Tony I thought about this for a while and wanted to come back with more information. The following I'm sure you will find interesting and it's not directed at you.
It is directed at those who do not and in some instances will never understand the legitimate concerns of a proper lutherie shop and why we and many of the shops that endure over time and are successful will decline on some jobs. I've had disagreements here on the OLF before with for the most part one individual who instead of learning from the experience of others got defamatory with me....
So 19 years ago when I hung out a shingle as a repair luthier while also building my Heshtone Guitars I did some ghost repairing for a local store which is where Dan Earlywine also started many decades ago. A well known gigging musician brought in a Japanese 70's dreadnought that he wanted fixed. I was new, I did not know the story behind the musician or the guitar so I dove in and checked out his guitar.
This story is very well known in the industry nation wide and I've even had people tell it back to me but they did not know the names, I do.
The guitar had had what is unaffectionately known as a California or Michigan neck reset where you slip the neck block by heating/steaming the instrument's relevant parts while intentionally distorting the body geometry. It was one of the remedies for unserviceable neck joints before it became known as an unsound.... practice and is frowned upon today. They also used to cut the fret board off at the body also considered an unsound practice these days.
What I saw was a mess. Still a poor neck angle, 14th fret body hump that could be seen from space (exaggerating here...) and the player could not get the action he desired out of it.
A word on the player who I know and have worked on his stuff before but ONLY with explicit expectation setting including in writing on the repair tag which is our contract so to speak.
The customer is stubborn and unreasonable at times and when I deal with him I spend half my time dispelling myths and things he thinks should be true but are not. He's difficult and I don't like dealing with him and avoid him.
So he had taken the guitar to a very well known shop who does excellent work and I would stand behind their judgement 100% without giving it another thought. They took the guitar in for a neck reset and the luthier who had a lifetime of experience could not get the neck off... just like you. Fret board came loose but the neck joint was a mystery.
So he decided to do a California/Michigan (it's called either in California it's a Michigan reset in Michigan it's a California reset not one wants to own it...) reset and distort the body geometry and then lock it all down with the refreshed neck angle.
Instead this guitar did not cooperate and it became a nightmare for the shop and luthier. When the client picked it up he was upset and found it unplayable for his style of playing.
The shop took it back in was my understanding and they were unable to improve things. So the customer sued them which is a nightmare in the trade since most of us are very small businesses who work on very tight margins so we can feed our families, etc.
The shop that did the work settled out of court with him and gave him $1,000 is what I heard. We heard this from the customer and the shop so it's verified to me. The guitar when it originally came in was not worth that much even repaired.
This was another Japanese pinned or doweled neck joint that was never intended to be serviced and in this case the thing won and resisted the efforts of one of the best in the business. The lutherie shop lost days of productivity and revenue AND another $1,000 in settlement likely costing them several thousand dollars.
About five years ago I damaged my first and only guitar while working on it. I bumped a Strat into my bench and put a 1/4" dent in its side. I felt terrible and we told the client who could not find our dent because he had 20 or more of his own dents in it already. He chuckled, appreciated the honesty and took us up on two free set-ups and all was good. But I felt terrible I damaged the personal property of someone and I still feel bad about it to this day.
We do care, more than most will ever know.
Back to the neck reset the customer lost a guitar and all of this could have been avoided if the shop simply declined in the first place, respectfully and took the time to explain what I have explained here that the joint was unserviceable and that means unpredictable.
On a related note I once asked a luthier who had several nightmare jobs that were not progressing stacked up and the clients were calling him every day asking for their guitars back I asked him why he took those jobs in? He told me that he did not want people to think he couldn't do it.... He's out of business and only lasted 3 years.
So again Tony this is not directed at you but it is hopefully a learning opportunity for those who might fancy hanging out a shingle or even dabbling commercially accepting payment for their work.
Do No Harm..... There is no shame in declining on the unknown, uncertain jobs. The valuable personal property of others is not to be considered a learning opportunity for one to expand their chops. Know what you are doing or don't do it.
An OLFer who started here with me nearly 20 years ago who many of you know and has his own successful shop decided to not do certain jobs for a year and see what happened. He declined on every one that came his way referring people to someone else. At the end of the year it was his most profitable, enjoyable year.
As for what can happen when we take the unserviceable and try to make it serviceable in this instance everyone lost, everyone. It was a mess and bad feelings persist to this day nearly two decades later. I'm not saying that some people are reluctant to work for this client but that might be a possibility....
For customers working with a luthier is not dropping off one's dry cleaning. It is the search for and hopefully finding a trusted partner in your lutherie needs who will be honest and open with you even declining some jobs at times because the client does not understand that what they re asking for will not get them where they want to go. I can't tell you how many times, perhaps daily people order up a new nut and we ask why. Turns out the nut slots are too high.... so we cut them down as is the remedy and no new nut is needed. On guitars such as Gibsons and others with finished in nuts even removing the nut is unnecessary and invasive when simply cutting the slots properly is all that is needed. Nut slots can be raised too with a durable dental filling mix.
Good luck not trying to be a buzz kill. If this is not your guitar expectation setting would be a very good idea.
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