Official Luthiers Forum!

Apologies if this is a luthier-only forum. I can fabricate a saddle if that gets my foot in the door.

Can I get a recommendation for an experienced luthier within about 200 miles of Pensacola, FL (South AL, MS, GA, and NW FL)? I don't have a lot of confidence in the results my internet searches, even though I have checked the larger cities.

Thanks!

come on people!!! no one?? really?

It's not a serviceable neck joint intended to be reset. This limits the Luthier to cutting the neck off or making the mistake.... of attempting to slip the neck block/back aka a California or Michigan reset.

We have a very well known story in these parts of a Yari that a great Luthier at a quality shop attempted to reset and they could not get the neck to release. So they instead slipped the neck block and back and forced the neck angle into submission. They also distorted the body and fret board beyond it being playable. The guitar was ruined.

The guitar owner threatened to sue and the business paid them and settled out of court. The business had also offered to rip up the bill.

And in addition Luthiers nation wide are busier then ever, we are and are turning away anything that is risky or that they do not like to do. It's nice to be needed

So it's VERY understandable to me and there is one more reason too.

Florida is a Luthier desert with a known shortage of well known repair Luthiers. One of the only ones we ever had on the OLF died, RIP Dave Bland. Our business gets calls from Florida near daily wanting to ship us work and we always decline and we don't accept shipped in work.

So this is very understandable that there are no takers and there is even one more reason. Most of us these days are so busy with the windfall of work that we don't have time to waste time on the OLF or any forum

I’ve done old a couple old yairis before. Yes they were a pain but I did them. If memory serves, they were butt joint with 2 or 3 dowels. I DID steam them but I think all I really did was just make the wood soften to allow the neck to slide off?! Or bend off??? Lol!Like I said it wasn’t easy. Just 2 diff opinions like shipped in repairs. I have always taken them, especially from all the people that I’ve worked with in past music stores or people I’ve built guitars for, they all still send me their guitars to this day. To each his own.


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Sure to each their own.

We don't accept shipped in repairs because we are in the guitar repair business not in the shipping business and, and a very large percentage of guitars are damaged in shipping especially when a novice guitar shipper/packer is in the picture. Again we are not a music store, we turned down a free music store that we could have had and never wanted to be a music store so some of the tasks that are often assigned to music store staff such as shipping and receiving are on us when that's not our skill set or our desire to be involved.

As for our existing clients they come to see us and this includes at times flying in and staying in local hotels while we dedicate a day or so to them.

Now I do disagree with you strongly on resetting or attempting to reset an instrument that was never designed to be serviced or reset and I think it's especially important on this forum where we have mostly people who are in a position to ****-up the valuable personal property of others to be a voice that discourages diving in to a project that was never intended to be serviced.

We are not alone the reason this thread is even here.... is that this poster cannot find someone who is willing to take this risk especially these days when working in the trade Luthiers nation wide are reporting twice the usual levels of business.

So yeah to each their own but it's not that simple in my view. This is not a matter of choice this is a matter of taking on a risky reset that others who are top shelf Luthiers have failed at to the point of having to cough up a thou or two to buy the wounded carcass that remained after the failed attempt.

Here is something else that you and I will likely disagree on if you are willing to encourage others to attempt to service an unserviceable instrument... we never attempt to be all things to all people. If we do not offer a service we are never going to use the valuable personal property of others to learn. We have an expectation that those who come to us do so because they believe we know what we are doing AND have the judgement to not attempt things that will not get the job done or worse.

When I interviewed luthiers who have hung out shingles and then crashed and burned and we had three of them in our region all gone now... the single biggest mistake that they made was getting buried in **** work of unserviceable instruments that no-one else would take on/in. These became slogs that let to missed delivery promises that led to bad reviews that led to closing down and finding some other line of work to do.

So I speak of risk and risk at my age is likely my least favorite four letter word. When I was a corporate executive at GE and we bought companies we used to assimilate the new employees that we also acquired by asking them what "Job one was?" They would say making money, and great service and this and that and they always got it wrong.

Job one at the world's largest corporation when I was there was to shield the corporation from liability. Job two was making money...

Small businesses are no different and those of us who do not depend on the music store to keep the lights on have to be mindful of risks not only to our profitability but our limited and highly specialized time. When I can't do billable ours on Jimmy's Strat because I took in Billy's Yari and am now struggling to bend the ****** into submission and get a decent neck angle I have an opportunity cost. I've lost money I could have earned screwing around with a job way over budget time wise.

So yeah to each their own but these four words to me have a huge back story of shielding from unwanted liability, not trying to be all things to all folks, doing what you can deliver now and avoiding time sucks and not getting bogged down in being a slipping and deceiving (shipping and receiving ) department.

PS: The Post Office is right across the street from our shop but don't tell our clients please.....