PrairieDog

Did you look at the picture? And zoom in? Go ahead and explain how the whole fret board is inset what looks like a 1/8th back from the edge of the neck? who knows, maybe somebody who had no clue trying to address fret sprout and filed off the whole edge of the fret board “trying to even things up.” And I’m sorry but glue is not atomic level bonding. I have seen it fail in plenty of good laminates that were kept in bad conditions.

Did you zoom way in on the picture? It really appears the fretboard does not reach the edge of the neck. The photo seems to show a thin “ledge” under the edge of the fret board. Even gibson said it was shrinkage of the fret board is a bit telling if it’s just fret sprout. If it were stored in desiccating conditions, or wild humidity swings, the glue could have failed allowing the board to move, especially when they are two different densities of wood. I’ve seen similar developments in very old furniture.

Simple, Oh look, a customer! Walk up, pleasantly greet them, and ask, “how can I help?” What’s the issue with common customer service? My GC has no problem with it. They leave the racist/homophobic/fill in the blank, bullshit in the Gibson forums.

My very sincere apologies. It was unintentional and I didn’t mean to draw you into the kerfuffle, My only poor excuse is I had your nick in my head because of my initial response to your comment that started the spiral. I will do better next time. Thanks for call out.

You are really not tracking well are you. I never said grey hairs are hanging around GC playing guitars for no reason. That is the opposite of what I was saying. go walk into any GC on a Saturday afternoon and scan for pimples vs grey hair. My GC even has special nicknames for their frequent, empty pocket, flyers. They are saintly kind to the kids wailing away, simply because they know someday the lad will save up enough for an Epiphone. But in the meantime, it’s a lot of work to retrieve every custom Les Paul so they can “try it out.” But the guys do it, because it’s good customer relations, and they are building store loyalty. That is everything in retail. I was contrasting our store experience with the hell-scape one where you could barely get anyone’s attention, even while looking like what could likely be a serious buyer.

I was referring to Ghost’s (not RBs) reference to people on fixed incomes who don’t have 4gs to drop on a guitar. I was saying those folks are not likely to be hanging out at GC.

Actually they were, up until outside agitators infiltrated and used the marches for cover to start their agenda. Not going to go into it here, but you can google who has been convicted for the acts that precipitated the violence, including burning the police-station. They knew what they were doing. Investigators are still looking for the pasty guy who smashed the first window that lit the fuse. There many people who believe Chauvin knew exactly what he was starting with his knee during those eight horrible minutes while a grown man struggled helplessly beneath him, begging for his life and crying out for his momma to save him. Don’t forget who/what started it all.

Oh come on, you really gonna go there? People on fixed incomes are not going into GC. And gee, way to make friends and influence people. Where did I ever say I was asking for “special” treatment? I was a polite customer, they were a store. Dealing with customers is kinda the point of having a store. Sorry if you got a bug up your butt about working people with grey hair wanting to buy guitars.

Nod, it’s really weird. The GC near us is in an outer-ring suburb, and the folks there are all pretty cool and helpful. The place is kept up and it feels okay going in even as a chain store, it feels kinda “personal.” The hell-scape was in town, and the place was a pit, and the staff ran from rude to just uninterested in working. They stored the good guitars in locked ranks, reaching up the wall, so you had to ask somebody to retrieve anything you were interested in. And most required the big ladder. The guy was all but outright surly when we asked to have the one brought down that we drove 40 miles to see. And then he vanished. Gee, I really hated to bother him with what should have been a pretty certain sale. I get that they probably get a LOT of teenage wannabes with no cash banging through. But they could consider that few middle-aged folks are spending their afternoon just larking about, wanking on guitars for no reason. I think it’s a safe bet, most anybody with grey hair they don’t know, walking in a Guitar Center, is there because they are seriously thinking about buying something. If they lead into the good room, pay attention. Our $4,000.00 was eagerly put in the till elsewhere.

I wonder if it’s a regional thing. Up here in Minnesota, where in general folks tend to be fairly polite and considerate, I don’t come across many floor damaged demos (Except for the drummers, we all tend to play very discreetly when testing things out, so as not to disturb the other customers😆) The dinged things are marked “scratch and dent.” Well, except for Cracked Top Hell GC we were in last month, and 20% or more of the tops were split but still full price. That was on the store though for letting them all dry out.

Yeah, you’ve said that often before. I don’t understand the cooties over demos? As long as they aren’t damaged, I figure what’s wrong with people playing them? I’m not buying them to nestle on pillows in sealed glass cases. I just think of it as free break-in time. Playing the one on the floor, I can hear what that that guitar sounds like. Even better if they have had a chance to breathe out of the box for a few months or more. Isn’t the advice to “play” as many as you can, so you can find the “right” one? The first thing I learned here was even in the same builds, guitars will vary widely in tone/playability/finish. The one from the backroom, that I didn’t get to play, could end up sounding like crap. Then I gotta drive 60 miles to return it, blah blah blah. A really good example, the sodden, croaking, dead J45 I tried back in June, sounded okay when it was still there in November. Imagine if I had tried a different demo in June, and had demanded one from the back and they handed me that one. I would have been po’d and brought it back. What a waste. But if I wanted it now, I wouldn’t have to wait 6 months for it to dry out to be playable. Besides, demos can save some bucks as you noted.

I second the “just hanging around too long, move it out, need to free up rack space for new ones coming in” move. I’m into my J45 Walnut, even though it’s the slightly narrower Studio, I like the articulation and presence in the sound. I can see why they say it is great for recording. The notes really stand out. At first I thought I’d eventually move up to one of the full J45’s, but now that I have my ears tuned to all sorts of different builds and woods, the standard J45s aren’t grabbing me as much any more.

Timely, the first guitar I bought last year was a new walnut j45. not knowing anything at the time, or what I was getting. I just asked the GC guy if that was the best he could do? He took a couple hundred off just to close the sale. Found out later it came to the pretty standard *discount* price. I realize now I could have gotten more, but learning curve.

Doh, sorry!! Too early.

The one you just bought? In the link you can see an orange label, and I realize now, the link says “Vintage” right in it. Did you grab the wrong one?

Wow, very nice score if you paid a used standard price. Always great when the shops don’t catch what they have. Have you checked past sales on Reverb? Don’t just search lefty, but search around 2016. You should get some hits to compare to. The other thing is you can call Gibson on this one, new enough they should have a record of it and might be able to tell you more about it. The orange label is a giveaway it’s a “special” model, as in not the standard run. I wonder though if leftys come with an orange label standard? Torrified tops can sound mighty nice.

There was a shooting at a bar that I used to hang out at a while ago. The victims were in their 30s/40s. In concern, I rapidly scanned the article for any names I recognized. Then it struck me…anyone I knew would be 60/70. 🤦‍♂️

😁 Oh god, exactly. I need to post edit my posts here multiple times. I keep remedying all my “fingers too slow for brain/must include subject/verb/article in sentence” errors 😆 Like your example above. I had originally typed “in the 96th percentile” then saw how eye-rolling pretentious that looked, changed it to 96% (as you observed would have been correct and I should have just stopped there) but then thought I’d just make it “a 96” to tone it down, but forgot to delete the % sign. This is why you see my nick hanging round on pages for hours on end….. 🤣

Sure, I realize that. I just was cutting Biker some web-grammar slack. Yes, it was a bit clumsy, but I understood he meant no one is building Gibson guitars in Japan. As someone who scored a 96% on their graduate school entrance language exams, and a writer and editor by trade, I gave up policing grammar on the internet long ago just to protect my sanity. Plus it gives me an excuse to slack off 😄It would be an awful quiet place if folks had to prove they had mastery of “there, their, and they’re” before posting anything 😁

Am I reading the photo right that the fret board has actually shrunk away from the edge of the neck? Like the neck and fret board are tiered, like a wedding cake, rather than flush with each other? If that’s the case, I think you have more trouble than just a bad fret job. Unless this is some dream guitar, or a killer price that will cover the cost of new fretboard, there are a whole lot of nice used guitars for sale in the world. I would probably move on, if it were me. If it dried out enough to do that to the fretboard, I’d be thinking about what happened to the rest of the guitar at the same time?

First, this is just a fan forum. As I understand Gibson doesn’t really pay too much attention to the chatter here. they may check in occasionally but we don’t have an inside line to the company. sorry if that was what you are looking for. I can tell you right now, from many years in business, you won’t get anywhere with an approach that just bashes how badly a company is servicing a potential customer base. All the disclaimers about it being the truth, isn’t going to make you look any less than just a crank who thinks they know better than the folks that are actually running the company. Did it ever occur to you, they may be perfectly aware of the “wishes” of a different demographic and just really don’t care? Now maybe if the company was tanking again, and needed a shot in the arm, they would cast around for a new market niche, and you could catch their eye, but right now there are no indications they actually need to. Gibson is doing the business model they want to do. See, their goal is not crank out pieces just to outsell other makers, but to make the best guitars they want to make. Shrug. They really don’t need a basement hobbyist, with no track record, to tell them how to run their company, no matter how great your designs may be. Think about how you look through “their” eyes. What you need to do is start networking at the shows, show real interest in their designs, and you enthusiasm for the brand. Or better, get a job in the company. Do an outstanding job, prove your real goal is to help the company become even better than it is, then your ideas may be taken seriously and you will be positioned at the right time for your ideas to have the most impact. I know what it is like to have an idea nicked. I interviewed at a high end ad agency once, and part of the hiring process was to produce a sample ad campaign for a product they gave you. I submitted mine, geeked out at the interview with an icon in the field, literally got tongue tied, didn’t get the job, but my campaign showed up 6 months later on tv and print. Shrug, I knew it was a risk when I entered, but I had to pay to play. If you can really prove you had the other idea first, you do have recourse, although it probably would have been safest to patent your idea before you shared it. I’d at least do that for the specific mods you are doing to the Gibsons. At least it would give you leverage.

To the first question, I just read it as “Nobody is building Gibsons in Japan, [much less ones] that would be better than the US ones.” I think Biker is just clarifying all Yamano Gibsons found in Japan are high end ones the dealer selected from US made stock.

😄funny you mention this. Yesterday I put up a happy NGD post because we picked up a beautiful 912 Taylor 12-fret (along with a 1890s banjo). I put up a pic of my DIF along with it just to keep things topical. Then I watched all day as over 30 post visits racked up with zero reactions/comments. Not even throwing me a pity “like” or a tease about it being a Taylor. I tucked my tail between my legs and took it down. Message received 🤣

Nod, and then later, they were cancelled for King and RFK in short order. Assassinations and televised funerals seemed to morph into just another regular thing that interrupts the routine, like the Peanuts Christmas special, and the annual airing of Peter Pan, but for grownups.

Another Eisenhower here