00 All Around Player

[jimmy bookout]

This thread (and the guitar in question) happened THREE YEARS AGO...

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by jimmy bookout

This thread (and the guitar in question) happened THREE YEARS AGO...

Th OP was just filling us in on how the story ended.

[jimmy bookout]

Sorry, I was responding to post #60

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by Shaneh

Almost all recording kings I have played had sharp fret ends, at least 20. Took one to gryphon and for $30 they made it awesome.

RK will likely be placing orders with some of the smaller OEM workshops in China that are not humidity controlled, nor is the shipping. So, at some times of the year you will have guitar fretboards made from fairly fresh woods worked and shipped at >70% RH. So there is a good chance of some fretboard shrinkage, which will stabilise and is pretty easy to sort out.

[rnjguitar]

Originally Posted by IM4Nats

Who buys a Asian factory guitar and does not immediately

drop it off at their luthier 's shop and get it set up.

When was a glue failure at the bridge a fatal flaw

Sharp fret ends...geez. That takes 10 minutes with an emory pad.

You are being really unreasonable.

You're going to pay a whole lot more, when you could have

helped a local small business to personalize a guitar to

your liking. DOH !

Thank you for your insight. If you read my original post you would have seen that it was my small business owner - local luthier (whom I give plenty of business to) that advised me to retun my first guitar. Plus, Im not sure where you are from, but my luthier charges around $300 for a re-glue and fret dressing...thus his advice to return it and try again.

But yes, I drop off all my guitars to my luthier...chinese factory to Martin Factory. Love supporting my guy whos pushing 70 and is the best luthier in the area. And all of my guitars come back in amazing playable condition.

Was just trying to share a positive experience...so thanks for your post and not making any assumptions about a thread you clearly didnt read through.

[catfish]

Originally Posted by Robin, Wales

RK will likely be placing orders with some of the smaller OEM workshops in China that are not humidity controlled, nor is the shipping. So, at some times of the year you will have guitar fretboards made from fairly fresh woods worked and shipped at >70% RH. So there is a good chance of some fretboard shrinkage, which will stabilise and is pretty easy to sort out.

Robin,

It does make a difference from where you will buy the Recording King and Loar instruments. The owner of both brands is The Music Link Corporation in California. The instruments shipped from China to the US are all inspected prior to being delivered to US dealers. Basic setups are made, minor flows corrected, defective guitars are serviced. Guitars with serious defects never reach customers. It seems that the instruments of the same brands shipped from China to Europe do not go through the same process. So, a lot of defects are reported from the customers in Europe.

Around 8-9 years ago I sampled several RK guitars in a major music store here in Moscow, none impressed me in tone, playability or quality of manufacturing. Some of them were junk. And they were priced almost similarly to Mexican Martins and Godin guitars which were on a totally different level.

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by catfish

Robin,

It does make a difference from where you will buy the Recording King and Loar instruments. The owner of both brands is The Music Link Corporation in California. The instruments shipped from China to the US are all inspected prior to being delivered to US dealers. Basic setups are made, minor flows corrected, defective guitars are serviced. Guitars with serious defects never reach customers. It seems that the instruments of the same brands shipped from China to Europe do not go through the same process. So, a lot of defects are reported from the customers in Europe.

Around 8-9 years ago I sampled several RK guitars in a major music store here in Moscow, none impressed me in tone, playability or quality of manufacturing. Some of them were junk. And they were priced almost similarly to Mexican Martins and Godin guitars which were on a totally different level.

Thanks, I can fully relate to that!

It is good to hear that RK in the US at least does some post-shipping set-up and inspection.

I forgot to mention that some of the sharp fret end issues on models from China are due to the neck factory not changing the blades on the fret saws soon enough. Mind you, Gibson still makes assembly line errors when gluing bridges and they have been doing that for 100 years!

When I ran Busker Guitars I would send out design specs and order resonator guitars from an OEM workshop in China. They would come to me in Wales (about 6 weeks shipping) and I would go through the guitars from top to bottom: fit good tuners, cut a bone nut, level and crown frets, polish fret ends, check/set props, fit a maple saddle, level the biscuit on the cone top, align tailpiece, set action and re-string. It would take me a day at the very least to prepare every guitar. But as I was buying direct and selling direct I could basically put what would have been the distribution mark up and retail mark up into being a salary for me. It was essentially a one-man band with a friend in our village helping me out when needed.

Luckily, I found a tech in China who had done his apprenticeship at an AXL factory (Recording King, Loar etc) and knew how to fit necks to reso guitars, getting the angle perfect every time. In fact, I followed him when he set up on his own so I could guarantee consistency. It is not that other workshops couldn’t do the job but just I knew this particular guy’s work was excellent. And I always had a full order book! In the end, the work took its toll on my hands and elbows; I was constantly in pain, so I closed.

I can see why a boutique company like Santa Cruz has embraced using the PLEK machine for all of the fretboard shaping, fret levelling, nut cutting and saddle processes for the long-term health of their workforce as well as consistency.

[jkilgour2000]

To comment on this 3 year old thread...

My Martin 0028 is pretty dang loud and versatile.

That being said, there's a lot of folks around here that love the 00-15M.

I wonder what the original poster got, and if he/she still has it?

Shine on

[ChrisN]

Originally Posted by jkilgour2000

I wonder what the original poster got, and if he/she still has it?

Shine on

See post #52