GAS that's Stuck

[Artie Owl]

Ok, so some of you know I preordered an Epi Nighthawk back in late February/Early March and paid it in full when they were announced. At the time I was told we'd be looking at May or June for delivery to the store.

 

I said fine, but then within a few weeks (early April) some of you started to receive your Nighthawks from other dealers (in the U.S, I'm in Canada) so I called my guitar store and asked if they had any delivery info (they didn't, not their fault though.)

 

So after a few more months of gassing to get my Epi Nighthawk in Fireburst (my first single cutaway and burst) and reading lots and lots of poisitve things about the guitar, I finally find out that the Fireburst won't make it to Canada until late July, or even later August.

 

Now they've told me they can order in a Transamber Epi Nighthawk for me to try to see if I like it, and I said I was game for that but if I liked it I'd be waiting for my Fireburst model; and if I didn't I'd be putting it towards a Strat or Tele.

 

What would you do/How would you feel were you in my shoes?

[SG FAN]

I'd skip the Nighthawk and go for a nice Mexican Tele if it was me, but It ain't. I'm not the biggest fan of Epiphones or Nighthawks, but if that is truly what you want, I'd say wait and get it.

[Artie Owl]

I'd skip the Nighthawk and go for a nice Mexican Tele if it was me, but It ain't. I'm not the biggest fan of Epiphones or Nighthawks, but if that is truly what you want, I'd say wait and get it.

I already have the SG, now it's adding to the family. I figured the Epi version of the Nighthawk was a good deal for the amount of guitar you get, but if it's dull I'll skip it.

[davidl]

Ok, so some of you know I preordered an Epi Nighthawk back in late February/Early March and paid it in full when they were announced. At the time I was told we'd be looking at May or June for delivery to the store.

 

I said fine, but then within a few weeks (early April) some of you started to receive your Nighthawks from other dealers (in the U.S, I'm in Canada) so I called my guitar store and asked if they had any delivery info (they didn't, not their fault though.)

 

So after a few more months of gassing to get my Epi Nighthawk in Fireburst (my first single cutaway and burst) and reading lots and lots of poisitve things about the guitar, I finally find out that the Fireburst won't make it to Canada until late July, or even later August.

 

Now they've told me they can order in a Transamber Epi Nighthawk for me to try to see if I like it, and I said I was game for that but if I liked it I'd be waiting for my Fireburst model; and if I didn't I'd be putting it towards a Strat or Tele.

 

What would you do/How would you feel were you in my shoes?

 

Tough call.

You know if you take in a stray puppy even for a short while, you likely won't be able to turn it back in.

Wonder if it works the same with guitars?

You have a lot more patience than I do. I probably would have gone down to L & M to see if something else wanted to adopt me.

[Bowdiddley]

I say hold out for what you had your heart set on.

[Silenced Fred]

If it were me, I'd go with the Mexican Tele, but its up to you

[ne14t?]

Tough call.

You know if you take in a stray puppy even for a short while, you likely won't be able to turn it back in.

Wonder if it works the same with guitars?

You have a lot more patience than I do. I probably would have gone down to L & M to see if something else wanted to adopt me.

 

Man every time I go down to L&M I have about 15-20 different ones wanting me to adopt them its horrible that I cant help them almost brings a tear to my eye.

[damian]

The Trans Amber is the least well selling color....I suspect they're pushing one on you......I'd offer to pay a full $100.00 (US) less for one....

 

Otherwise, I'd wait for the color you want......There is no shortage of those guitars here in the US, so, I dunno.....

 

How would I feel ??? Disappointed.................

[neilpanda]

cancel the order and get one from the states?

thats what I would do...

[damian]

cancel the order and get one from the states?

thats what I would do...

 

Musician's Friend ships to Canada now....Or, take a bus down here and get one.....

[neilpanda]

Musician's Friend ships to Canada now....Or, take a bus down here and get one.....

yep! or even go on a vacation! get the guitar, relax, and have a good time. sounds like all this

waiting has been really stressful.

[SG Jones]

Ok, so some of you know I preordered an Epi Nighthawk back in late February/Early March and paid it in full when they were announced. At the time I was told we'd be looking at May or June for delivery to the store.

 

I said fine, but then within a few weeks (early April) some of you started to receive your Nighthawks from other dealers (in the U.S, I'm in Canada) so I called my guitar store and asked if they had any delivery info (they didn't, not their fault though.)

 

So after a few more months of gassing to get my Epi Nighthawk in Fireburst (my first single cutaway and burst) and reading lots and lots of poisitve things about the guitar, I finally find out that the Fireburst won't make it to Canada until late July, or even later August.

 

Now they've told me they can order in a Transamber Epi Nighthawk for me to try to see if I like it, and I said I was game for that but if I liked it I'd be waiting for my Fireburst model; and if I didn't I'd be putting it towards a Strat or Tele.

 

What would you do/How would you feel were you in my shoes?

 

 

Call Italmelodie in Montreal(free shipping). They have about a million guitars there. Super nice guys If they don't have one call Steve's in Montreal, Toronto, or Ottawa. Maybe not super nice guys, but lots of guitars. If they have one get your money back. BTW, I'm in Dartmouth.

[Oopssorryy]

For that wait, I'd get my money back and buy it from somewhere else. I wounder if they got shipped a Transamber model instead of the Firebrust and are now having to put in another order....

[fl00dsm0k3]

get a wilshirre i got one and i loved it, what does GAS mean

[Oopssorryy]

get a wilshirre i got one and i loved it, what does GAS mean

 

Guitar

Acquiring

Syndrome

Took me a minute to figure it out too, along with NAD (New Amp Day) and HNGD (Happy New Guitar Day).

[swleary]

I'd say always follow your heart. I know sometimes that means waiting for something but to be honest, if you waste your money on something else then it's quite possible you'll then be looking at the what if's in your life. Hmm I think that makes sense lol

[swleary]

Guitar

Acquiring

Syndrome

Took me a minute to figure it out too, along with NAD (New Amp Day) and HNGD (Happy New Guitar Day).

 

Actually it's Gear Acquiring

Syndrome lol

[Oopssorryy]

Actually it's Gear Acquiring

Syndrome lol

:blink: Dang, well at least I was close.

[Artie Owl]

Thanks guys, I'll check those out. I will definetly wait on the right colour if I like the playability.

[overtherainbo]

Ok, so some of you know I preordered an Epi Nighthawk back in late February/Early March and paid it in full when they were announced. At the time I was told we'd be looking at May or June for delivery to the store.

 

I said fine, but then within a few weeks (early April) some of you started to receive your Nighthawks from other dealers (in the U.S, I'm in Canada) so I called my guitar store and asked if they had any delivery info (they didn't, not their fault though.)

 

So after a few more months of gassing to get my Epi Nighthawk in Fireburst (my first single cutaway and burst) and reading lots and lots of poisitve things about the guitar, I finally find out that the Fireburst won't make it to Canada until late July, or even later August.

 

Now they've told me they can order in a Transamber Epi Nighthawk for me to try to see if I like it, and I said I was game for that but if I liked it I'd be waiting for my Fireburst model; and if I didn't I'd be putting it towards a Strat or Tele.

 

What would you do/How would you feel were you in my shoes?

 

Hello, Artie Owl, and fellow Babies,

I think, first you must know your own heart, Grasshopper. The biggest impediment for me was money; and it was years before I had enough money to go into a store and plunk it down and say, "Gimme that one." I'm not sure I could stand to pay and then wait for delivery. First of all, I have an incredibly, well--developed sense of doom and guilt that hits me anytime I spend more than a few hundred bucks... it ruins the pleasure of buying anything, and it usually hits me within about 20 hours after the sale. Some people just say I'm cheap, but they don't know what a little ray of sunshine I am.

I've heard that cross-border sales are slow and expensive, and I don't pretend to know the whys and all; but after waiting this long, I believe your dealer should seriously explain exactly the nature of the difficulty. Contract law may be different in your part of the world, but you've signed a legal contract, you've paid a wad of cash, it's up to the dealer now to make an honest, timely effort to complete his contractual obligation. I used to work for a motorcycle dealer, customers could order special parts or the whole motorcycle in the color he wanted rather than a model we happened to have on the display floor. The SOP was that the customer paid in advance on a special order that went direct to the factory, which would take the item out of stock before servicing all the rest of the all potential buyers in the world, and ship that back to the customer. That's the whole point of special ordering. You should have preference over everybody else bcause you have already paid. Everybody else is not a customer yet, and they have no standing or reason to expect favored treatment over you and your order.

 

I just called May 28, 3:48 PM EDST www.musiciansfriend.com - 1 (800) 391- 8762 to a rep named Robb, extention 2369 -and see what kinda deal you could get --they're advertising Nighthawks all colors, right this instant, they ship free in the lower 48. The sale price all day is $399.00 all day long, and he estimated your shipping cost would be would be maybe $10.00

 

that's www.musiciansfriend.com you should finally see this in your browser... http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Epiphone-Nighthawk-Electric-Guitar?sku=H68583

 

Maybe there is some legal reason , but If you're not satisfied, get order information - if you paid for a specific model guitar, there should be sales receipt numbers and specific model numbers, store name, etc. that can be verified with the factory - ask them if there's an order for Artie Owl. Get answers, get your guitar, or get your money back

.

Ask yourself, if your music store cannot or will not ship guitars until some time in late summer, and You cannot take delivery on your special guitar until every one else in the whole freaking country can just walk in and buy the same freaking guitar on impulse, why are you special ordering? What's the point? Why should the dealer have your money for 6 or more months? Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but it sounds to me like somebody is taking advantage of you.

 

 

An alternate route would be to check out sales ads and pawn shops. You can test drive for playability before you buy. And then if you wanta replace the pickups, etc., you can internet parts from STEWMAC.com. Wish I had known abut them 20 years ago. The point being you can build a custom guitar, and for maybe hundreds less than a new guitar, you can build your own. Just be careful, don't take on a job that is beyond your patience or skill

.

If you wind up refinishing the body, you can do a good job without breaking your piggy bank. In most paint stores you can buy Preval paint sprayers - a glass jar topped by a gas powered spray nozzle. Okay, the factories usually use nitocellulose, but that is a finish dating way back to the thirties, demands a lot of skill and attention because it works best to save the tone of the instrument when it is applied very thinly. The problem is that it is very toxic, you will usually need to sand between coats, and as the last steps you will need to polish the surface to get a final, smooth finish.

 

I would use acrylic lacquer - the same paint they use on cars. It you want flashy that's the way to go because there's no limit on the available colors. - so if yer into candy apple red over metal-flake, go for it. If you chose to use metal-flake: the flakes are tiny pieces of reflective Mylar plastic, so they have three dimensions which means that after spraying or tossing it on by hand, you ** will need to spray four or five coats** of clear paint over the metal flake layer to get a smooth surface.

 

On a solid body, the relative thickness of the paint has close to nothing to do with the tone of the instrument. However, an important consideration is that, if you've piled on paint more than about 1/8th inch thick you will find that it becomes a problem because thick paint does not make for stronger protection. And when you get that inevitable ding, it's worse because the missing chip of paint will leave a deep valley that is nearly impossible to repair without leaving evidence. You can fill the hole, but matching the color and metal flake chips ... !!

 

Some advice on painting since if you decide to refinish, it **Will** be the most difficult task:

 

Some advice on painting since if you decide to refinish, it **Will** be the most difficult task: I wrote this twice because it's twice as important----

1) Every chemical you use will be flammable, so keep your mind on the job.

2) The reason I suggest using Preval sprayers: Yeah, you can just buy the paint ready to go in the can, just spray. But you Will Not be able to get a smooth, factory finish because the ratio of the paint to the thinner is fixed. With the Preval sprayers you can mix the paint with the thinner yourself, which is important if you want do anything like say a sunburst effect. But you wont get the subtle shading by spraying with overlapping solid colors and then trying to sand it out. Instead use several layers of overlapping, semi-transparent colors, lighter over dark, the transition at the borders as you spray lighter over darker will get the desired effect, but you need to be able to add thinner to the paint to make it semi-transparent.

 

2.1) At the beginning the proportion of thinner to paint isn't so important that you need to measure - about 50-50 just so the paint is watery, and it'll pass through the nozzle to make a fine spray.

 

3) if you bought a guitar with the neck glued in place, remove the tuner peg machinery and you have convenient hole from which you can hang the guitar from a stiff wire as you spray it. I mean you could use a bent coat hanger suspended from the rails that support the overhead doors in your garage. The same option exists for bolt-on necks, remove the neck and you will usually have fore holes in the body - same procedure.

 

4) Paint is cheap, so you should practice. For instance, you can't brush it on because it'll dry too rapidly, but that's what it is formulated to do. The old saying, if the paint isn't about to sag, you're doin' it wrong. The problem is the paint does dry almost instantly, but if you spray too long in the same area you will get paint that will collect and flow downward. So you have this tiny window of time where you have to keep the paint nozzle moving for good coverage without sags. Therefore, you gatta practice. Until you get a sense of the speed you need to use, you will get sags.

 

4.1) Candy paint is difficult for a starting project, because beginners have trouble with controlling the transparent color; this shows up in two ways. Where the paint overlaps, it leaves a stripe of darker color, so the finished guitar has a tiger-striped look. Second, the painter tries to blend everything to get one solid color, and winds up with a nearly opaque color that hides the metal flakes. If you want a candy color, you will have a better time if you learn to love tiger stripes.

 

5) at this point you will need to get the surface of the guitar smooth. If the old finish is intact except for some dings and dents, you can use product called a filler to fill the holes, carefully smooth those surfaces, and other chemicals applied to the old surface will prepare it to take a new finish without a ton of sanding. If you elect to completely refinish, then a lot of sanding, various chems to seal the wood, fill the grain, resanding, and primer.

 

6) important - if you use automotive paint, there is no sanding except to remove sagging. Once you have the wood grain preped: filled, sanded, primered, and sanded smooth there should only be painting. Acrylac lacquer *does not need* to be sanded between coats **if you sand you screw up the surface.

 

7) refers back to number one. As you reach this point this is the second reason that it is very desirable to use the Preval sprayer -- and no, I'm not making money selling Preval.

At this point you should have gotten all the sanding and smoothing done, with no visible dings after the last coat of primer, and you have applied colors, hand painting, special effects like metal flake, candy colors,

and, If you did use metal flake, you applied several coats of clear with clear and thinner at about

50-50, until you get a smooth, non-pebbly surface ---

 

I don't care if you use 600 grit sandpaper there is no freaking sanding beyond this point, it will ruin the flake layer.

 

Now the big secret drum roll, please... now spray with your mix at roughly 90 % thinner to 10 % clear paint. The thinner dries in a flash, but it burns the older paint surface instantly making it liquidy and melts any imperfections in the surface. Two or three coats like that will give glassy surface that you really can't improve, even if you rub with a polishing compound. In fact that will dull the surface.

[Artie Owl]

Wow, that's quite the post, thank you for your detail, time and consideration!

I've definitely considered musiciansfriend for lots of stuff before, but there are a lot of hidden costs in shipping from States to Canada.

 

There's a great website called "Thefinalcost.com" that helps you figure out the extra costs for over boarder shipping, all worked out with Duties, brokerage, shipping at tax it comes out to just over 600$ cdn even with the dollar near par.

 

I've already got great guitars to play in the interim I just didn't want the opportunity to grab one of these guitars pass by. So I prepaid for it, though it is a verbal contract that I'd get it, not a written one. As well, In the states many websites and dealerships can order directly from Gibson/Epi while Canadian stores rely on their HQ's to import them, then send them out.

 

Trust me I have done quite a bit of research on this and I think the best the guys at the music store can do is wait just like me.

 

Thanks again Overtherainbo, that was very well written and informative.

[Artie Owl]

Update; Today I played the Transamber NIghthawk and I have confirmed that the guitar will deliver what I want from it (Jangly and bright tones), so I handed the yellow one back and now I'm waiting on the Fireburst sometime this summer.

 

Good things come to those that wait, I figure i'll give the old saying a try for a change.

 

Cheers Guys!