You Get What You Pay For

Tannin · February 2023

ScreamingDave said:

a "Givson Jumboo" (sic). It was ..... how can I put it ...... as rough as a badger's arse, to be frank. The finish was thin and not very well applied, the tuners were open with the tuning buttons being just thick discs of aluminium hammered onto the ends of the tuner spindles, the pick guard was just a piece of black shiny sticky backed plastic cut to the shape of a normal pickguard

Perfectly normal Gibson. Nothing to see here. Move along please.

Soupman · February 2023

@ScreamingDave re the lost Fender - someone may have done you a favour! I almost bought a Washburn many years ago. Nice guitar. To get one for that price with a Fishman pickup - sounds like it could be a bargain. Best of luck with it.

ScreamingDave · February 2023

Can someone explain to me why, in the name of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey, does anyone still use Parcelforce? The tracking on the Washburn showed it was at the final delivery depot at 5 am yesterday, and there it stayed! This was supposed to be a guaranteed delivery yesterday, and instead it just sat there going nowhere. The Fender has now caught up with it! Wtf?!

So now they’ll probably both be delivered together on Monday and I have to make sure I decline delivery of the correct one.

ScreamingDave · February 2023

Yeah, I had a Washburn D10S dreadnought, with a solid top, some years back and it was lovely. Never been quite sure why I sold it, apart from the usual excuse which goes along the lines of, “I’m an idiot.”

BillDL · February 2023

There are a lot of people that hear "laminate" and think of B&Q 5mm "plywood" with a Sapele facing on each side and some soft crappy wood material sandwiched between them. That would be as resonant as a cheap sapele internal door that's filled with honeycomb cardboard. Of course not all laminated guitar material will be equal, but companies like Yamaha, Fender, Cort, etc use much more solid and grained wood between layers and it is heavily compressed and bonded so that it is quite rigid and moves almost as freely as solid wood without any fuzzy softwood filling to act as a damper.

Soupman · February 2023

@ BillDL said

There are a lot of people that hear "laminate" and think of B&Q 5mm "plywood" with a Sapele facing on each side and some soft crappy wood material sandwiched between them. That would be as resonant as a cheap sapele internal door that's filled with honeycomb cardboard.

You're talking about my first guitar here!

ScreamingDave · February 2023

BillDL said:

There are a lot of people that hear "laminate" and think of B&Q 5mm "plywood" with a Sapele facing on each side and some soft crappy wood material sandwiched between them. That would be as resonant as a cheap sapele internal door that's filled with honeycomb cardboard. Of course not all laminated guitar material will be equal, but companies like Yamaha, Fender, Cort, etc use much more solid and grained wood between layers and it is heavily compressed and bonded so that it is quite rigid and moves almost as freely as solid wood without any fuzzy softwood filling to act as a damper.

True, mind you, Danelectro became legends by making guitar bodies out if Masonite (hardboard, to us Brits) front and back over a laminated frame!

Tannin · February 2023

Masonite is a wonderful material! Long lasting, cheap, easy to work, can be made in any shape desired, and 100% natural timber. No nasty chemicals, no horrorshow industrial processes, just powdered wood, steam, and lots of pressure. I love the stuff.

But not in a guitar for Pete's sake!

guyinlyon · February 2023

ScreamingDave said:

"Well, you get what you pay for..."

Not always. I ordered a battery charger on-line once.

Paid for it but I never received it.

jw_H-535 · February 2023

Agree and disagree. There are some great deals to be had, the Yamaha storias are amazing for the money lovely playing guitars and a not unusable pick up to boot. But equally at the very lowest end of the market you are correct you get what you pay for.

bertie · February 2023

guyinlyon said:

ScreamingDave said:

"Well, you get what you pay for..."

Not always. I ordered a battery charger on-line once.
Paid for it but I never received it.

bet you felt quite flat

ScreamingDave · February 2023

Well, the Washburn finally arrived (as did the Fender, on the same van! that got returned to sender). Luckily, I absolutely love it. Now doing all those necessary tweaks to make it mine. Added a strap butting to the heel and now changing strings and setting up!

LastMantra · February 2023

When I bought my wee seagull, I didn't find out it had laminated bits (sides and back at least) until a while later. I didn't care, it played and sounded fine in the shop and still does. Even now my son has put stickers all over it! Great wee guitar for under 300 (probably get one cheaper now).
Fretboard is a bit on the tight/narrow side for me tbh, but it's fine for my son.

GoFish · February 2023

ScreamingDave said:

Well, the Washburn finally arrived (as did the Fender, on the same van! that got returned to sender). Luckily, I absolutely love it. Now doing all those necessary tweaks to make it mine. Added a strap butting to the heel and now changing strings and setting up!

Result!! What strings are you going for?

ScreamingDave · February 2023

GoFish said:

ScreamingDave said:

Well, the Washburn finally arrived (as did the Fender, on the same van! that got returned to sender). Luckily, I absolutely love it. Now doing all those necessary tweaks to make it mine. Added a strap butting to the heel and now changing strings and setting up!

Result!! What strings are you going for?

I've switched them to a set of D'adarrio bronze 11s with an unwound 3rd. I mainly use it to practice stuff I play on electric, and like a lot of electric players I play an acioustic like it's an electric ,,,,

sev112 · February 2023

ScreamingDave said:

Can someone explain to me why, in the name of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey, does anyone still use Parcelforce? The tracking on the Washburn showed it was at the final delivery depot at 5 am yesterday, and there it stayed! This was supposed to be a guaranteed delivery yesterday, and instead it just sat there going nowhere. The Fender has now caught up with it! Wtf?!

So now they’ll probably both be delivered together on Monday and I have to make sure I decline delivery of the correct one.

Because they are all the same ?

guitarjack66 · February 2023

sev112 said:

ScreamingDave said:

Can someone explain to me why, in the name of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey, does anyone still use Parcelforce? The tracking on the Washburn showed it was at the final delivery depot at 5 am yesterday, and there it stayed! This was supposed to be a guaranteed delivery yesterday, and instead it just sat there going nowhere. The Fender has now caught up with it! Wtf?!

So now they’ll probably both be delivered together on Monday and I have to make sure I decline delivery of the correct one.

Because they are all the same ?

Overland Express on here have a rep who is active and its getting a decent rep when buying and selling used guitars.

ScreamingDave · February 2023

The thing with Parcelforce was that yesterday I had both guitar shipments appear on the tracking page as being "out for delivery". Great! Then one of them (the Washburn that I wanted to actually keep) went to something like "unable to secure PIN verification". WTF??!! So I called Parcelforce. First I had to negotiate their infuriating automated answering service (DON'T get me started), which basically exists as a way of preventing you from ever getting to talk to a real person. I had to pretend I was a new business customer wanting to set up an account in order to get to speak to an actual person, and then I 'fessed up, and to be fair they were very helpful, as far as they could be, but the whole thing appeared to be a mystery as the second shipment was still "out for delivery". They told me they could "request" the driver to come back with it, to which I told them, in no uncertain terms, that "request" doth butter no parsnips, thankyouverymuch, and they'd better mover on to "order".

Well, the delivery driver turns up, lovely guy, sorted out the return to sender one, and when I told him that he had another one for me and pointed to the one it probably was (it being a guitar-shaped box) he told me that they regularly get a load of parcels on the van which have no information up on the handheld device they run it all off, meaning they keep having to scroll through loads of blank pages, so they cancel them by the "unable to secure PIN verification" thing and then go back and delivery the blank ones using the labels on the parcels. MAD!!!

Anyway, I'm calm now, Thank you for listening.

Soupman · February 2023

@ScreamingDave so it's the old story.
The persons on the front end found a workaround for a technical glitch, initiated by management who know nowt about parcel delivery because their previous managent experience was in the soft drinks industry or something. So the only way for them to support their position is to focus on the figures.
Lucky for us all that people manage to find workarounds!

Evidence the recent debacle of the Post Office scandal where the local postmasters were blamed (& some jailed) for a software fault, rather than admit a system failure!

Rant over. Apologies for twisting the thread.

Glad you like the Washburn. As already mentioned, I almost bought one many years ago but opted instead for a Flambeau, which I still use daily 35 years on.

How's about a photo of it?

bugileman · February 2023

Soupman said:

@ScreamingDave so it's the old story.
The persons on the front end found a workaround for a technical glitch, initiated by management who know nowt about parcel delivery because their previous managent experience was in the soft drinks industry or something. So the only way for them to support their position is to focus on the figures.
Lucky for us all that people manage to find workarounds!
Evidence the recent debacle of the Post Office scandal where the local postmasters were blamed (& some jailed) for a software fault, rather than admit a system failure!

Rant over. Apologies for twisting the thread.

Glad you like the Washburn. As already mentioned, I almost bought one many years ago but opted instead for a Flambeau, which I still use daily 35 years on.

How's about a photo of it?

If you like your Flambeau, you should try an Artisan......they are great guitars. Designed by Mr Lowden too.

ScreamingDave · February 2023

Soupman said:

@ScreamingDave so it's the old story.
The persons on the front end found a workaround for a technical glitch, initiated by management who know nowt about parcel delivery because their previous managent experience was in the soft drinks industry or something. So the only way for them to support their position is to focus on the figures.
Lucky for us all that people manage to find workarounds!
Evidence the recent debacle of the Post Office scandal where the local postmasters were blamed (& some jailed) for a software fault, rather than admit a system failure!

Rant over. Apologies for twisting the thread.

Glad you like the Washburn. As already mentioned, I almost bought one many years ago but opted instead for a Flambeau, which I still use daily 35 years on.

How's about a photo of it?

The stupid thing is, if they’d never had the tracking thing in the first place, I’d have been blissfully unaware if all this!

ScreamingDave · February 2023

Soupman said:

How's about a photo of it?

I’ll try to post one tomorrow.

The only thing that isn’t all that great is the plugged in sound, but that’s because it’s a piezo thingy. I kept wondering why my Ibanez Talman has such an amazing plugged-in sound in comparison, and then I remembered it’s because it has a mag pup

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