A win for the customer

[Taffy Evans]

Some weeks ago there was a thread that ended up discussing the shortcomings of some factory built guitars and how faults in production are left to go through to the customer, and then ultimately on to repair shops like mine. At the time I described some of these guitars and mentioned that at times I gave customers a detailed report of my finding so that they could follow up with the distributor.

Well last week my customer emailed me to say that the distributor for the Ovation guitar he had issues with had apparently agreed with the report I had written for him, and agreed to replace the guitar. He also said that as the model was not now available they would have one built for him if he was prepared to wait five months. He was happy with this.

As a matter of interest I have shown the report below and the photo's that accompanied it:

Hi W , I have looked at your 12 string Ovation Standard Balladeer Mod 2751AX [could find no S/#] and fear that I am unable to effect an economical repair. I am sorry to say that there are very few guitars that fall into this bracket with me but this is one of them.
However I shall highlight the problem areas in case you should wish to take this guitar back to the supplier’s attention. If as you say this guitar has not been subjected to extremes of heat or humidity then I may suspect a oversight in manufacture.
*The most obvious anomaly is the high radius of the top. All is good on the inside with all braces appearing to be as they were from the factory.
*The difference between the radius height under tension of the strings and the radius with no tension is 1.12mm.
*The string height at the first fret is also excessive, this and the high top radius contribute to the 4.25mm action at the 12 fret
*The neck is not bowed up so is not contributing to the excessive action height
*However, the neck is set on the same plane as the top. Normally a neck has a calculated angle back [or down] to give the right fingerboard projection to the bridge. As it is [on this guitar] the strings follow a path to the saddle, but the neck follows another.
*Resetting the neck angle may be part of the answer, but is expensive work, strengthening the top so that it does not “pull up” like it does under tension is the other part of the answer, and is equally as expensive.
Adding all the above together I feel this is a job for the suppliers service department.
Regards Taff

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[simso]

I have 5 ovations in at the moment.

One 12 string the top has pulled away from the back
The second a 6 string has had all the braces on the top come away,
The third has bridge seperating from the body and splitting at the top along the sides of the bridge
The fourth has a neck like a sea snake, its wonky as hell, and the tops collpased
And last a saddle pickup that doesnt work, which 3 weeks later I still have not had a reply back from ovation service department for a replacement unit.

All in all not a good look for ovation

[rocket]

A bit of a trend here??
Rod.

[ozziebluesman]

G'day Taffy,

Great outcome mate!

I happened to see this guitar and it was unplayable IMO.

The owner is stoked thanks to your guitar report.

Cheers

Alan

[matthew]

nice to see another wooden straightedge in use Taffy.

[Taffy Evans]

Hi Matthew, its worked well for a few years now, but I would not use it for fret work. The photo shows some others I've made and been using for years, the "T" square goes back to late 1950's. All are still straight and do the their jobs.

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[auscab]

Hi Taffy,
I would like to know what each one does ? and how you use it please.
specially the one with the string line up top.
If I can take a guess at it first, I would say you would use it to measure the twist in a neck ??