So I'm Minding My Own Business Looking at SG's

[SteveFord]

Correction, never trust posers in motorcycle jackets.

Sorry about your purchase, good on you for pulling it apart for a look see.

[Filbert]

Devil's advocate here from a position of absolute ignorance - if you hadn't taken the pickup off, would you have noticed the difference? Would the poor neck joint have manifested itself in another form along the line?  I'm assuming in 2 or 3 years' time or whatever, there would have been problems because of it.

I ask because the OP noted it plays well when he received it,

[NighthawkChris]

4 hours ago, Filbert said:

Devil's advocate here from a position of absolute ignorance - if you hadn't taken the pickup off, would you have noticed the difference? Would the poor neck joint have manifested itself in another form along the line?  I'm assuming in 2 or 3 years' time or whatever, there would have been problems because of it.

I ask because the OP noted it plays well when he received it,

Man, good thing BBP did what he did. That crap is scary... problems or not, that’s an ace find right there. However that got out the factory is sort of a shame TBH. I don’t know anything other than what I have seen so I can only say that if I found that on my new guitar it’s going back to wherever it came and I’m trying again. 

[NighthawkChris]

5 hours ago, Big Bill said:

Curious, lets say he found this 3 years from now, would the life time warranty cover this? It is a physical defect. 

Oh and for the record, I don’t own a PRS. I was going by that joker that made that 3 strikes you’re out Gibson PRS blows you away sort of thing thread a while back - which was a most entertaining thread haha! Sometimes the stories go well with a nice cup of coffee and a donut 😄

[badbluesplayer]

So my guy at Sweetwater is trying to find another halfway decent SG to replace this thing, the poor guy.  They'll do just about anything they can to help at Sweetwater.   He'll go to the warehouse and look at them and play them if I want.   It's like 75% of SG's are straight-up defective, with crooked necks.  The rest are hit-and-miss as far as the fretwork is concerned.  I had lurked thru at least 20 guitars before I found the first one.  Now I've been thru another ten or so with them begging me to find a decent one, and no luck so far.  So that's like zero for thirty.  And where's Gibson CS?  At Sturgis?

 

 

[rct]

5 hours ago, badbluesplayer said:

So my guy at Sweetwater is trying to find another halfway decent SG to replace this thing, the poor guy.  They'll do just about anything they can to help at Sweetwater.   He'll go to the warehouse and look at them and play them if I want.   It's like 75% of SG's are straight-up defective, with crooked necks.  The rest are hit-and-miss as far as the fretwork is concerned.  I had lurked thru at least 20 guitars before I found the first one.  Now I've been thru another ten or so with them begging me to find a decent one, and no luck so far.  So that's like zero for thirty.  And where's Gibson CS?  At Sturgis?

 

 

 

WTF brother?  That sucks.  I may have sold mine, but I didn't because they stink, I did because of them and business and me, nothing more.  I hope you can wrangle one up that scratches the itch.

Sat on a bluff above 90, had a tall, strong, thick coffee and a cheroot while me and Mrs watched I don't know, thousand?  Two thousand?  Christ knows how many Harleys head into that town.  I've never been on a Harley but man, that was one impressive afternoon of thunder.

rct

[Harmonics101]

Maybe should have kept minding your business

:o)

My bad, i guess Agnesi got me off to a bad start

If you got a guitar you enjoy, more power to you and congrats

H

[SteveFord]

But they added additional florescent lights at work, I don't get it.

[rct]

LOL!

[Black Dog]

17 hours ago, SteveFord said:

But they added additional florescent lights at work, I don't get it.

 

Now they need to add vision care to their health care coverage.

[Black Dog]

On 8/3/2019 at 6:11 AM, badbluesplayer said:

 It's like 75% of SG's are straight-up defective, with crooked necks.  

 

For real??

[badbluesplayer]

On 8/2/2019 at 6:01 PM, Filbert said:

Devil's advocate here from a position of absolute ignorance - if you hadn't taken the pickup off, would you have noticed the difference? Would the poor neck joint have manifested itself in another form along the line?  I'm assuming in 2 or 3 years' time or whatever, there would have been problems because of it.

I ask because the OP noted it plays well when he received it,

Good questions.  It did play well, seemed reasonably loud unplugged, although not super resonant against my body.  The little cover over the neck joint was way overtightened and I adjusted the screws and just had the feeling that I might as well take the cover off and look underneath.  I remember telling myself not to worry about it and then remembered that this is what experienced people do, look at the neck joint.  Good thing.  I took the pickup out just to see the rest of the joint.

Edited August 4, 2019 by badbluesplayer

[badbluesplayer]

22 hours ago, rct said:

... Sat on a bluff above 90, had a tall, strong, thick coffee and a cheroot while me and Mrs watched I don't know, thousand?  Two thousand?  Christ knows how many Harleys head into that town.  I've never been on a Harley but man, that was one impressive afternoon of thunder.

rct

Me and the wife and kid stayed in Sturgis on the Tuesday night before the rally about thirty years ago.  Just driving thru and we had no clue about the rally.  I saw a few  bikes and I'm like "People out here must really like to ride motorcycles", lol.  By the next morning at like 6 AM the place was a total zoo - people licking each other and other everyday motorcycley stuff - and we figured out what was going on and hit the road.  It was pretty awesome.  Kid probably learned a lot that day, lol. 

[NighthawkChris]

Just get your money back and turn in the defective guitar.  Sucks, yeah, but rather have my money than an SG with a F'ed up neck tenon at this point.  Just going to have to buy a Custom Shop SG to get it done right apparently.  Sucks that it has to be this way, but I'd be pretty confident that their CS guitars are going to be done right.  If I can afford a USA guitar, I save up a little more to go CS.  This way, I know I'm getting a Gibson built right with the care I'd expect for an instrument of that price. 

[Black Dog]

I'm as upset as anyone when I see these real examples of poor quality from Gibson.  However, I don't have any fear about buying a USA guitar.  Whether you buy in person or online,  you just have to buy it from a retailer with a good return policy and inspect it completely.

But, as Chris says the CS is a pretty good assurance of quality.

[NighthawkChris]

Agreed @Black Dog I hate seeing crap come out of Gibson's factory too, but it is what it is - have to call it out as I see it.  Not boarding the hate train, but you have to be good at inspecting these like BBP did - I commend him for his diligence.  As you said, plenty of good USA guitars, just unfortunately the one BBP picked up here is worthy of the trash bin IMHO. 

I don't want to trash talk, but the 2018 Classic I bought in November of 2017 was a dog - poorly cut nut, gouge in finish under pickguard for $2.2k.  Turned it in for another, and had sloppy fretwork - strings getting caught on the side of frets and nibs.  Luckily I sold it for a song on CL and put that money towards a CS R9 (which I haven't NGD'ed yet).  My issues WAY PALES in comparison to a neck tenon which IS definitely more of a major issue.  Just like WTH Gibson, someone let this go by and no one cared to do anything about it - or it was intentional.  Who knows, turn it in, let Gibson eat this return via Sweetwater's report.  I defend Gibson, but when stuff like this comes out, this is awful as it gets.  Makes me want to eat my words defending the company for all their shenanigans.  But hey, my CS Gibsons are great...  But not everyone can get CS Gibson guitars, hence why they save up for a long while to get a USA guitar only to be let down.  This has to be one of the worst, 100% legit issues I have seen. 

[Black Dog]

20 minutes ago, NighthawkChris said:

... or it was intentional.  Who knows... 

 

I was kinda wondering the same thing.  It's so bad that it almost seems like sabotage by an unhappy employee.  OTOH, most people would never look.   And the reality is that if you never looked, you'd never know.  BBP said it plays great.   That could have  ended up as somebody's #1, and it may still...  

[arcticsg]

21 minutes ago, Black Dog said:

 

I was kinda wondering the same thing.  It's so bad that it almost seems like sabotage by an unhappy employee.  OTOH, most people would never look.   And the reality is that if you never looked, you'd never know.  BBP said it plays great.   That could have  ended up as somebody's #1, and it may still...  

Don't know about sabotage, as it sounds like the OP looked through a number of them before purchase, and is continuing looking through many more afterwards trying to find a replacement.   

I find this very interesting to say the least.

[badbluesplayer]

Sweetwater to the rescue - I found one they have in stock that seems like it has a nice straight neck and looks like there's no gremlins hiding in it.  Hopefully the neck joint will be tight. 

The one I found came up in their inventory today.  So I'll get that one shipped and return the other one.  Sweetwater knows how to handle this kind of thing.  I'm sure Gibson will follow through on their end.   👍

[arcticsg]

1 minute ago, badbluesplayer said:

Sweetwater to the rescue - I found one they have in stock that seems like it has a nice straight neck and looks like there's no gremlins hiding in it.  Hopefully the neck joint will be tight. 

The one I found came up in their inventory today.  So I'll get that one shipped and return the other one.  Sweetwater knows how to handle this kind of thing.  I'm sure Gibson will follow through on their end.   👍

 

NICE! 🙂

[Black Dog]

12 minutes ago, badbluesplayer said:

The one I found came up in their inventory today.  So I'll get that one shipped and return the other one.  Sweetwater knows how to handle this kind of thing.  I'm sure Gibson will follow through on their end.   👍

 

[Black Dog]

16 minutes ago, arcticsg said:

Don't know about sabotage...

 

Well, it's complicated.  What is sabotage?  What is an employee that cares so little about what they do, or resents their employer so much they don't care if they make a good product or they outright want to harm them?  I've seen all of that.  OTOH, the reality is a lot of people had to see that and did nothing.

[arcticsg]

1 hour ago, Black Dog said:

 

Well, it's complicated.  What is sabotage?  What is an employee that cares so little about what they do, or resents their employer so much they don't care if they make a good product or they outright want to harm them?  I've seen all of that.  OTOH, the reality is a lot of people had to see that and did nothing.

 

True!

And I agree, lots of folks probably did see that and did nothing about it.   😞 

[bobouz]

I've been an acoustic player since the '70s, and then discovered the joy of electrics in 2001.  From then until around 2014, I went through a lot of Gibsons from both Nashville and Memphis.

In my own experience, and painting with a rather broadly generalized brush, the instruments coming out of Nashville have not benefited from consistently attentive quality control - while both Memphis and Montana have displayed more consistency with their overall build quality.

So from my perspective, I would naturally be inclined to carefully inspect any instrument coming out of the Nashville plant- and in this case, it's very fortunate that BBB went in for a deeper look.  A good lesson learned for us all.

[stratcpo]

Congrats.  SG's are cool.  ENJOY!!!