the areas of finish were substandard plus the edge burst was actually a much broader sunburst, and not the finish originally stipulated.. I took photographs of the substandard areas, and then packed i up and sent back to him.

After the courier had collected the packaged guitar from me, I rang him up and told him the guitar was on it's ay back to him. It wasn't good enough, in particular that the finish needed stripping back and respraying to the agreed in the spec THAT HE HAD WRITTEN OUT FOR ME. He winged like mad to begin with, but duly got the finish redone….it was better than before but still a bit over done. Then. of course, he managed send out with a different error, so it went back again for correction. AND SO ON.

You should have made certain that the Builder had written out your agreed spec before starting making the guitar. You've paid substantial mount of money to have a custom guitar made to spec. If it has not been made to specification then take photos, get it in the post back to the guitar maker. Then ring, or email, them telling them the guitar is already on its way back to them, include your complaint about the guitar plus relevant copies of photos of the areas that need putting right.

At least you got a guitar!   I got lots of promises from him after putting a substantial deposit on it and then he went off the radar.  He came back on, only for me to fall for his story again and send him some parts to help finish the guitar, and then silence.

I was stupid enough to agree to make pickups for the man when he attempted to make a comeback. Bad move ... I wound up out of pocket. Luckily not by more than a couple of pickups and a lot of development costs ... but could have been worse. 

March

At one of the London Guitar Show parties in around '06, Nathan Shepherd told me he was the UK's answer to Paul Reed Smith. I've rarely laughed so hard.

I've never played a NSG instrument that I've liked and  could not find fault with.  

PhilKing

spir4L said:

PhilKing said:

ArchtopDave said:

From my point of view, keep things simple and don't faff about.

I had a custom guitar made by Nathan Shepherd many years ago. OK we were both in the UK, but the biggest mistake, when he first sent it out to me (I ended up sending it back at least three times because, he would correct the mistake, and then manage to sent the guitar out with something else wrong!) was the areas of finish were substandard plus the edge burst was actually a much broader sunburst, and not the finish originally stipulated.. I took photographs of the substandard areas, and then packed i up and sent back to him.

After the courier had collected the packaged guitar from me, I rang him up and told him the guitar was on it's ay back to him. It wasn't good enough, in particular that the finish needed stripping back and respraying to the agreed in the spec THAT HE HAD WRITTEN OUT FOR ME. He winged like mad to begin with, but duly got the finish redone….it was better than before but still a bit over done. Then. of course, he managed send out with a different error, so it went back again for correction. AND SO ON.

You should have made certain that the Builder had written out your agreed spec before starting making the guitar. You've paid substantial mount of money to have a custom guitar made to spec. If it has not been made to specification then take photos, get it in the post back to the guitar maker. Then ring, or email, them telling them the guitar is already on its way back to them, include your complaint about the guitar plus relevant copies of photos of the areas that need putting right.

At least you got a guitar!   I got lots of promises from him after putting a substantial deposit on it and then he went off the radar.  He came back on, only for me to fall for his story again and send him some parts to help finish the guitar, and then silence.

Just curiosity: did you take any legal action against him?

No, I live in the USA, so it isn't that easy, though I have a friend who is a solicitor who was willing to send a letter for me.  I actually did go to his house to try to see if I could get the shell of the guitar, as I had seen photographs of it, but there was no-one in (or answering the door anyway), so I didn't get anywhere.

As Ash mentions, he came back and told me he was a changed man and was going to finish everything he had messed up on.  I knew he couldn't get the pickups, as he had messed up with Bare Knuckle who made the originals, I actually picked up a Hipshot bridge and a custom set of Sperzel tuners for the guitar and had mailed them to him.  

Since then it has been radio silence,

bertie

@ArchtopDave ;;;;  @PhilKing    ;;;; you're not alone.

Nathan used to be a member on the old MR or possibly as far back as IM forum(s)  -  I know a couple of peeps ordered/bought and really liked what they had.  But there were equally as many stories similar to yours. I believe the issue was down to not being able to deliver to demand due to supply issues (thats a statement not an excuse on his behalf) but should've communicated up front

He's pretty local to Bristol (Keynsham I think) and sure I met him at one of the old get togethers we used to have (GASFest) which were held in Brizzle,  he seemed like a nice bloke and peeps that "knew" him on the forum were quite surprised how things spiralled so quickly

That's just a view

FelineGuitars

OilCityPickups said:

PhilKing said:

ArchtopDave said:

I was stupid enough to agree to make pickups for the man when he attempted to make a comeback. Bad move ... I wound up out of pocket. Luckily not by more than a couple of pickups and a lot of development costs ... but could have been worse. 

Yes - he hit me up for some particular OEM models of earvana nuts which I duly ordered from USA 

However I had already decided I would let him pay me for them before they would leave the building, having been aware of others left out of pocket by him.

This didn't happen as he didn't respond to me, so maybe he had abandoned his plans to make that comeback, but thankfully I didn't expose myself to the risk of going unpaid.

OilCityPickups

bertie said:

@ArchtopDave ;;;;  @PhilKing    ;;;; you're not alone.

Nathan used to be a member on the old MR or possibly as far back as IM forum(s)  -  I know a couple of peeps ordered/bought and really liked what they had.  But there were equally as many stories similar to yours. I believe the issue was down to not being able to deliver to demand due to supply issues (thats a statement not an excuse on his behalf) but should've communicated up front

He's pretty local to Bristol (Keynsham I think) and sure I met him at one of the old get togethers we used to have (GASFest) which were held in Brizzle,  he seemed like a nice bloke and peeps that "knew" him on the forum were quite surprised how things spiralled so quickly

That's just a view

Yep when he phoned me out of the blue to make pickups he seemed like a really nice bloke ... probably the Bristolian accent.

I wasn't prepared to 'copy' the  Bare Knuckle designs he'd originally used, and was very firm on that, but I agreed to design something that would fit the routs but that would be very much Oil City. The neck double humbucking Tele pickup ... I'd made something very similar for a very famous client indeed, so that wasn't much of an issue. The bridge not so simple as he wanted a much clumsier design than I was happy to make. Anyway ... I made prototypes, invested time and money ... and he warped out.