It’s really simple, the timely repair of your instrument is more important to you than your luthier. Nobody wants to hear that they are low on the priority list, but that is obviously the case. Why don’t they do the work for you faster? Simple; they don’t have to. Maybe it was fee based, they only charged you what they thought they could get vs the amount of money that would motivate them to finish the job quickly. Maybe they had projects for repeat clients or maybe they wanted to watch their kids soccer game. One of the benefits of working for yourself is deciding your quality of life. So yea, your luthier doesn’t care about your pickup swap.
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My dentist and mechanic manage somehow
- Thread starter DCErik
- Start date
I know you just wanted a pickup swap done, which unless they are busy should not take much time to complete when they actually have time to do it. It’s difficult if people your leaving your baby with are not providing good information as to why it will be a certain amout of time.
In regard to getting a setup done the first question I ask is how much time. I don’t ask the question because I’m feeling rushed. I ask because if someone says they can do it in a day or two, that tells me they don’t really know what their doing. A proper set up requires time for the instrument to adjust to the changes being made if it is to be done correctly. Otherwise you take it home and a few days later it will become out of alignment. If the person working on it tells me anything less that a week, that tells me everything I need to know about there lack of knowledge about working on wood instruments.
In regard to getting a setup done the first question I ask is how much time. I don’t ask the question because I’m feeling rushed. I ask because if someone says they can do it in a day or two, that tells me they don’t really know what their doing. A proper set up requires time for the instrument to adjust to the changes being made if it is to be done correctly. Otherwise you take it home and a few days later it will become out of alignment. If the person working on it tells me anything less that a week, that tells me everything I need to know about there lack of knowledge about working on wood instruments.
Eric's Guitar Shop in Sound City, Van Nuys, CA is one of the best repair places in the country. Eric and Billy will tell you up front what it will take to accomplish the task, no bull, they'll also tell you honestly what can't be done. They have a turnaround of about 7 days, with maybe 2-3 weeks for a complicated job. I hang out there all day when I have a job and see first hand how they work, with quality, honesty and integrity.
I have brought my car to the shop on several occasions, with very clear instructions on what to fix and how, with the only limitation that I'll drop it off on Tuesday evening and will have to collect it Wednesday evening, only to find my car on Wednesday sitting in the lot, no work done at all.
I've also been to the dentist and they had problems getting the dentist stuff done within the allotted time frame and basically closed me up with a temporary plug, telling me to get a new appointment ASAP because I was not done before ushering me from the chair.
Well, I can say that my car got fixed in a different shop and my teeth have a new doctor, too.
With luthiers and guitar techs, I can't tell what's wrong. In my neck of the woods, they are becoming exceedingly rare and I will have to put in a 90min drive to get to one, or a two hour drive to the next large city that has several. Those that existed here usually had their work tables and backlogs full, so you had to be patient with them - but given that they were the local option, one usually put up with it. When they stopped doing business, no one stepped in to take it over, though.
I've also been to the dentist and they had problems getting the dentist stuff done within the allotted time frame and basically closed me up with a temporary plug, telling me to get a new appointment ASAP because I was not done before ushering me from the chair.
Well, I can say that my car got fixed in a different shop and my teeth have a new doctor, too.
With luthiers and guitar techs, I can't tell what's wrong. In my neck of the woods, they are becoming exceedingly rare and I will have to put in a 90min drive to get to one, or a two hour drive to the next large city that has several. Those that existed here usually had their work tables and backlogs full, so you had to be patient with them - but given that they were the local option, one usually put up with it. When they stopped doing business, no one stepped in to take it over, though.
I was hearing about months-long waits for luthier services in the 80's.
Yep. Throttling volume with price is crucial yet many, perhaps most, small businesses won't even consider it.
Reminds me of a Third Party Administrator we used for our Retirement Plan at work for a couple of years. Everything took two weeks. A simple loan request or distribution took two weeks. These items probably took less than a half hour to actually process but everything sat in cue for two weeks. I finally got rid of them, now these transactions take less than a day.
Musicians are notorious flakes. Dentists and mechanics not so much.
