• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Custom Bass Situation - What's the policy?

#2
I would like to know.

I think it would be fair game as long as their are no personal attacks or personal information given (such phone numbers,email,etc.) for the builder in question.

I would be constructive and do it kinda of like a review I guess, and just make it in ill favor of the luthier with the details of the good and the bad of the bass.
 
#4
I would also follow Fenderhutz advice.

You have to make it a review. And be as polite as you can be and explain the account fully and thoroughly. Dont just start going off on a tangent.

If you had a bad experience with someone this site is great to help others possibly not go thru it or possibly avoid it all together.

Just think properly before just typing.


A bad review is just that but it doesnt have to be a bash fest either. And we would also expect the luthier to be notified as well to share his point of view on the situation. There is always two sides to every story.

Brett
 
#5
I'm posting this in the hopes that it will help others avoid the absolutely ridiculous 18 months I just endured dealing with a "luthier" who trolls these forums (and others) operating under the name of JC Cagle. The only good thing that came out of the experience was that he refunded my money after I finally told him a year and a half was too long waiting for a simple body and neck. I was completely professional and understanding throughout all of our correspondence, and can reproduce/post nearly all of the communication we had over the last 18 months.

In April of 2006 I decided to design and have built a custom-shaped bass guitar. I contacted several bass builders on this forum, and eventually made a deal with JC to simply produce a neck and a body, a bone nut, and two plain pickguards. Now, 18 months later, after waiting since January of this year for the "finish to dry," I finally receive the instrument: No nut of any kind, no pickguards, and a strangely unfinished paint job that the builder claims took 10 months to "dry." (I asked only for glossy black on both the body and the neck).

The last few months of emails and phone conversations I've had with this man have been trials of patience: half a dozen different excuses on why the paint wasn't dry after 10 months, why he wasn't able to work on it, why I was "as much to blame as he was" - while simultaneously bragging about the number of different projects he'd been accepting during the course of the year.

I'm sure he'll read this, and I'm sure he'll have a rebuttal about how it's my fault for not knowing everything there is to know about bass luthiery before I hired him to build my project, or for thinking that 10 months is FAR too long for a finish to be finished, but my ignorance only accounts for a couple months of the process being slowed down. With the exception of his medical emergency over a year ago, the rest of it was his self-described "god-like ego" and penchant for making promise after promise and never delivering.

I'm sitting here looking at a bass neck with no nut, a body with only two holes drilled in the heel, and a finish that looks like it took maybe 3 days after he finally got fed up with hearing me politely ask why the finish was taking so long. Trying to blame a client for gross ineptitude and poor business management is the ultimate in unprofessional.

How are the body and neck? The neck is fine: Black gloss like I requested, clean frets. The finish is smooth and decent, but there are minute ripples in the black paint beneath, as though it were birdseye maple, but the birdseye is actually blemishes beneath the clear coat. And again, no natural bone nut, though he agreed to include it in the build.

The body shares the unfortunate birdseye look, but is generally well done. I haven't yet placed the pickups in their cavities, but perhaps I'll review it more as I get it completed.

Feel free to remove this if inappropriate. Apologies if it breaks any forum rules.
 
#7
See here as well.

Dave Muscato said:
I've talked to midirose a few times... He's a regular on the Line6 Forum, but isn't interested in making a regular thing of it, apparently :(

I actually ended up having JC Cagle of HJC Customs do it (with a neck made from scratch), but I'm not happy with the way the neck turned out, and I'm considering going with a Carvin neck after all. The pickup is a Seymour Duncan SSB-II and turned out great, though!

1558866124_77ab39a564_o.jpg


Stock Line6 Variax 705 on the left, HJC Customs modified 705 on the right

1557989813_6d4ffa2322_o.jpg


The two knobs near the bridge are a volume for the magnetic pickup and a passive treble cut. There is an independent output jack for the magnetic pickup in addition to the two Variax outputs (1/4" + RJ45) on the bottom of the bass (all three are next to each other).
Click to expand...

Dave Muscato said:
It's a lot wider actually, 2.125" at the nut... I'm happy with the width, but it seems that there are some measurement issues... the intonation is pretty bad, even after two local setups, rendering the bass unusable for recording, and the dots on the fretboard are off-center (inconsistently so). Also, the thumbrest is not tall enough to be useful - your thumb slips right off of it because it's so low, but it's covering up some routing (Line6's design, not HJC's), so I can't just take it off. I don't really use a thumbrest (I use floating-thumb technique), but the Line6 original plastic thumbrest was quite a bit taller. It is pretty, though - it matches the chechen rosewood fingerboard.

I originally wanted a new neck because the stock Line6 neck was a little chunkier than I like, and I had planned to just order one from Carvin. Carvin's build time was quoted at 2-3 weeks. I was leaving for Boston over the summer and I wanted to take the finished bass with me, and the builder told me he could build a neck from scratch faster than that, so I canceled the Carvin neck order and had him build one for me instead. It ended up taking 3 months (I ending up just buying a used Korean-made MTD from eBay to take with me to Boston instead), and when the rebuilt Variax arrived, I actually had to send back the neck because the profile wasn't what I wanted; the new neck was even thicker than the stock neck. The entire order took close to 5 months (4~ longer than quoted), cost $736 (for installing the pickup & building a new neck), and I still don't have an instrument I can use out or sell out of it.

I also wish I'd gone with slightly bigger frets and a slightly more rounded radius (I wanted it flat), but those are both things that are entirely my fault, haha.

Anyway, not trying to air dirty laundry here, but that was my experience with a Variax mod. There is a local guy who builds 5-10 basses a year that might be interested in trying to make a new neck for this one, but I still have to call him about figuring it out. He's actually a TBer too, but I understand that he hasn't used his account in several years (his name is Bill Rowe).
Click to expand...


Another testament of his work.
 
#8
He boasted to me of that very build.

PS: He included a sarcastic and insulting note with the bass body: ..."There are two low spots in the finish on both the neck and the body. I would have fixed them, but after your dissertation on the drying times of cellulose laquer products, I decided to just do the wet sand and polish it."

What was my "dissertation," you may ask?

"I think over five weeks is enough time to fix such the small area where it cracked, especially if it was ready to go before the split like you said it was. Either way, please let me know what the situation is and let's get this project resolved once and for all!"

I wish I'd known what was going on before I worked with this guy.
 
#12
ibanezcollector said:
I work with lacquer exclusively and I wait 30 days to cure after painting which can take 2-3 weeks at best since I have a regular full time job.

to do a finish it takes 60 days to me at least..


So his saying 10 months is ridiculous unless I read that wrong..
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what kind of lacquer you guys are working with but I worked with it a lot in the late 60's and early 70's and could compound it in a hour after spraying. Must be different stuff?
 
#13
Really there is no official policy and unless you're going through a dealer, it's buyer beware. Really, it's best to do your research before diving in. Usually, most luthiers rely heavily on positive word of mouth. Cliff Bordwell, for example, basically can rely on TB talking him up because he does an exceptional job. Do a good job and people talk ya up. Do a bad job and word really spreads, like the dude who took 11 years to build a bass!
 
#15
spade2you said:
Really there is no official policy and unless you're going through a dealer, it's buyer beware. Really, it's best to do your research before diving in. Usually, most luthiers rely heavily on positive word of mouth. Cliff Bordwell, for example, basically can rely on TB talking him up because he does an exceptional job. Do a good job and people talk ya up. Do a bad job and word really spreads, like the dude who took 11 years to build a bass!
Click to expand...

Ken Bebensee

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=316982
 
#17
ZC - soooo sorry to hear things turned out like this for you on your dream bass

your Darkstar route should be 1" minimum in depth per Fred's on-line cavity drawing, and I prefer to go a little further to 1-1/8" so that I have room for a ground wire to connect the cavity shielding. so long as your cavity is the proper width/length, it should be an easy router job for someone with basic woodworking skills to right for you.

since you note a nitro finish, be sure not to use blue masking tape to mask things off before routing!

all the best,

R
 
#19
im assuming the bass truly is as bad as you say it is. if so, please, post pictures. this way people will see proof of it, and youll be doing the TB community a favor by showing us what youll get when dealing with this particular luthier.
 
#20
ibanezcollector said:
I work with lacquer exclusively and I wait 30 days to cure after painting which can take 2-3 weeks at best since I have a regular full time job.

to do a finish it takes 60 days to me at least..


So his saying 10 months is ridiculous unless I read that wrong..
Click to expand...

I spray nitro all day every day. After the color coat I'll spray 5 coats of clear. After sitting over night I flat sand with 320 grit and recoat with 5 more coats of clear and dropfill, let sit a week and crack the finish open with 600. 5 to six days later 600 to 800 and buff. 14days from start to finish. Yes 10 mos. is way to long!
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back