Hello everyone,
I didn't know about 'Basschat' but it is a really good site I reckon.
For my sins I have to confess that I am that criminal who has been reported on this site for buying basses, improving them, then selling them for what the market wants to pay for them!
In fact, just reading through the various responses to my crimes I would like to say how reasonable and kind 90% of the people on here have been, in face of my sins!
Can I just say that I honestly do my best to make guitars good to play and sold for an affordable price... I have been doing it full time for a few years now, but I am getting better all the time, and wandering into music shops and picking up their guitars, I have never yet found even top Fenders or Gibsons where I thought... oops! this is so much better to play than my guitars are; in fact the reverse.
When I set up one of my guitars, I polish the fretboard and wire-wool tarnished fret-wires, I put on new strings, I file the nut grooves to bring the strings right low above the first fret-wire, I settle any high fret-wires along the neck, set the truss rod to shape the neck, adjust the bridge height, balance the pickups for even volume across the strings and between pickups, I oil crackly pots and sticky tuners and hone out corroded jack sockets that give intermittent signal.
On a customer's guitar I charge £45 including new strings for this set up work... on my ebay sold guitars it is just what I do before I list them for sale.
I try to be 100% transparent about the guitar on both virtues and faults... on faults because with postage hassle, the last thing I want is someone sending the guitar back saying it plays like a cricket bat, please fix again and return to me!
So I try to make them as perfect to play as it is possible for that particular guitar to be.
It is my sole employment, and with two small kids to feed it matters a lot to me that I can improve and grow my still fledgling venture, so any advice, and all criticisms are very welcome and useful.
Thanks guys,
Mark D Phillips.......