I ordered a guitar from a well-known luthier. Time estimate was a year to a year and a half. Now it's two and a half years, and still no guitar. Anyone else experienced anything like this recently?
Ouch! No but I'm curious, does the luthier provide you any updates or pictures of your build along the way? I'm asking because I am having one built currently by a very well known luthier and he sends me pics and chats with me fairly regularly to work out various preferences, etc. Having had many guitars built over the years it's something I look for in a luthier. I look for luthiers who have a reputation of engaging frequently with their clients. They tend to be more transparent than those who don't do that.
Not with a luthier but I had to stop going to the best guy I know of for set-ups and other work recently as his turn-around time started approaching a year!
He rarely contacts me (over the past 2 1/2 years), usually only if I check back with him. One year ago he said it would be ready the following month. Many sob stories, seems like he couldn't have built even one guitar in the past year. Latest is it will be done by the end of this month.
I have only had one made to order once and that took about four months I think including delivery from France to Australia, but of course some one-man operations may have a lot of work on and take a little longer. I would think though that while nobody wants to turn away business, if you know you are so busy and have at least six months of orders to catch up on then would it not be better to come clean and tell the customer "sorry, too busy, try someone else"?
What's very uncool is saying it's almost done and then... nothing... seems like it went back to starting from scratch. And doesn't sound like you got any explanation either way.
That is absolutely excessive. I ordered a Vit Cache and he couldn't wait to show me the build he was making, it almost felt like I was there making decisions (I actually had a few decisions to make). 4 months it took, the transport postal was almost as long! (not his fault). If you could, I'd ask for the money returned and find a different luthier. The aggravation of dealing with this and having to put it out there in public (something I am sure you do not enjoy doing) was not supposed to be part of the cost of the guitar.
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Ouch! No but I'm curious, does the luthier provide you any updates or pictures of your build along the way? I'm asking because I am having one built currently by a very well known luthier and he sends me pics and chats with me fairly regularly to work out various preferences, etc. Having had many guitars built over the years it's something I look for in a luthier. I look for luthiers who have a reputation of engaging frequently with their clients. They tend to be more transparent than those who don't do that.
Not with a luthier but I had to stop going to the best guy I know of for set-ups and other work recently as his turn-around time started approaching a year!
He rarely contacts me (over the past 2 1/2 years), usually only if I check back with him. One year ago he said it would be ready the following month. Many sob stories, seems like he couldn't have built even one guitar in the past year. Latest is it will be done by the end of this month.
That sucks my friend, I hate to hear that. Hopefully you'll get your guitar soon.
I'll be waiting forever for my Selmer.
It's a bad predicament.
Time to go to a different luthier.
I have only had one made to order once and that took about four months I think including delivery from France to Australia, but of course some one-man operations may have a lot of work on and take a little longer. I would think though that while nobody wants to turn away business, if you know you are so busy and have at least six months of orders to catch up on then would it not be better to come clean and tell the customer "sorry, too busy, try someone else"?
Yeah asking for your deposit back might be the thing to consider.
Well, typically one person shops are very slow but that seems excessive unless they are having other issues.
What's very uncool is saying it's almost done and then... nothing... seems like it went back to starting from scratch. And doesn't sound like you got any explanation either way.
That is absolutely excessive. I ordered a Vit Cache and he couldn't wait to show me the build he was making, it almost felt like I was there making decisions (I actually had a few decisions to make). 4 months it took, the transport postal was almost as long! (not his fault). If you could, I'd ask for the money returned and find a different luthier. The aggravation of dealing with this and having to put it out there in public (something I am sure you do not enjoy doing) was not supposed to be part of the cost of the guitar.
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