Recent content by michael_o

My new guitar after a long wait: Jason Smith '59 hardtail Stratocaster in Dirty White Blonde with black anodized guard. Neck: Large C, maple fingerboard, 9.5'' radius Frets: 6105 Hardtail bridge Wiring: blender w/ greasebucket and treble bleed. Pickups: Ancho Poblano HW Body: two piece ash...

I agree that the price is extreme, but it's hard to agree with opinions like "money grab" and "harvesting $$$". I mean, it's $20k per piece, for a run of 50 pieces. That's not huge revenue boost for fender :D Making 50 guitars, say one per week, is a year of work for this masterbuilder. Not...

Well, to be fair, the goal was to make detail reproduction of a real guitar. So i assume the oryginal guitar looked exactly like this and had all the 'flaws' you mentioned.

https://www.guitarworld.com/news/carlos-lopez-leaves-fender-custom-shop He has't been masterbuilder for that long, 2-3yrs i think. Wonder if he's going to open his own shop, his builds were usually little out-there and experimental, maybe he want's to do more wild stuff on his own? Also a...

As far as i know the aprentice program in CS has long history, but got formalized bit more quite recentely. Those people assist master builders and learn. I think Ron Thorn is giving some lectures etc. As far as i know, you cant order an aprentice build. However they do get to build few guitars...

I love the album! And everything Robben does. I also recommend his truefire courses, i think he's the only one on that platform that actually teaches whole songs, on advanced level. The rest of tf is just 15-second-licks-you-should know ;) Nothing wrong with that of course. The album cover is...

Sure, one could do that. What if the aluminium pickguard has a sharp edge (case with my other CS guitar, described in OP as well), should i file and sand it myself? I did. What if the replacement part comes in wrong color and not aged? Should i do it myself too? What if i want to discuss pickups...

Actually, why there is no contract here? CS seems to hide behind super formal process, they cant do anything. Customers are the worst. The process is this or that. Where's the contract? You can call a dealer, without anything just order.. pay an advance, done! With this many middle men... And of...

But people will be people. If you dont like dealig with them then dont. If you want to ban certain type of them, the one changing their mind, put it in the contract: you order you cant change, sign here. And dont do the oposite, dont invite the change.

Well, it's not exactly like that i think. You dont ask what they like, you say what you need and they tell you how to get it. You say, i'm into hot pickups.. played this and that and liked those parts of each, now how do i get a perfect one? And they should know. Like a comming to a hardware...

Ha, im the OP. I know! i say what the catalogue says.. see attachement. like i said, without it, it loses the point. thus my complaint ;)

So TCI not only got involved into the discussion but also provided me with pics of tele knobs on a white body with black pickguard. He did it himself, during Saturday night. Really hope he wasn't at work.. I got also few clarifications and other things i asked for. Awesome. For one the build is...

Well, according to ordering catalogue, they build the guitar by hand, by themeselves, with hand selected woods. It's obviousely not true as they have painters (not part of the build? fair enough), aprentices to help and for sure use CNC -- which is smart and only way. And none of this matters...

Sorry to hear about your case, extending the wait time by 2years sound pretty crazy. I think i would cancel as well in that case. Fender might do batch production, sure, they can have whatever rules inside they want, and they deal with internals as they need to and want to. That being said...

Fair point!