Mr Grumpy
Ambassador of Comings and Goings
...I'm busy at work, and decided to take the guitar mods to a local shop.
I know that the 10+ shops I've visited in this town don't have a guitar tech between them, and I know that every time I've paid for a shop to do some work, and every time one of my friends/colleagues have paid to have some work done that the Korean 'workmen' have either: 1) broken the guitar; 2) ballsed the job up and made it worse.
But, last trip to the guitar shop area, I met a shop owner who made acoustics, has decades of practice a full workbench of expensive tools, etc, so I thought I'd give him a go.
It didn't start well... I wanted a SD put into the neck of a tele and the volume turned into a split for that neck pickup only. I also had a Tonepros bridge set, USA spec, that even though my tele is Indonesian made looks like it might fit perfectly (can't find exact specs for the tele onine), so I wanted him to see if that fits while the strings are off. Also, I had a set of Ernie Ball 9-46 to put on instead of the dead 9-42s. Not too much of an ask all in all - I could do it meself, but just felt lazy.
He said the job was too hard for him, didn't know the SD colour coding. I said, the Cort/Manson (BKP) wiring looks to be the exact same colour usage. He says he has a mate who is the electronics whizz around town and has a shop 5 minutes away, he drives me there. The fella says the job is easy, there are others sitting there waiting for his tech work who say they've used him before and he's good, so I leave the guitar and go for a coffee.
...coming back at 4pm, guitar not ready, he says something about it's a harder job than he thought and will need another 24 hours. My Korean is not good, so I says ok see you tomorrow at 4pm.
At 4pm, next day, the guitar is ready, so I have a quick gander and strum/pick a few notes
Massive difference between the neck and bridge volume levels - he has put the bridge puppy down as low as it will go, but still the volume differential is far too much.
"Why is the neck pickup so low? Why not the same level as the one you took out?", I ask
"The screws were too short." He says
"Why didn't you use the ones holding in the old puppy?"
"Wrong size."
"Why didn't you get some screws the right length?"
"*^$%&*&%$$" Goes into heavy Korean which I cannot understand.
"Did you not feel the need to intonate the bridge?"
"$%^%*(%$"
"Why did you turn the new bridge around instead of just copying the old saddle pattern to get the ballpark intonation?"
"The bridge only fitted on one way, not the other way, I tried."
"The low E is badly buzzing, you didn't file down the nut did you?"
"$%^&**^$"
"Did you touch the truss rod?"
"Yes, I did the truss rod." "Do you want me to do the intonation for you?"
"No thanks, I'll take it home and do it, meself..."
I put the guitar in its bag, yes I did pay the $55 because I thought if I was there much longer I'd start getting upset, and it's not great to get angry in foreign countries when the fella's brother is probably the local head of immigration, and I decide to get the bus home - scenic route around town, I like looking around, and it only takes 35 minutes or so.
I get home, take out the guitar, the neck pickup has already fallen out. So, I take the strings off (he had wound the strings around the locking tuners (they only have to be threaded through and the button rotated...), he was right about the screws, different diametre, so he has drilled new holes (thanks for that, stops me using the old screws to fix the neck pickup height problem). I did bring the pole pieces up, as SDs are designed to do (he clearly wasn't aware of this - what with Seymour Duncan being such an obscure manufacturer in the guitar world...) which improved the problem, but not enough - I'm gonna have to head out shopping and buy some longer screws and some foam to put under - there was a clue for him: the old pickup had a piece of foam on and and screws which were exactly the correct length/type...
To be fair to Cort, once I had a look at the bridge that had been taken off it was of equal quality to the Tonepros, the same markings underneath, same weight (the tailpiece too) - I reackon they were unstampped Gotoh parts - everything on this Cort is excellent quality, the guitar needed no modification at all.
Obviously, I turned the Tonepros around and copied the bridge stagger pattern from the initial bridge to get me a decent intonation starting point. It fitted perfectly. Cort used USA spec bridge/tailpiece. Not only was the 'tech' fukin useless, he was a fukin liar too...
&, no, he hadn't tightened the allen screws on the Tonepros bridge and tailpiece...
Now for the really funny part (I've probably forgotten about other bits he fuk'd up, and I haven't even had the heart to take the backplate off and look at the soldering yet, but to my surprise the kill button and push/pull do work correctly!), I was in a hurry to go out and meet friends for dinner, but felt the need to correct the guitar, in a hurry while half in and out of the shower, fell over, smashed the guitar to the ground (seems ok, teles are tough, and this Cort is very well made - this fall would have smashed my Gibson headstock off 100% certainly)) fell onto an upturned chair and fractured a couple of ribs, bruised my kidneys and generally put my back and left side of my body in pain. It was good pain too, winded on the floor, for the first few seconds I wondered if I'd broken my back... Actually, two days later, I'm feeling much better. Nothing serious, I was lucky.
But, I will never, NEVER, N-E-V-E-R goto a Korean guitar 'tech' again.
& yes, apart from the longer screws, I have fixed the bits he fuk'd up. &, yes, in case you were wondering, he had turned the truss rod the wrong way...
I know that the 10+ shops I've visited in this town don't have a guitar tech between them, and I know that every time I've paid for a shop to do some work, and every time one of my friends/colleagues have paid to have some work done that the Korean 'workmen' have either: 1) broken the guitar; 2) ballsed the job up and made it worse.
But, last trip to the guitar shop area, I met a shop owner who made acoustics, has decades of practice a full workbench of expensive tools, etc, so I thought I'd give him a go.
It didn't start well... I wanted a SD put into the neck of a tele and the volume turned into a split for that neck pickup only. I also had a Tonepros bridge set, USA spec, that even though my tele is Indonesian made looks like it might fit perfectly (can't find exact specs for the tele onine), so I wanted him to see if that fits while the strings are off. Also, I had a set of Ernie Ball 9-46 to put on instead of the dead 9-42s. Not too much of an ask all in all - I could do it meself, but just felt lazy.
He said the job was too hard for him, didn't know the SD colour coding. I said, the Cort/Manson (BKP) wiring looks to be the exact same colour usage. He says he has a mate who is the electronics whizz around town and has a shop 5 minutes away, he drives me there. The fella says the job is easy, there are others sitting there waiting for his tech work who say they've used him before and he's good, so I leave the guitar and go for a coffee.
...coming back at 4pm, guitar not ready, he says something about it's a harder job than he thought and will need another 24 hours. My Korean is not good, so I says ok see you tomorrow at 4pm.
At 4pm, next day, the guitar is ready, so I have a quick gander and strum/pick a few notes
Massive difference between the neck and bridge volume levels - he has put the bridge puppy down as low as it will go, but still the volume differential is far too much.
"Why is the neck pickup so low? Why not the same level as the one you took out?", I ask
"The screws were too short." He says
"Why didn't you use the ones holding in the old puppy?"
"Wrong size."
"Why didn't you get some screws the right length?"
"*^$%&*&%$$" Goes into heavy Korean which I cannot understand.
"Did you not feel the need to intonate the bridge?"
"$%^%*(%$"
"Why did you turn the new bridge around instead of just copying the old saddle pattern to get the ballpark intonation?"
"The bridge only fitted on one way, not the other way, I tried."
"The low E is badly buzzing, you didn't file down the nut did you?"
"$%^&**^$"
"Did you touch the truss rod?"
"Yes, I did the truss rod." "Do you want me to do the intonation for you?"
"No thanks, I'll take it home and do it, meself..."
I put the guitar in its bag, yes I did pay the $55 because I thought if I was there much longer I'd start getting upset, and it's not great to get angry in foreign countries when the fella's brother is probably the local head of immigration, and I decide to get the bus home - scenic route around town, I like looking around, and it only takes 35 minutes or so.
I get home, take out the guitar, the neck pickup has already fallen out. So, I take the strings off (he had wound the strings around the locking tuners (they only have to be threaded through and the button rotated...), he was right about the screws, different diametre, so he has drilled new holes (thanks for that, stops me using the old screws to fix the neck pickup height problem). I did bring the pole pieces up, as SDs are designed to do (he clearly wasn't aware of this - what with Seymour Duncan being such an obscure manufacturer in the guitar world...) which improved the problem, but not enough - I'm gonna have to head out shopping and buy some longer screws and some foam to put under - there was a clue for him: the old pickup had a piece of foam on and and screws which were exactly the correct length/type...
To be fair to Cort, once I had a look at the bridge that had been taken off it was of equal quality to the Tonepros, the same markings underneath, same weight (the tailpiece too) - I reackon they were unstampped Gotoh parts - everything on this Cort is excellent quality, the guitar needed no modification at all.
Obviously, I turned the Tonepros around and copied the bridge stagger pattern from the initial bridge to get me a decent intonation starting point. It fitted perfectly. Cort used USA spec bridge/tailpiece. Not only was the 'tech' fukin useless, he was a fukin liar too...
&, no, he hadn't tightened the allen screws on the Tonepros bridge and tailpiece...
Now for the really funny part (I've probably forgotten about other bits he fuk'd up, and I haven't even had the heart to take the backplate off and look at the soldering yet, but to my surprise the kill button and push/pull do work correctly!), I was in a hurry to go out and meet friends for dinner, but felt the need to correct the guitar, in a hurry while half in and out of the shower, fell over, smashed the guitar to the ground (seems ok, teles are tough, and this Cort is very well made - this fall would have smashed my Gibson headstock off 100% certainly)) fell onto an upturned chair and fractured a couple of ribs, bruised my kidneys and generally put my back and left side of my body in pain. It was good pain too, winded on the floor, for the first few seconds I wondered if I'd broken my back... Actually, two days later, I'm feeling much better. Nothing serious, I was lucky.
But, I will never, NEVER, N-E-V-E-R goto a Korean guitar 'tech' again.
& yes, apart from the longer screws, I have fixed the bits he fuk'd up. &, yes, in case you were wondering, he had turned the truss rod the wrong way...
Last edited:
