Your thoughts on this guitar? Is this acceptable?

[ericcsong]

some more pics:

frets:



neck and body:



bridge:


top:


binding:

[ericcsong]

from first page:

Originally Posted by ericcsong

Nut:





Bridge:

[Steve Kinnaird]

That closeup photography is remarkable.
If those pics came from the owner, he should just put down the guitar, and continue shooting his camera.

Steve

[Simon Fay]

In some respects, the first guitar I ever built was on par with that guitar in terms of workmanship. FYI, it was destroyed in rock n' roll fashion (very fun to do, by the way) and went in the trash. The second suffered a similar fate but was significantly improved. The third made it too my brother and by that time I had made massive strides in quality.

First of all, depending on the scenario -- that work isn't shameful or disgraceful. Everyone has to start somewhere. However, work of that quality should be given away with maybe a donation or tip to help the builder buy new tools and continue improving. Also, anyone with even the slightest amount of natural aptitude for lutherie should be building decent quality instruments with 5 or more guitars under their belt.

Please do not name the builder -- but for his/her own benefit, tell them to that such work is crude even by novice standards and should not be sold for profit.

[Larry Pattis]

..................

[sehnsucht77]

youch. that looks really, really rough. custom guitars don't come cheap by any means and i think it would be safe to say that getting quality for your money goes without saying when ordering a new custom guitar -or any guitar for that matter. i hope an explanation and resolution can result from this situation. personally, getting a custom guitar made was a tough leap for me to take, specifically because of instances like this. to pay top dollar for a guitar requires a lot of trust in something you haven't seen. i think instances like this really stresses the importance of research when getting a custom guitar made because you can get burned pretty easily.

[cotten]

Originally Posted by Simon Fay

...Please do not name the builder -- but for his/her own benefit, tell them to that such work is crude even by novice standards and should not be sold for profit.

This seems very wise to me.

cotten

[tnvol]

That doesn't even look like a new guitar.

[Rod True]

Originally Posted by Simon Fay

In some respects, the first guitar I ever built was on par with that guitar in terms of workmanship. FYI, it was destroyed in rock n' roll fashion (very fun to do, by the way) and went in the trash. The second suffered a similar fate but was significantly improved. The third made it too my brother and by that time I had made massive strides in quality.

First of all, depending on the scenario -- that work isn't shameful or disgraceful. Everyone has to start somewhere. However, work of that quality should be given away with maybe a donation or tip to help the builder buy new tools and continue improving. Also, anyone with even the slightest amount of natural aptitude for lutherie should be building decent quality instruments with 5 or more guitars under their belt.

Please do not name the builder -- but for his/her own benefit, tell them to that such work is crude even by novice standards and should not be sold for profit.

This is very well spoken, Simon. Thank you for your wise words!

[sachi]

Originally Posted by Larry Pattis

I was thinking maybe a Paracho Mexico guitar...but I think most (perhaps all!) of the work done there is of significantly higher build-quality.

My wife has a Vihuela made in Paracho, and I can ditto that, Larry.

All I can say is that the person who made the guitar in this thread did not even try to do a good job. Shameful.

[peteom]

What was the price paid?

[Rod True]

Eric, please do not tell us who the maker is!!!!!!! This would really be unfair to the maker seeing as none of us know his history. All we have are the pictures. Maybe he's an amputee and only has one real hand to work with. Maybe he's blind in one eye and can't see very well.....I sincerly hope there is some sort of reasonable explanation anyway.....otherwise, this person may wander on here and this could really crush his/her enthusiasm to build....

Mind you, it really could be that there is nothing "not normal" (I hate to even say that) about the person and maybe they don't even see what we all see (it does happen...)

[Haans]

Originally Posted by peteom

What was the price paid?

that's the first question.
the second is "what does it sound like?"
the third is "did the owner know that the builder was inexperienced?"
for 400 bucks it's probably a good guitar. for 4,000, not so much.

[dirt1966]

I don't see why the identity of the builder should not be disclosed... if his name is on it....

[Edbuff]

I have seen this kind of work before from a "custom builder". I will bet i know who it is and your friend probably didn't pay alot for it.
Ed