Things you'd never do on a guitar build...

[mayfly]

Cagey is correct!  And I've proudly ridden rice rockets for 20 years! :headbang1:

 

[line6man]

I saw a dude speeding down the road and cutting everyone off in his hot rodded Ford Escort the other day. He had his music playing at a reasonable volume, and the car was rattling like it was falling apart. Why on earth would anyone bother to spend money on a Ford Escort? That's nearly as bad as the idiots that trick out their $5k Honda Civics.
:dontknow:

 

[MSP]

I always thought ricers were kids who did up their cars with crazy upgrades.  We had a whole collection of them near where I grew up and they'd congregate for hours in the local McDonalds car park with their car hoods up.  They'd bought the cheapest new cars possible and then stuck on body kits with huge spoilers and very expensive stereos, buying upgrades that cost more than the car.  They were lowered so far that they had to go over speed humps at an angle.

 

[Jusatele]

guess as a motorcycle guy I always thought Ricer was a guy on a Jap bike

well then I am proudly a ricer because I have never found a American bike that can keep up with my Kawasaki 1200

 

[Jusatele]

2. I would never build a Tele, Strat, or Soloist.  I like them, but if I'm building a custom guitar, I want something far less common.

3. After having owned American, Korean, Japanese, Indonesian, and Chinese made guitars, I will never own anything but an American made one...unless it's an ESP or Ibanez.  In that case, I will only look own the ones made in Japan, their "home" country. 

I have nothing at all against building a clone as long as I do not badge it as one
I cannot figure why if you have the skills you would not want to improve apon a current design

and as far as American built, I love the buy American attitude, but a lot of techs will tell you the best guitars built in the world come from the Fuji plant in Japan, their quality save Fender in the 80s from going under and still rules today. Look for a Orville brand 335 and it will rival anything Gibson has ever put out when they still had quality to their name.

 

[Torment Leaves Scars]

1. I would never make a "ricer" guitar.  "Ricer" is the term car guys use when we see a car that "poses" as something it isn't; an example would be a BMW 330i with an "M3" badge on it, or a V6 Mustang with "GT" badges on it.  You get the drift.  That means, I wouldn't build a Warmoth Soloist, from body to neck, and then putting a "Jackson" sticker on the headstock.  The same would go for a Tele or a Strat.  Yeah, I'd build'em, but you wouldn't find "Fender" labels on them.

Umm... I'm not sure that's true. My understanding has always been that "ricer" was a derogatory term meant to disparage the origin of manufacture, namely any Pacific Rim country such as Japan. It usually applies to bikes, but has come to include cars as well, and implies that the builders are dirt-poor morons who live on rice rather than real food, such as cheeseburgers and pizza, and so couldn't build anything worthwhile no matter how hard they tried.

Of course, that isn't true. Much of what destroyed the US car industry wasn't the Japanese, but piss-poor design and build on our part. Anybody (with perhaps the exception of the Russians) could build a better car than an American company, and did for enough years that there's now a large portion of the car-buying public who would no sooner look at paying good money for an American car than they would just light their cigars with it. Even though we're building some good vehicles now, we wouldn't have been if it weren't for the Japanese, and the road back to trustworthiness is still under heavy construction.

Gibson and Fender have the same problem. It's too easy to get a better instrument than what they make, and often for dramatically less money. We'd all like to support our fellow citizens, but we all work hard for our money, too. So, we're not going to spend it foolishly on a principle that even those we're defending don't appear to hold themselves. They've lost the trust, and it's going to take a lot of work over an extended period of time to ever get it back.

Well I just explained my meaning on the term "ricer" so if you find the remark to be disparaging, I don't know what to tell you.  It has nothing to do with race.

I own 9 guitars.  The few American ones haven't ever given me problems, nor has any of my American made gear.  The rest have given me problems.  I'll spend the extra money for what I feel is a higher quality product, just as anyone would.

 

[Cagey]

I didn't mean you were being disparaging, just that it's that kind of term. You may not have even known the etymology. Kinda like "jerry-rigged" pokes at Germans. Most people aren't aware of that, either.

 

[stubhead]

and as far as American built, I love the buy American attitude, but a lot of techs will tell you the best guitars built in the world come from the Fuji plant in Japan, their quality save Fender in the 80s from going under and still rules today. Look for a Orville brand 335 and it will rival anything Gibson has ever put out when they still had quality to their name.

"Best guitars built in the world" covers a pretty broad base - I suppose these are the techs who have seen every guitar in the world, including the ones built 20 and 30 years after the Fuji plant's heyday? Besides, wasn't it Matsumoku?
http://www.matsumoku.org/guitars.html

There are so many guitars in the world today built to a standard that leaves no room for improvement, any change would be opinion-based rather than quality-based. "Best" is a confining word, given that many of the Fuji-Gen Gakki guitars were copying some flawed designs, i.e. the Les Paul and Stratocaster. The Japanese Fenders were only playable after a refret; and the closer you copied a Les Paul's neck the more likely it was to snap off, just like the real ones. 

 

[Jusatele]

Opinions are opinions, we are discussing an opinion, when we have a book that tells us which opinions are correct then they will no longer be subjective. Till then he thinks USA guitars are the best and others think some of the Japan guitars are best. I am sure you could get someone to say Musima makes the best guitars in the world then where would we be?

 

[SlartiBartfast]

I didn't mean you were being disparaging, just that it's that kind of term. You may not have even known the etymology. Kinda like "jerry-rigged" pokes at Germans. Most people aren't aware of that, either.

Really? I never knew that, although I suppose I never really thought about where that phrase came from before. Interesting!

And just my $0.02, but "ricer" and "rice burner" have always been used in a racist or derogatory way every time I've ever heard them uttered, so I'm with you on that front.

 

[Torment Leaves Scars]

I didn't mean you were being disparaging, just that it's that kind of term. You may not have even known the etymology. Kinda like "jerry-rigged" pokes at Germans. Most people aren't aware of that, either.

Really? I never knew that, although I suppose I never really thought about where that phrase came from before. Interesting!

And just my $0.02, but "ricer" and "rice burner" have always been used in a racist or derogatory way every time I've ever heard them uttered, so I'm with you on that front.

Is that so?  When?  The only time I've ever heard "ricer" used is when referring to something such as a Honda with a "coffee can" exhaust tip on it.  :icon_scratch:

 

[AutoBat]

Kinda like "jerry-rigged" pokes at Germans. Most people aren't aware of that, either.

I always knew it as a mutation of Jury Rig. Defintion being "to erect, construct, or arrange in a makeshift fashion "

 

[Jusatele]

OK I am insulted, no one has bashed my ethnic heritage

I feel left out and demand we shut the thread down for not being racist enough

 

[Cagey]

Kinda like "jerry-rigged" pokes at Germans. Most people aren't aware of that, either.

I always knew it as a mutation of Jury Rig. Defintion being "to erect, construct, or arrange in a makeshift fashion "

No. There's no such thing as "jury-rigged", it's a mispronunciation of "jerry-rigged". It means what you think, but it goes back to the '40s when Germany's plans for world domination were circling the drain. Being resource-poor and short of time, they were repairing and slapping things together with toadshit and waxed paper in a futile effort to keep the war machine running. German soldiers were known as "jerry" for some reason I've never known - I believe the British came up with it - hence the term "jerry-rigged".

 

[AutoBat]

Jury Rig dates to the mid 1700s and refers a temporary (nautical) mast to get the ship home.
Origins aside, I love http://thereIfixedIt.failblog.org

 

[NQbass7]

Both "jury-rig" and "jerry-built" are phrases that were used and have their own separate meanings, but "jerry-built" does not derive from the British slang of referring to Germans as "Jerry" - http://www.yaelf.com/aueFAQ/mifjrrybltjryrggd.shtml. It came about it 1869, while the practice of Jerry as slang for a German didn't start until 1898.

"Jerry-built", which the OED defines as "built unsubstantially of
bad materials; built to sell but not last" is attested since 1869,
and is said to have arisen in Liverpool.  It has been fancifully
derived from the Biblical city of Jericho, whose walls came tumbling
down; from the prophet Jeremiah, because he foretold decay; from the
name of a building firm on the Mersey; from "jelly", signifying
instability; from French _jour_="day" (workers paid day-by-day
considered less likely to do a good job); and from the Romany
_gerry_="excrement".  More likely, it is linked to earlier
pejorative uses of the name Jerry ("jerrymumble", to knock about,
1721; "Jerry Sneak", a henpecked husband, 1764; "jerry", a cheap
beer house, 1861); and it may have been influenced by "jury-rigged".

  "Jerry" as British slang for "a German, especially a German
soldier" is not attested until 1898 and is unconnected with
"jerry-built".

 

[Tonar8352]

Wait a minute I thought all words originated from Greek and Windex will cure everything.  :glasses10:

 

[AutoBat]

Things I won't do on a guitar:
6 point trems
bent metal saddles
tele headstock
gold hardware
bigsby bridge
non-bolted bridge (like on some Gretschs, have to reintonate every string change)
gold hardware
Mary Kay finish
nickel/silver frets
relicing
nonlocking tuners (without a locking nut anyhow)
b bender
HHH setup.
gold hardware.

 

[m4rk0]

Fuji plant...... wasn't it Matsumoku?

Both! I have multiple hearfields, Contemporary Strats and also Westones!!!
The best? maybe not, but they are for the money!

the truth is, I couldn't afford a collection of American made guitars unless they were all Warmoths Other than my Warmoths, most all of the others are Japanese made!

 

[Jusatele]

Wait a minute I thought all words originated from Greek and Windex will cure everything.  :glasses10:

I am with you on that