Sent the Gibson Back for Warranty work

[dmraco]

such a shame...at the passing of Les Paul, I felt the need and took advantage of some sales at the local Sam Ash.  I have been pleased withthe guitar so far.  However I was playing the other day and noticed some rough edges around the fret ends.  To my dismay, almost every fret end on both sides was rough and had even cracked thru the nitro.  UNACCEPTABLE!!!!  Back to Sam Ash I went because the are a factory service center.  I will keep ypu posted and keep playing my PERFECT Warmoth necks....

 

[Disco Scottie]

Gibson QC. When only "it's good enough" will do.

 

[stubhead]

Does Gibson DO fret finishing, on their regular models? One reason Ibby & Schecter were absolutely cleaning up the $300-$800 market was because for so long, Fender & Gibson were shipping guitars with completely unfinished frets - obviously those clever folks had invented a "Fret-O-Tron" that could do an at-least adequate job. I took a $200 Ibanez GAX70 in trade for lessons from one of my students and the frets were perfect, better than any Warmoth, USA Custom, Gibson or Fender off the wall (though not all are like that, of course). Fender, at least, seems to have caught on that many people just don't know or consider fretwork to be the customer's responsibility. "Plek"ing a brand new neck is silly, because they really need at least several months to settle.

I'd be really surprised if you Gibson comes back with a full Level, Crown &Polish - maybe for all these years, all you had to do was ask? :icon_scratch: :hello2:

(BTW, that's the exact same LP I'd buy if I was going to buy one, Studio, wine red - though one of your knobs seems to have gone Borg-eyed?)

 

[dmraco]

Does Gibson DO fret finishing, on their regular models? One reason Ibby & Schecter were absolutely cleaning up the $300-$800 market was because for so long, Fender & Gibson were shipping guitars with completely unfinished frets - obviously those clever folks had invented a "Fret-O-Tron" that could do an at-least adequate job. I took a $200 Ibanez GAX70 in trade for lessons from one of my students and the frets were perfect, better than any Warmoth, USA Custom, Gibson or Fender off the wall (though not all are like that, of course). Fender, at least, seems to have caught on that many people just don't know or consider fretwork to be the customer's responsibility. "Plek"ing a brand new neck is silly, because they really need at least several months to settle.

I'd be really surprised if you Gibson comes back with a full Level, Crown &Polish - maybe for all these years, all you had to do was ask? :icon_scratch: :hello2:

(BTW, that's the exact same LP I'd buy if I was going to buy one, Studio, wine red - though one of your knobs seems to have gone Borg-eyed?)

it was not a matter of the fret level and polish...Actually is was quite good.  However, the ENDs were simply WIDER than the FRETBOARD!  I should have taken a photo.

I too fell in love with the finish.  They had two in that color and I went back and forth comparing the tops.  It seems to be a wild maple...very nice.  The 4th knob is because it is one of the ROBOT models.  It works well, but a little slow.  I like it for the all the alternative Led Zep tunings I need.  IT is also cool to spot check and make sure the strings are in tune.  That takes only seconds.

 

[Ace Flibble]

This is why I waited, saved up and bought a Gibson Custom Shop model. Every regular production Gibson I've ever been near has had crap fretwork, crap finish along the sides, neck and headstock, crap binding, you name it. Just about the only thing they do right is the occasional nice top - they obviously care a lot about their sunbursts and not much else. In the end I gave up on production Gibbos, waited, saved and got myself a nice CS model. Even that went after two years, I came to realise that as nice as it was, it wasn't £4k worth of nice.

This is why they halted the Epiphone Elitist Les Pauls and SGs, they were putting the American guitars to shame at half the cost.

 

[Jusatele]

puts new meaning to the saying:

Can't see it from My House.

 

[-CB-]

Frets sticking out... or gaps between binding and frets are both common on Gibson, and other guitars

The problem has to do with the neck wood, and the way it expands or shrinks due to humidity.

Cant be helped

 

[Nightclub Dwight]

I'm a bit confused, did you just buy this guitar, or did you buy it back when Les Paul passed away (summer 2008)?

Have the frets been good till now?  It seems if you've had the guitar for 2 years and the frets were good, and only recently developed a problem, it may be due to the seasonal humidity differences that will swell or shrink a wooden neck.

Many of my older guitars show evidence of this, like on my bound Taylor neck I can see where the fret edges have poked through the binding.  In my case it hasn't hindered playability, but YMMV.

Nice guitar none the less.  I hope it comes back to you in great shape.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

(BTW, that's the exact same LP I'd buy if I was going to buy one, Studio, wine red - though one of your knobs seems to have gone Borg-eyed?)

Robot LP Studio maybe?

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I have been pleased withthe guitar so far.  However I was playing the other day and noticed some rough edges around the fret ends.  To my dismay, almost every fret end on both sides was rough and had even cracked thru the nitro.

Was it there and you just hadn't noticed, or did the fretboard shrink underneath over night?

 

[dmraco]

I have been pleased withthe guitar so far.  However I was playing the other day and noticed some rough edges around the fret ends.  To my dismay, almost every fret end on both sides was rough and had even cracked thru the nitro.

Was it there and you just hadn't noticed, or did the fretboard shrink underneath over night?

I think I just did not notice.   I keep all my guitars in a humidity controlled cab.  This should not have just happened.

 

[Superlizard]

If ya want the frets dressed on a Gibson, you gotta pay the $5000 surcharge. 

 

[-CB-]

I have been pleased withthe guitar so far.  However I was playing the other day and noticed some rough edges around the fret ends.  To my dismay, almost every fret end on both sides was rough and had even cracked thru the nitro.

Was it there and you just hadn't noticed, or did the fretboard shrink underneath over night?

I think I just did not notice.   I keep all my guitars in a humidity controlled cab.  This should not have just happened.

If your humidity is drier than Gibby's... it will happen.

 

[stubhead]

Frets sticking out... or gaps between binding and frets are both common on Gibson, and other guitars

The problem has to do with the neck wood, and the way it expands or shrinks due to humidity.

Cant be helped

- CB

I will add, this is a kind of "problem" that I would fix myself - I trust my fretwork a good deal better than "sumgai" in the back of a Guitar Center. It's pretty straightforward if you think about it, it just involves the removal of a very, very very small amount of metal while protecting the surrounding wood. Like, 97.625% of fret bozo-screwups have to do with overdoing it, not under-.  Dan Erlewine covers fret dressing in his "Guitar Player Repair Guide", which is a must-have book if you have any interest is saving yourself thousands of dollars over the years.

My own personal preference for this involves varying grits of wet/dry (gray) sandpaper wrapped around a big Gibson nut blank, rather than files, but either way,  if you use the stainless steel fret protectors from Stew-Mac - just hold the edge to the fret, not use the slot - you just can't nick the fretboard. Unless you're like, dangerously spastic or something. Patience & checking as you go are the only way, 22 frets = 88 corners, and the shortcut methods of gang-filing frets are piss-poor work, IMO. If you have to do the whole length, it might take 3 or 4 hours - which is why the top repair guys in Nashville and LA and New York will charge you $200.

(And at my creaking-old age of 53, an OptiVisor or magnification of some other sort is really helpful. Mebbe you ferret-eyed younguns kin... grumble creak thud etc.)

 

[dmraco]

Frets sticking out... or gaps between binding and frets are both common on Gibson, and other guitars

The problem has to do with the neck wood, and the way it expands or shrinks due to humidity.

Cant be helped

- CB

I will add, this is a kind of "problem" that I would fix myself - I trust my fretwork a good deal better than "sumgai" in the back of a Guitar Center. It's pretty straightforward if you think about it, it just involves the removal of a very, very very small amount of metal while protecting the surrounding wood. Like, 97.625% of fret bozo-screwups have to do with overdoing it, not under-.  Dan Erlewine covers fret dressing in his "Guitar Player Repair Guide", which is a must-have book if you have any interest is saving yourself thousands of dollars over the years.

My own personal preference for this involves varying grits of wet/dry (gray) sandpaper wrapped around a big Gibson nut blank, rather than files, but either way,  if you use the stainless steel fret protectors from Stew-Mac - just hold the edge to the fret, not use the slot - you just can't nick the fretboard. Unless you're like, dangerously spastic or something. Patience & checking as you go are the only way, 22 frets = 88 corners, and the shortcut methods of gang-filing frets are piss-poor work, IMO. If you have to do the whole length, it might take 3 or 4 hours - which is why the top repair guys in Nashville and LA and New York will charge you $200.

(And at my creaking-old age of 53, an OptiVisor or magnification of some other sort is really helpful. Mebbe you ferret-eyed younguns kin... grumble creak thud etc.)

IT is not so much finishing the frets, but re-doing the nitro on the side of the fretboard.  To CBs point, this can happen, but not to the extreme I see it it.  Besides, there are 6 other guitars, WARMOTH, Charvel, and another Gibson in there.  All kept constant.

Lets see what Gibson says.  Bottom line is it is not that huge an issue, I can live with it.  But I am a perfectionist when it comes to my Guitars finish.  I almost killed my second born son when he dropped a tuning fork on my 1980's Charvel San Dimas that I managed to keep flawless all throught high school and college... :evil4:

 

[richship]

This is very similar to the problem my Robot SG has. The nitro is cracking at the fret ends and separating at the side dots.

 

[dmraco]

This is very similar to the problem my Robot SG has. The nitro is cracking at the fret ends and separating at the side dots.

what did you do?

 

[stubhead]

Is the cracking of the nitro caused by frets and dots spreading below the fingerboard junction? Rosewood doesn't actually to be finished, in fact it may be that the oils in the rosewood are adding to this. If you're worried about the cracking nitro over the fingerboard causing the cracks to descend below the juncture, I know what I'd do - but it wouldn't be warranty-enhancing, for sure.

Blue low-tack painter tape over the neck side of the finish, then score the juncture with an X-Acto #16 blade, then get the finish off the fingerboard sides. You can't really dress the fret ends properly with that finish covering the work, anyway. After that & the fret ends, you'd have to blend the finish edge with some 600 wet/dry, to 1500, to some Micromark 4000-grit or so.  It would be fairly easy to make a depth guide for the knife with a section of BiC pen or the like, if you're worried about it.

This kind of work is beyond what a harried, hurried minimum-wage GC employee is ever going to do, but it ain't that hard. Slow, patient... One very, extremely, especially good reason for learning your own fretwork, nuts, ding repair & wiring is to keep your instruments OUT of the hands of those poor kids - you have more time than they do, or at the very least, you are sure to care about your guitars enough to make the time to get the tedious jobs done perfectly.

If your guitar is doing it, all the other ones made in the same run & sold at the same store are doing it, and the G.C. kid's boss is standing behind him, with a stopwatch, carrot and stick....

 

[richship]

This is very similar to the problem my Robot SG has. The nitro is cracking at the fret ends and separating at the side dots.

what did you do?

I'm living with it until I have another decent electric working (should be soon!). Then I'll take it apart and fix the finish.

 

[pabloman]

The LP Studios have been doin that for quite a few years. It seemed most prevelant on the white ones. Mine did this and I talked to our Gibson rep and he told me alot of the "better guitar shops were using the method stubhead described. It's easier than dealing with the factory for warranty work. I also made hime fix my bulging pickup rings on the Standard and the Studio. We had 4 more on the wall doing the same thing. That guy was really embarassed. He was cool though. I gave him a really good deal on a Tele Deluxe. :guitarplayer2: