Guest farnsbarns Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Spoke to the dealer (GAK) again today. First I got there CS department who seemed to listen more patiently than before and then put me through to the shop and I spoke to the new manager. After explaining my concerns, including the new issues and the 3rd crack now appearing on the top (last week), and simply asking them to return it to Gibson, he agreed, without hesitation. I'm in the car now on my way to Brighton. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie brown Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Great news...Gibson should replace it, FOC. Did you take photos, of the cracks, or progression of such? I'm sure some here, would be interested. Before this, I've never heard of a top cracking, like that, especially so soon! CB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pippy Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 About bloody time, too. New manager, you say?????? Interesting....... P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest farnsbarns Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Yeah, Mike left a few months ago. I think they might have been without a manager in the shop for a while which is why I couldn't get past the CS guys although I did speak to Stuart who owns the place but that was before the top started cracking. When I got there I could tell the chap I was speaking to was going to start the process again. Thankfully the manager overheard, stepped in and said "just return it to Gibson". I wanted to try one of those midtown customs but they didn't have one. He was fairly insistant that they had rosewood boards. Am I confused or do they have this kitchen worktop stuff? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie brown Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Yeah, Mike left a few months ago. I think they might have been without a manager in the shop for a while which is why I couldn't get past the CS guys although I did speak to Stuart who owns the place but that was before the top started cracking. When I got there I could tell the chap I was speaking to was going to start the process again. Thankfully the manager overheard, stepped in and said "just return it to Gibson". I wanted to try one of those midtown customs but they didn't have one. He was fairly insistant that they had rosewood boards. Am I confused or do they have this kitchen worktop stuff? Here: http://www2.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/Designer/Gibson-USA/Midtown-Custom.aspx CB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest farnsbarns Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Thought so! I'll bung them an email when I get home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pippy Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Going off-topic for a second, Farns, but I was in Denmark St. yesterday and spoke to the guy in Macari's who are the main agents for Gibson in central London. They had a Midtown Standard or two but no Customs. I explained I wanted to try out the new 'board material and he knew nothing about it! He doubted whether they wouuld even get one in without a definite order but the boss was at lunch so who knows? He did give me the Standard to try out. It's heavier than I expected and not that loud acoustically but it played beautifully! P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest farnsbarns Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Going off-topic for a second, Farns, but I was in Denmark St. yesterday and spoke to the guy in Macari's who are the main agents for Gibson in central London. They had a Midtown Standard or two but no Customs. I explained I wanted to try out the new 'board material and he knew nothing about it! He doubted whether they wouuld even get one in without a definite order but the boss was at lunch so who knows? He did give me the Standard to try out. It's heavier than I expected and not that loud acoustically but it played beautifully! P. Yeah, I thought they'd be a bit heavy. It's more like a chambered LP with F holes than a 335 etc. I think the top is flat on the bottom (inside) too but I may be wrong without a close look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinner 13 Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Glad to hear you finally got so positive results out of all this, especially after all the run around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest farnsbarns Posted December 22, 2011 Share Posted December 22, 2011 This email sent to CS today... Hi Gibson Customer Service, My name is [my real name]. I have returned my LPR6, serial number 6***5 to GAK in Brighton to be returned to you on the returns number RM******7. There are several problems with the guitar and as they were rather busy when I dropped it off they asked me to email you to explain all the issues in detail. After I got the guitar a crack started to appear along the neck binding on the top side. Fairly quickly this spread the entire length of the neck and along where the fret board sits on top of the body. Where the binding covers each fret-end there is some grime between the binding and the fret ends which I think demonstrates that the binding is coming away from the fret-ends. If this happened on the treble side I think the string would drop between the binding and the fret. Shortly after, the other side of the neck started to crack in the same way. Shortly after that cracks appeared in the cutaway. These are on the top, in the gold finish, you can see from the cracks that this is not weather checking but is due to either shrinkage in the maple cap or expansion in the mahogany back. The finish is "stretched" for want of a better description. Once that started cracks appeared in several places around the body binding between the binding and the mahogany back. Then I noticed 2 cracks in the top running in the same direction as the strings (the opposite to what you'd normally see from weather checking) around the pots. Last week a third crack appeared in the same area at the very edge of the body but is expanding in the same vein as the other two. The join between the two halves of the maple cap have become visible through the finish, I believe this must be because the wood has moved/changed shape. The neck seems to have moved, there is a slight bump on the base side where the neck joins the body. I keep having to raise the bridge higher and higher to stop buzzing. I think the 6th or 7th fret may be lifting, when I slide up or down the neck in that area my finger keeps on hooking up but I never notice exactly where because I never seem to be looking when it happens. When I last changed the strings, the bridge, which would normally lift off the posts easily, was stuck fast, the posts have moved and clamped on to the bridge, I suppose this would happen if the wood is on the move as I suspect. I also noted when last changing the strings that the tail piece wont sit firmly in one position it wants to rock between two positions. I believe this is also because the wood has changed shape and the studs have moved. The guitar doesn't feel quite as "alive" as it did. This may be down to the tail piece contact with the studs or maybe due to something else. Given that this guitar has already been repaired once at you authorised service centre due to failure of 2 pots which meant I was without it for several weeks and then various problems have been appearing ever since, I really don't feel I can rely on the guitar and would prefer it to be replaced. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie brown Posted December 22, 2011 Share Posted December 22, 2011 Good...I hope they'll send you a new one, straight away! CB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest farnsbarns Posted December 22, 2011 Share Posted December 22, 2011 Is that like your name here..... lol At the risk of being rude, how much did you pay for this guitar? Wow you'd expect all the cracking from a far less expensive guitar. I know the pride that comes with owning a instrument of this caliber and pricing structure. Hopefully they do take care of this and you get the instrument you paid for. I had something similar to this happen to my limited edition Ibanez Prestige. It was a compression crack in the neck pocket and I was so very upset about the finish crack. Yours sounds like the guitar is falling apart in front of you. So sorry... On a side note, those new Goldtop Maple Customs are sweet looking, great sounding and ya can get 5 for the price you paid for your R series guitar. Well, GAK had another one on the wall yesterday at £2800 but once I've found the guitar for me I always ask for a discount and then ask for another one, then I ring around the large dealers and ask if they can beat that, then go back to GAK and ask them to beat the best price and repeat the process until I can't get the price any lower. I got mine for £2150. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest farnsbarns Posted December 23, 2011 Share Posted December 23, 2011 This reply arrived today... Hi *******, Finish cracks are normally not covered under warranty; for the other things you mentioned: we will have the guitar returned to us for further inspection and take it from there. The RMA number is ****** ; you can ask us for an update anytime. Kind regards, Unfortunately this has come from the same individual who, last time I had a problem asked me to take it to their authorised repaired and he would send the parts to him. He didn't tell me the part was out of stock across Europe and would take a month to arrive. Eventually Jason on here took ownership and fed-ex'd the part to the repaired so I had it back after 4 weeks instead of 6. I am a little worried if he is handling this. :( Oh well, its out of my hands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoreyC Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 I love the R6. Unfortunately, in a moment of stupidity, I sold mine. Great sounding guitars! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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