Me build a 17" Jazz Arch Top.

[Kim]

Yes its a shame, but hardly the end of the world..

Maybe Duh Padma should have ask this forums admin if it was OK for him to include what is very much more than just a simple plug for the guy who owns the forum at which he himself is a moderator and is receiving favour because of that association...This forum is not Mario Decosta's billboard and something needed to be said so I back Martin 100%.

I have had very similar experiences to Martin with Decosta....It is not that he is an outright crook, as Padma states he does (sort of) attempt to put thing right when there is a problem. The main problem with that is that he gets things habitually wrong because of a half arsed attitude and he is most certainly not always as above board about the description of his wares as I would expect from a reputable vendor in regards to discolouration, 'jointing edge' incursions in a plate not exempt from inclusion when quoting size of set, uneven resaw wedging its way to a thin edge which 'may' have been 'just' thick enough to sand clean the resaw marks and be usable if it were not for the thick black permanent marking pen some Einstein had used to scribbled a silly name all over it which soaked so far 'in' to the spruce that the set becomes completely worthless unless you paint the whole top black, a small neat hole at the upper bout outside of a "Master grade" plate that upon sanding revealed a 1/4" trench leading to a pupated and mummified wood worm that ceased to exist somewhere around the soundhole....etc, etc..

When you combine all that with what can be up to 17 weeks shipping from Canada only to find that pretty much anything good is covered in mold because it was all packed and wrapped when it was not properly dried, it can be a little annoying. But when you contact the guy to let him know about it and he builds you up with promises to put it all right, and then does 'exactly' the same bloody thing as he done in the first instance by wrapping up wet wood and having you wait another 3 months to open yet another stack of ruined wood, things can get a little disheartening as you come to understand that contact with the bloke will only result in still more frustration. It becomes easier just to reply to the bombardment of your inbox that everything is OK so it will all go away and allow you to move forward putting the whole affair down to experience....when you then hear from others that they have had exactly the same experience, it is then that you understand what you had been dealing with and it ain't a crook..its just someone who does not really give a shit about their customers or the wood, because they're so completely focused on the dollars, that they don't have room to learn from their own stupid mistakes.

It also needs to be mentioned that whilst the ANZLF does encourage its members to openly express their satisfaction with any vendor, that privilege is reserved for those who are doing so as a standard paying customer of that business. The ANZLF has never allowed endorsements or promotion of a business to be made by any member who has a direct interest in, association with, or somehow derives a benefit from a connection to that enterprise, so in that regard Duh Padma over stepped the mark...His endorsement was not only over the top, it was SPAM.

All that said, at the end of the day given the benefit of hindsight, it probably would have been better for this thread had Marty kept it private and explain our concerns directly to Duh Padma via PM and requested that he edit his own thread to remove his advertisement references...and lets not beat about the bush here, that's exactly what much of the opening of this thread was...an add for a vendor with whom a number of people have had issues with in the past.

With that I am locking this thread with the hope there were some lessons learned.

EDIT: Matthew, if you are to delete the content of your own posts in future, would you please ensure that you leave notification in them to advise it was "deleted by author".... otherwise the admin of this forum may be falsely accused of censorship by anyone prone to jumping to conclusions. That would of course go for you as well Duh Padma.

Cheers

Kim