kodiakblair

Haphazard QC hasn't hindered sales of the top 3 US brands, despite a rap sheet going on for 50 years. Hell when the MusicMan folks sold up to Ernie Ball there was 2300 duff instruments in the inventory, instruments supplied by one Clarence L Fender Reason they're cheap is necks are not expensive items to make. I was paying £14 for maple neck blanks, £4 for the fingerboard and about £7 for TR and fretwire. Looking to cut my costs I shopped around, at Timbnet the cost for maple dropped to £9. Then I saw some folks on Ali-Ex with necks in the £45 - £50 bracket so I asked them a few questions, lets face it £20 more vs 2-3 hours of my time; those questions were worth asking 🙂 That was me, £25, building one neck, factories do 100's every day. This one here is Panga Panga fretboard/neck, think I was £16 or £18 for the blank and £6 for the fretboard North American commercial timber trading is done in units of MBF, that's 1000 board feet; takes 1 board foot to make a bass neck. Sawmills in North America pay $220 for 1MBF of hard maple. Once sawn and dried it sells for $6 per BF, drops when buying in bulk and Guitar factories buy in bulk, pretty big bulk. FMIC in Corona do about 6 MBF of maple a month, at that volume they'll be paying around $3 if not less. Places Cort over in Indonesia and Shenqu in China go through twice that in a week. It's manufacturing at huge levels so I wouldn't be surprised if East Asian folks followed World Music Instruments and Kawai's example by operating their own sawmills in North America. County Shenqu are based in has 130 guitar factories so you can bet your backside somebody there owns a sawmill in North America.

A very bad picture. Much prefer how mine's looks 👍

That doesn't match my experience. Must have bought 12 necks from China, not one had a logo or serial number. One had a slightly raised fret, solved by a gentle tap. Did you see the other neck suggestions on your link ? From 6 necks on one page only one bears a logo, I'd say that's stretching the word "often" 😀 https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005009991284609.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller.1.4e4dNSn4NSn43V&gps-id=pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller&scm=1007.40050.354490.0&scm_id=1007.40050.354490.0&scm-url=1007.40050.354490.0&pvid=a4726a16-5658-4035-b23e-1e3efc764c9b&_t=gps-id:pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller,scm-url:1007.40050.354490.0,pvid:a4726a16-5658-4035-b23e-1e3efc764c9b,tpp_buckets:668%232846%238109%231935&pdp_ext_f={"order"%3A"2"%2C"eval"%3A"1"%2C"sceneId"%3A"30050"%2C"fromPage"%3A"recommend"}&pdp_npi=6%40dis!GBP!44.48!43.59!!!398.57!390.59!%40211b629217727880589417725e0ac6!12000050779698697!rec!UK!!ABX!1!0!n_tag%3A-29910%3Bd%3Aecfdbfe8%3Bm03_new_user%3A-29895&utparam-url=scene%3ApcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller|query_from%3A|x_object_id%3A1005009991284609|_p_origin_prod%3A https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007966691040.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller.4.4e4dNSn4NSn43V&gps-id=pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller&scm=1007.40050.354490.0&scm_id=1007.40050.354490.0&scm-url=1007.40050.354490.0&pvid=a4726a16-5658-4035-b23e-1e3efc764c9b&_t=gps-id:pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller,scm-url:1007.40050.354490.0,pvid:a4726a16-5658-4035-b23e-1e3efc764c9b,tpp_buckets:668%232846%238109%231935&pdp_ext_f={"order"%3A"11"%2C"eval"%3A"1"%2C"sceneId"%3A"30050"%2C"fromPage"%3A"recommend"}&pdp_npi=6%40dis!GBP!92.29!74.44!!!119.77!96.61!%40211b629217727880589417725e0ac6!12000043063052896!rec!UK!!ABX!1!0!n_tag%3A-29910%3Bd%3Aecfdbfe8%3Bm03_new_user%3A-29895%3BpisId%3A5000000200748929&utparam-url=scene%3ApcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller|query_from%3A|x_object_id%3A1005007966691040|_p_origin_prod%3Ahttps://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006632031494.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller.5.4e4dNSn4NSn43V&gps-id=pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller&scm=1007.40050.354490.0&scm_id=1007.40050.354490.0&scm-url=1007.40050.354490.0&pvid=a4726a16-5658-4035-b23e-1e3efc764c9b&_t=gps-id:pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller,scm-url:1007.40050.354490.0,pvid:a4726a16-5658-4035-b23e-1e3efc764c9b,tpp_buckets:668%232846%238109%231935&pdp_ext_f={"order"%3A"2"%2C"eval"%3A"1"%2C"sceneId"%3A"30050"%2C"fromPage"%3A"recommend"}&pdp_npi=6%40dis!GBP!171.39!171.39!!!222.41!222.41!%40211b629217727880589417725e0ac6!12000037878183920!rec!UK!!ABX!1!0!n_tag%3A-29910%3Bd%3Aecfdbfe8%3Bm03_new_user%3A-29895&utparam-url=scene%3ApcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller|query_from%3A|x_object_id%3A1005006632031494|_p_origin_prod%3A https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32824167012.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller.10.4e4dNSn4NSn43V&gps-id=pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller&scm=1007.40050.354490.0&scm_id=1007.40050.354490.0&scm-url=1007.40050.354490.0&pvid=a4726a16-5658-4035-b23e-1e3efc764c9b&_t=gps-id:pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller,scm-url:1007.40050.354490.0,pvid:a4726a16-5658-4035-b23e-1e3efc764c9b,tpp_buckets:668%232846%238109%231935&pdp_ext_f={"order"%3A"21"%2C"eval"%3A"1"%2C"sceneId"%3A"30050"%2C"fromPage"%3A"recommend"}&pdp_npi=6%40dis!GBP!84.69!68.98!!!109.90!89.52!%40211b629217727880589417725e0ac6!64804647210!rec!UK!!ABX!1!0!n_tag%3A-29910%3Bd%3Aecfdbfe8%3Bm03_new_user%3A-29895%3BpisId%3A5000000200748928&utparam-url=scene%3ApcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller|query_from%3A|x_object_id%3A32824167012|_p_origin_prod%3A https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008529948447.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller.13.4e4dNSn4NSn43V&gps-id=pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller&scm=1007.40050.354490.0&scm_id=1007.40050.354490.0&scm-url=1007.40050.354490.0&pvid=a4726a16-5658-4035-b23e-1e3efc764c9b&_t=gps-id:pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller,scm-url:1007.40050.354490.0,pvid:a4726a16-5658-4035-b23e-1e3efc764c9b,tpp_buckets:668%232846%238109%231935&pdp_ext_f={"order"%3A"5"%2C"eval"%3A"1"%2C"sceneId"%3A"30050"%2C"fromPage"%3A"recommend"}&pdp_npi=6%40dis!GBP!175.99!175.99!!!1576.97!1576.97!%40211b629217727880589417725e0ac6!12000051461492908!rec!UK!!ABX!1!0!n_tag%3A-29910%3Bd%3Aecfdbfe8%3Bm03_new_user%3A-29895&utparam-url=scene%3ApcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller|query_from%3A|x_object_id%3A1005008529948447|_p_origin_prod%3A

@kwmlondon I'm sure you knew what you meant to say in that post but it makes zero sense to me. As for the Fender logo, do you have evidence the neck shipped from China bearing it ? Fake decals as available from eBay so it could have ben added by the last owner.

Do they ? How about this for QC then. Passed Fender's brand protection QC and also passed Sweetwater's 55 point inspection

Why 'surprisingly' ? China and Indonesia produce 3 maybe 4 times as many instruments per year as the rest of the world combined, factories there are more than capable.

He doesn't argue, just fires out a constant spray of shite in the hope one tiny faecal molecule hits something.

Possibly but somebody on another forum posted this. "I mean, they're almost $200mil in debt at the moment, debt to EBITDA keeps climbing, and had seriously negative cash flow in 2025, something like $20mil if memory serves. Keep getting downgraded (rightly so) by Moody's, and they're on the cusp of another fat round of layoffs in April (see WARN) with their new leadership." I also wonder if there is another factor at play. Servco Pacific own both FMIC and Harley Davidson. HD's debt is massive and they have 80,000 unsold bikes with dealers .

$710 for a pair of Novak DS, then you shipping and the 20% VAT. Probably 3x cost of the bass 🤣

Good friend of mine knows a thing or two about Cirrus 5 strings. Gillian has 2 US neck through models and 2 US bolt on models. Made a detour on her drive up for a visit, collected a 'darkwood' Cirrus BXP 5'er; couple of hundred quid 😎 Had a passing knowledge of US Cirrus myself, a black teal, tiger eye custom, bubinga and a bubinga bolt on. Pair of us went over that BXP with a fine toothcomb, A/B'd it against the US models to hand. Verdict. Looked like a Cirrus, played like a Cirrus, sounded like a Cirrus and it felt like a Cirrus. Bloody hell, what a bass 😃 Was very disappointed with mine. Loaned it to Gillian to get her opinion, returned in short order with the words "nice looking bass Davie, pity it has no balls" 🤣 Heard similar descriptions from other Sarzo owners but fella I sold it to was chuffed to bits 🙂

Those keys are on there for a reason. Dead spots are nothing new. Instrument designers like Jim DeCola, currently headman at Gibson/former headman with Fender/designer of DynaBass for Peavey, are well acquainted with them and how to tweak them. It's simple physics, peghead mass. You take a bundle of loaded necks, with overly thick pegheads, stick some piezos on them, hit them with frequencies and record the results. Pegheads get gradually thinned by a sander to arrive at the average thickness causing least offense. Neck dive is caused by a poorly balanced bass. What device do we use to suspend our basses from ? It's not the tuning pegs so beats me why folk ignore the obvious. Buy another strap and adjust the bloody thing.

Infection appears to have spread from bassic.de 😃

Pretty certain mine needs more than a few screws 😀

Oh how I envy you Dave. Drives me mental. It's constant, even hear it will driving the old van. Never get a moments peace and it affects my sleep, neighbour upstairs must be pissed off if she can hear the white noise maker going all night. Hell I'm envious of the cause too. Riding bikes can be fun, was a moment's carelessness with a Hilti done me 🙁 Passed a young fella who was struggling, gave his gun a quick check, reload then a test shot. BAM. half the site took to their heels while the other half came running to see what had exploded 😳 Had to be a duff mix at the factory, data sheet says 137dB but it was louder than that. Powder didn't just drive the nail, it vaporised the cartridge.

Not me, I live in hope some American does fall for it 😀 Good news is the moment is getting closer. Just an hour back I was reading a "Please tell me more" post about an extremely rare 2004 European Peavey Cirrus. Odd thing was Peavey never made any Cirrus basses in Europe until 2024, no overseas models until 2007. Kisser was photo posted with the 2004 s/n, it had the words "Made in Vietnam" alongside it 🤣🤣🤣