# Claas custom headless NGD - review



## dragonbiscuit (Feb 5, 2015)

Let me start this review off by stating that I am NOT on a mission to destroy this guy&#8217;s reputation. Check out my review and decide for yourselves. I simply feel obligated to present this information as objectively as possible and to that end have uploaded many hi-res pics that back up everything I will describe. The pictures speak for themselves. I sincerely hope this thread does not turn into a Claas bashing hate fest (or result in any animosity toward me). Let&#8217;s keep it respectful to all. I also want to quickly apologize for putting out info about this situation on Zsharp&#8217;s NGD thread. It was not my intention to harsh his NGD buzz or take away from his enjoyment in any way. It&#8217;s obviously a very pretty guitar. 

This will be a somewhat detailed review - so for the impulsive folks (like me) here&#8217;s a link directly to the pics on photobucket: http://s749.photobucket.com/user/dragonbiscuit2001/slideshow/Claas%20POS%20Damage%20Pics

Damage to guitar body: breaks in two places that he poorly attempted to cover up and NEVER disclosed. First is below the bridge along the outer edge of body front, and second is on the outside edge of the body close to the upper recessed strap lock on the player&#8217;s side. Yikes

If that wasn&#8217;t bad enough&#8230; There was an obvious break where a chunk of maple came right off the fret board that was also horribly repaired. I mean look at the pics - Uggh

Moving on&#8230; The fret slots were made very deep and then apparently filled with some type of clear adhesive. Crazy glue? You can see the big gaps from the side view. The worst part of that situation is the way he installed the frets. Look at the fret tangs - my god they&#8217;re terribly crooked and bent. Very bad work - that was undoubtedly rushed. In fact, I&#8217;m guessing the whole build was terribly rushed - hence the poor quality. What other conclusion can I make? He&#8217;s clearly capable of doing good work on other people&#8217;s guitars. 

Nut: There was no nut or form of string guide - at all. Check the pics - the strings moved back and forth laterally along the zero with the slightest pressure resulting in a loud ping noise. While I was still thinking about salvaging this guitar I went ahead and hand filed a black tusq nut that ultimately worked quite well - waste of time of course, but again - this build was rushed - big time. I mean no nut at all? Nothing? 

Placement of the lower recessed strap lock makes it impossible to rest my forearm on the body. Even if everything else was done properly - this would be something big enough to prevent me from playing the guitar - at least with a strap. 

_Everything_ on the guitar was mounted crookedly - I mean everything. Essentially this means all the threaded inserts were installed crookedly in haste. Even his own name plate was mounted crookedly and not flush with the body. The rear trem and control covers were very bad, to the extent that one end of the metal cover was sticking way up past the body and the other end was recessed below it. Also, all the bolts were installed crooked. Check the pics showing the bolts holding on the neck. They were not even put in straight and again - some of them are up past the body while others are very recessed. This is obviously due to a rush job when installing the threaded bolt inserts. 

The way he mounted the trem claw was obviously an attempt to find a workable solution with his body design while installing the Strandberg trem that went horribly wrong, and probably part of the reason (along with the improperly installed threaded inserts) the control cover was mounted so badly. As I attempted to remove the trem cover so I could adjust the trem claw screws (as the floating bridge was nowhere near parallel upon receipt), there was a loud crunch when one of the bolts that he haphazardly installed and inadvertently cross threaded, again due to the misaligned inserts, pulled the whole insert straight out of the body along with a nice chunk of mahogany. Check the pics to see the disaster that was behind the cover. It&#8217;s easy to see this was a terrible botch job, and because of the way he mounted the trem claw it was impossible for me to change string gauges or tuning. I mean look at the trem claw - it's right up against the body! 

The way pickups were mounted make it impossible to adjust their height - no joy. 

Finish: there&#8217;s some kind of weird finish flaw on the body that resulted in a very unsightly streak that is both highly reflective and a completely different texture from the rest of the body. Perhaps something was spilled on it? Clear coat? Who knows - it&#8217;s unsightly and again, could have been mentioned or repaired. 

There&#8217;s actually more a lot more to say but I&#8217;m growing tired, and getting emotional about this again - so I&#8217;ll wrap it up. 

Beyond the very obvious and major flaws in this instrument, I&#8217;m deeply troubled by the fact he never mentioned any of the issues with this guitar, and instead tried to hide them. Even the way he photographed the instrument and posted the pics on his FB site were an obvious attempt to obscure the very big flaws. It&#8217;s an integrity issue (or lack thereof) first and foremost. I demonstrated good faith by paying 100% of this build up front, and even if I had waited to pay the balance after he finished the guitar, I would not have been able to detect the damage due to the way he photographed it. The only way I could ever be compensated fairly in my opinion is with a full refund including shipping wired back to my account before I shipped back the guitar. I mean that&#8217;s only fair considering I showed absolute faith going into this by paying the full balance up front. Will it happen? I highly doubt it. I&#8217;m left with a very expensive guitar that will never be played and cannot be sold. I&#8217;m a man of modest means and spending $3-4K on a guitar represents a tremendous sacrifice to me and my family. They are the only luxury type item I spend money on. Yes, I know it&#8217;s a first world problem and I am truly grateful to own the beautiful guitars I have (love my Suhrs and Strandbergs). I perceive this review as a way to help others make an informed decision regarding a very substantial purchase, and an opportunity for Alexander to do the right thing and refund my money. We all deserve second chances and by no means am I perfect. I hope he owns up to this lapse in judgment and chooses to reimburse me instead of trying to dispute the obvious (I mean look at the pics) but that&#8217;s up to him. Enough said. I wish everyone health, happiness and most of all - plenty of time to play guitar! Peace


----------



## Noxon (Feb 5, 2015)

Yikes, man! That is rough. I can only imagine what you must've felt opening the case the first time and seeing all that. Horrible. I hope it all works out for you and you get refunded. Keep us posted...


----------



## beneharris (Feb 5, 2015)

That's too bad. Sorry to hear all that.  I suppose its fitting some of those pictures were taken over the toilet.


----------



## asher (Feb 5, 2015)

Man, compared to the other ones, this looks like a practice guitar or a Chinese knockoff. 

Have you reached out to him directly?


----------



## dragonbiscuit (Feb 5, 2015)

asher said:


> Man, compared to the other ones, this looks like a practice guitar or a Chinese knockoff.
> 
> Have you reached out to him directly?



Yup


----------



## dragonbiscuit (Feb 5, 2015)

Noxon said:


> Yikes, man! That is rough. I can only imagine what you must've felt opening the case the first time and seeing all that. Horrible. I hope it all works out for you and you get refunded. Keep us posted...



It actually took a bit for me to realize the extent of the situation b/c I had planned to sell it upon receipt in order to raise funds for an antique strat that popped up. So I didn't look closely enough until already in the process of selling it. I silently backed away from that endeavor in utter humiliation and feeling like an idiot...


----------



## beneharris (Feb 5, 2015)

What's he said about the whole thing?


----------



## Neilzord (Feb 5, 2015)

Dude that sucks. That's literally terrible  

I want to know what he has to say for himself as that's just awful. The alignment of the string anchors makes me sick. 

Ethericlaas?


----------



## jamesfarrell (Feb 5, 2015)

Holy crap. No way I would put up with the amount of defect on that guitar. I thought these things were top end.


----------



## dragonbiscuit (Feb 5, 2015)

beneharris said:


> What's he said about the whole thing?



Expressed surprise and concern after seeing my post on the other thread asking why I hadn't contacted him (which I did). He also mentioned knowing about and repairing one of the breaks. That's it so far.


----------



## jamesfarrell (Feb 5, 2015)

Looks like the pores weren't even attempted to be filled. Looks like Mahog right?


----------



## jamesfarrell (Feb 5, 2015)

Man I'm pissed off and this isn't even my guitar. I deal with this sh|t all the time with guitars on Ebay. They take deceptive photographs, then I ask for detailed photos and they tell me "The guitar is brand new"

IDGAF if it's new or used. Just because something is new, doesn't mean it's not full of flaws. I'd get paypal involved and get a refund, if that's how it was paid for. I'll say it here and now. I don't know how the other guitars he makes are, but based on this, I am going to say that this guy is a hack and has no business building guitars.


----------



## Randy (Feb 5, 2015)

Well, it looks really bad ass from far away!


----------



## Cloudy (Feb 5, 2015)

Wow that is just straight terrible! some of those flaws you wouldn't catch on a 50$ chinese ripoff.

I hope you get it all sorted.


----------



## ClaasGuitars (Feb 5, 2015)

Hello,

I am Alexander Claas and I definitely do not want to start any fighting in this thread so this is my one and only comment on this topic. I do not want to sound rude, I just think I got the right to write, how I see the things.

Dragonbiscuit got his guitar for 2500 including case and shipping in November from me and I almost got an heart attack, when I read his comment. I directly send him an e-mail. 
I never heard from him since I shipped the guitar until today, when he awnswered on my email.
He writes in this post, that he tried to contact me, but I allegedly did not reply:
We exchanged 29 e-mails during the building and since then I did not get any message from him. Also not on any other way like SSO, Facebook or phone call.
The ones who already talked to me, know that I always try to answer in a short amount of time. 

I never had problems with any of my clients and if he would have just said anything after he got the guitar, I would have done anything I could to make things right. But I only saw this post this morning, almost three months later, and did absolutely not know what happened.

I offered him to send me the guitar and I will look over and fix things for free.

As I said, I do not want to fight, because that would not be appropriate in this forum, and everybody can have their opinion. 
I only want you all to please look up other posts and forums, Facebook e.g. for information about me and my work. Talk to other clients and and please talk to me! I am happy to have a phone call to anybody who is interested but has some 
concerns now or is not sure what to think. I am always open to ideas and also to 
constructive criticisms. But I only can repeat, that I have to know if there is something wrong, otherwise I cannot act.


----------



## Nag (Feb 5, 2015)

Do you really expect people to believe that you were unaware of those issues ? Butchered fret tangs, crooked inserts and unfilled wood pores under the finish don't just appear like that during the shipping (and nuts don't disappear either)...you let the guitar leave the shop with those issues. If the guitar had only arrived with issues that are likely to happen during shipping (like breaks in the wood) I wouldn't blame you but come on, most of those issues just scream "this wasn't quality-checked". I'll never understand how builders think they can get away with this. I don't care how you justify or apologize, you let that guitar leave your shop in a pathetic condition. Don't expect people NOT to think you're shady after that. If you had quality-checked this (and cared about it) you would never have shipped this guitar like that.


----------



## mniel8195 (Feb 5, 2015)

Alexander lets just cut to the chase. Your full of shit! Look at how horrible this guitar turned out! How can you even defend this work? Your a joke and you should return this poor mans money.


----------



## xwmucradiox (Feb 5, 2015)

I'll take a less aggressive stance than the last two posters and say that a lack of complaint from a customer doesn't mean a product is free of defects, or that defects are unimportant if the customer does not complain. Further, if a job is not done right the first time, it would be unwise to send the product back to the same person for a second attempt at the same job.


----------



## asher (Feb 5, 2015)

mniel8195 said:


> Alexander lets just cut to the chase. Your full of shit! Look at how horrible this guitar turned out! How can you even defend this work? Your a joke and you should return this poor mans money.



Legit problems or not, this is completely unhelpful


----------



## dragonbiscuit (Feb 5, 2015)

Unfortunately it was bank wire to Germany. Learn from my mistake folks


jamesfarrell said:


> Man I'm pissed off and this isn't even my guitar. I deal with this sh|t all the time with guitars on Ebay. They take deceptive photographs, then I ask for detailed photos and they tell me "The guitar is brand new"
> 
> IDGAF if it's new or used. Just because something is new, doesn't mean it's not full of flaws. I'd get paypal involved and get a refund, if that's how it was paid for. I'll say it here and now. I don't know how the other guitars he makes are, but based on this, I am going to say that this guy is a hack and has no business building guitars.


----------



## dragonbiscuit (Feb 5, 2015)

As I expected - complete denial and unwillingness to admit what happened. C'est la vie. I'm done posting on this as well. Buyer beware. It's time for me to shut up and play my guitar


----------



## boingti (Feb 5, 2015)

I think I would stump up the airfare, fly over and smash that firewood into his face until he paid up in full!! That should have been scrapped before it was even finished let alone actually reaching the customer.

I know comments like this don't really help but FFS look at the damn thing, Alaxender you most certainly and not a Class act!


----------



## Esp Griffyn (Feb 5, 2015)

boingti said:


> I think I would stump up the airfare, fly over and smash that firewood into his face until he paid up in full!! That should have been scrapped before it was even finished let alone actually reaching the customer.
> 
> I know comments like this don't really help but FFS look at the damn thing, Alaxender you most certainly and not a Class act!



You're right, that doesn't help at all. I like to think we can carry ourselves with a bit more dignity on this forum.


----------



## xwmucradiox (Feb 5, 2015)

This forum is loaded with guys who jump straight to murder fantasies over bad business transactions.


----------



## oniduder (Feb 5, 2015)

thank you for this, i was thinking of eventually paying the money for one of these, now i'm incredibly hesitant and won't i bet

thing is even on his website it looks like everything is off in the bridge area anyways? i could be wrong since i'm eye balling it and the guitars have a strange angle/curvature to them as is

but it looks like the individual saddles are all crooked ie not inline with the strings 

idk man i'm sorry this happened to you, this has happened to me too, with someone who shall not be named, no not hufshid or whatever but really someone i care not talk about

anyways

thanks again


----------



## asher (Feb 5, 2015)

dragonbiscuit said:


> As I expected - complete denial and unwillingness to admit what happened. C'est la vie. I'm done posting on this as well. Buyer beware. It's time for me to shut up and play my guitar



Isn't this when you take it to PMs (or not, I guess) with dates of emails? 

Oh well.


----------



## Randy (Feb 5, 2015)

Nagash said:


> Do you really expect people to believe that you were unaware of those issues ? Butchered fret tangs, crooked inserts and unfilled wood pores under the finish don't just appear like that during the shipping (and nuts don't disappear either)...you let the guitar leave the shop with those issues. If the guitar had only arrived with issues that are likely to happen during shipping (like breaks in the wood) I wouldn't blame you but come on, most of those issues just scream "this wasn't quality-checked"



Allow me to take a crack at this, because this theme seems to appear on this forum quite regularly.

What's obvious, based on the OP's pictures, is that the builder's QC and attention to detail stops short of perfection. To some degree, in fairness, most builders stop short of perfection; it's just a matter of how far off that mark they land. In this particular case he's 'off' by a fairly, universally recognizably large margin.

That said, what missing from this discussion is something equally as subjective... the level of perfection expected by the customer. As horrifying as many of you might find this, the likelihood this is the first Claas to leave the factory like this is fairly low. Likewise, we know with certainty that this isn't the first Claas to make it into the hands of one of his customers. As such, there's a significant chance that the relative acceptance of said defects are more or less acceptable to the individual depending on who you ask. I know it's hard for most of us to imagine but I can totally see there being (call them less picky or call them naive) customers out there that effectively ignore, have no interest in reporting or outrightly don't care about the defects outlined here.

With all of those elements in mind (and I'd apply this same theme to pretty much any builder you find), the level of perfection which the builder deems acceptable and the expectations of the end user are two different variables with a rather broad range; the results clearly being compounded and proportionately varied.

When Claas says he's 'not aware' of the issues, whether he literally meant that or not, what he actually means is "I was not aware that I was shipping a guitar that bar below the standards of my customer" because we all know full well the actual work shown in the pictures had to have been seen while the guitar was being built. 

I don't mean that as an excuse for Claas, but the fact that every brand that shows up on here has people that sing their praises and others that post guitars with INCREDIBLY evident flaws and 'bad experiences' leads me to believe, overall, there's clearly a significant mismatch in expectations among us; some of them more obvious, some of them less (Santuzzo, can you hear me? )

Anyway, OP's the one who spent the money, so best course of action is up to he (she?). What I will say, however, is there's no need for this to turn into another witch hunt. There's a line between being upset a guitar was delivered with unacceptable issues, and expecting the guy to let the guy keep the guitar AND give him a refund or, worse, threatening to 'fly over there and hit him in the face'. 

What makes me sick is how this forum takes legitimate issues and complaints, and then twists them into a dogpile-fest; then everybody acts surprised when then builder gets mad and acts indigent. That same line of reasoning bears the same fruit no matter where in life you apply it.


----------



## Randy (Feb 5, 2015)

As a reference to what I'm talking about...



oniduder said:


> thank you for this, i was thinking of eventually paying the money for one of these, now i'm incredibly hesitant and won't i bet



Rational, tempered response. 

'I don't like your product, I won't buy your product. Thank you to the information dispensed in this thread for helping in this decision.'

As such, that's one less customer for Claas and one more reminder why taking care of your customers (in _business_ transactions) is important to maintaining _business_.




boingti said:


> I think I would stump up the airfare, fly over and smash that firewood into his face until he paid up in full!! That should have been scrapped before it was even finished let alone actually reaching the customer.
> 
> I know comments like this don't really help but FFS look at the damn thing, Alaxender you most certainly and not a Class act!



Worthless response. Rude, argumentative, combative and contributing literally nothing to the discussion; actually, significantly detracting from it instead.


----------



## Nag (Feb 5, 2015)

I see what you mean about customer expectations. I didn't rage or insult him in my post. Just to clarify. I wasn't being nice but I was trying to be as respectful as can be with someone who, I think, just scammed a customer.

Typically what I'll think is, for 2500 bucks I can get a flawless high-end production model. The builder *should* (in my opinion, of course) build his guitars with the quality at least on par with production models in the same price range (or would you spend 4k on a custom that plays like a cheap asian import ?)

One thing I've learnt from being on SSO over the last years is this : NEVER. EVER. pay 100% of the price up front. it's an invitation to this kind of situation. I've said this before and I'll say it again in such threads because it's something more people need to be aware of.


----------



## notasian (Feb 5, 2015)

http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/standard-guitars/288815-ngd-claas-moby-dick-prototype.html

idk how to feel now


----------



## xwmucradiox (Feb 5, 2015)

Nagash said:


> I see what you mean about customer expectations. I didn't rage or insult him in my post. Just to clarify. I wasn't being nice but I was trying to be as respectful as can be with someone who, I think, just scammed a customer.
> 
> Typically what I'll think is, for 2500 bucks I can get a flawless high-end production model. The builder *should* (in my opinion, of course) build his guitars with the quality at least on par with production models in the same price range (or would you spend 4k on a custom that plays like a cheap asian import ?)
> 
> One thing I've learnt from being on SSO over the last years is this : NEVER. EVER. pay 100% of the price up front. it's an invitation to this kind of situation. I've said this before and I'll say it again in such threads because it's something more people need to be aware of.



Comparing a production model guitar to a hand-made one built by one guy is somewhat irrational. The production guitar, once you reach a certain price point, is much more likely to approach 'perfect' than the hand-made one. Mainly because the production guitar has each step performed by a person who just does that step and has a ton of experience performing it. The guy that installs frets has done 1000 fret jobs in the last year. The boutique builder has probably done 10. The finish guy has sprayed 500 guitars in the last month. The boutique builder has done maybe one. Every detail is like this. The one-man shop is a jack of all trades and master of none and very few of them deliver a product that is flawless. As Randy said above, its a matter of how far apart the buyer and builder's expectations are.


----------



## ElysianGuitars (Feb 5, 2015)

I hate to be the one pointing this out, but I'm certain any builder could look at the pictures posted by Claas and see the issues.

I'll start with this one, probably the most obvious of the fretting problems:







Several crooked frets. There are grooves and sanding scratches in the scallops. There looks to be a some filler work done where the ebony and maple meet on the right side of the picture, and on the fret that is near the middle of the picture there appears to be some kind of break in the ebony. Whether this one shipped like this is unclear, since this is such an early shot, but it clearly shows issues happening early in the process. Issues happen, but how you deal with them is the most important bit, and they don't seem to be dealt with on the OP's guitar.






The pickups on this are horribly off center, and the bridge route is too big on the bottom side. The Sam Oliver inlay is very crooked (maybe by design, who knows) and the date inlay is way off center.






This one looks to have a divot where the zero fret meets. There's a spot of missing stain where the nut is on the treble side. There's a spot where the finish chipped above the nut. It's hard to say for sure, but the circle of the sun inlay looks like it may be broken.






The entire point where the neck and body wood meet is chewed up on this one. There's also a scratch in the middle of the back (just to the right of the neck heel).






Most of these arrows point to gaps in the binding. The circled area is literally split wood. One of the arrows on the truss rod cover point to a missing chunk of wood. The nut is undercut from the side of the neck/fretboard, and there's some nasty glue line there. 

Quality control is one of the most important things among any profession, but especially high end guitar building. An instrument costing as much as this should not have such readily identifiable flaws.

Also, the pics that Claas posted himself of the OP guitar show that it shipped with no nut. All his other zero fret guitars look to have nuts.


----------



## Alex Kenivel (Feb 5, 2015)

I couldn't finish sliding through all the pictures.. I couldn't even read more than half of the OP. Just too sad. And I'm sorry if this post "doesn't help" or is "worthless" 

I'm just sorry this happened. Sorry for both company and customer.


----------



## Randy (Feb 5, 2015)

Nagash said:


> I see what you mean about customer expectations. I didn't rage or insult him in my post. Just to clarify. I wasn't being nice but I was trying to be as respectful as can be with someone who, I think, just scammed a customer.



I don't mean to pick on you or single you out. I didn't think your post was overly mean or unfair. Likewise, I'm not here to defend Claas; I don't know him and all I know (at this point) is as much as the rest of you, which is that he sent a guitar to a customer who's not happy with it (justifiably) and, so far, Claas hasn't done enough to satisfy that customer, or anybody else who's critical of his work based on the pictures and information posted.

I'm getting into the weeds on this one, but I'm going to 'pull rank' for a minute (as a moderator and as a longtime member, both).



Nagash said:


> Typically what I'll think is, for 2500 bucks I can get a flawless high-end production model. The builder *should* (in my opinion, of course) build his guitars with the quality at least on par with production models in the same price range



I see that line on this forum ALL the time and that's a minefield of subjectivity. 

You see that argument, you see the guitar in the OP and then we all start imagining all the Squier and Epiphones we've seen or picked up that had immaculate glossy paintjobs, (some) with acceptably clean fretwork, clean inlay work, etc. We envision those things and we're like "well, shit, for $2500 you should get that and so much more!".

The product you pickup and touch in the store is reflective of much more than just pricetag on the one guitar. I can tell you, as somebody who does repairs and some build work, I can't build a Squier Bullet Strat for myself for less than or even equal to what I can buy one for in the store (that's taking into account the 'dealer' and 'oem' type pricing I have access to) and it would take me nearly as long to build as a guitar I'd regularly sell to a customer for 20 times as much.

Production guitars have hundreds of thousands (and in some cases, millions) of dollars in machinery and materials dedicated to them, purpose designed to turn out THAT specific model of guitar 'glossy, polished, playable' on the cheap. In particular, things such as the woods and paints they use are targeted toward being able to turn out the guitar 'quick' and have it looking flawless, without having to do hours of pore filling, and resanding, sealing, coating, wet sanding and buffing, like a one-man shop does. The same goes for the machines or purpose building tools they have available in the factory that turn out barb-less lengths of fretwire at exactly the right width for every fret before the file even touches them. 

There are a variety of these same things in pretty much ever step of building the guitar, some companies adhere or divert from these concepts more than others but consistently, you find these extremely expensive shortcuts throughout.

As such, the final result is very impressive for the price but if you were to ask them to retool for a one-off type design, that's a few million dollars and several thousand man-hours of retooling to fit. In a custom setting, you trade consistency in exchange for versatility. Some custom shops can turn out better quality more consistently, but that typically comes at the expense of either price or flexibility.

Anyway, like I said, this is in the weeds. The stuff you see in the Claas complaints go beyond anything I'm talking about here, but the theme and the idea still bears mentioning... 

Thinking every luthier that pops up on SSO is going to turn out an instrument that's 'just like the one Ibanez spent 10 million dollars developing, but the shape I want, with the woods I want, with all the features I want, made by one guy who's only job is this; and for $2000 or less' is unrealistic and, pardon if this sounds insulting, stupid. 

Again, I don't mean that this necessarily applies to Claas, but EVERY thread about issues somebody has with a guitar, the OP has their own right to complaints but reaction and expectations of some of the people that chime are so delusion, and only interested in feigning superiority that it only contributes to misinformation and perpetuates the real problems going on here by moving the goal further and further.


----------



## Nag (Feb 5, 2015)

I can agree on that. Frankly, 2500 bucks for a full custom DOES sound cheap. the "I want a Lamborghini for the price of a Volvo" seems to be a biproduct of small builders offering nice looking stuff for so cheap (the "too good to be true" effect) so that they get flooded with orders and can start to cash in.

Let's say it like this. As a customer, if I ordered a custom guitar I'd want it to be flawless. What I'm gonna say might sound weird, but if "flawless" means it will cost 5 grand (because tools, build time, materials etc) then the builder *shouldn't* sell the guitars for less. Because that makes the customers believe they can get 5 grand worth of quality for only half of that, and then we get a shitstorm. It's all weird, because if the builder says "well if you want a great guitar it costs a lot" it scares customers away, and when the builder says "you can get it for cheap" the customer ends up with something worse than he thought he paid for.

Sounds kind of a lose-lose situation for me, but I don't have a much better idea how to do it either.


----------



## Jonathan20022 (Feb 5, 2015)

Seriously, he ....ed up but that's not a free pass for you guys to start flinging shit all over. Threatening the guy is a surefire way to get someone to not resolve things well.


----------



## ElRay (Feb 5, 2015)

asher said:


> Legit problems or not, this is completely unhelpful



and the QC on the message was clearly below the level of acceptable standards. It may have been up to the standards of other readers, but it was clearly not up to the level expected by this reader. [ for the humor impaired]


----------



## narad (Feb 5, 2015)

Randy said:


> As such, that's one less customer for Claas and one more reminder why taking care of your customers (in _business_ transactions) is important to maintaining _business_.



As the guy that probably posts the most positive feedback in the Claas thread and someone that was definitely eyeing these, make that two less customers. 

Mmm, sorry, two _fewer_ customers. I have to keep my QC up.


----------



## Konfyouzd (Feb 5, 2015)

xwmucradiox said:


> This forum is loaded with guys who jump straight to murder fantasies over bad business transactions.


Anything I can say about the guitar itself or the way the situation was handled has already been said... So I'll just leave this here... It's what your comment reminded me of...


----------



## Musiscience (Feb 5, 2015)

xwmucradiox said:


> This forum is loaded with guys who jump straight to murder fantasies over bad business transactions.



Most probably because a lot of people on this forum got deceived by builders and lost a lot of money they worked hard to earn. BRJ, DAR amps, Sherman Guitars, Strictly 7 and the list goes on and on. I think on this forum there is a lot of guitar enthusiasts who really like to support young businesses and innovative ideas/designs but get burned in the process very often. Who is a fool in this situation, the builder who deliver a subpar product or just disappear with the money, or the customer who repeat the same mistake hoping that this time, or builder, will be better? For my part I think it's the builder, since he offer a service for money that he never truly delivers as negotiated, and that makes me sad. 

Thought of the day : isn't this whole small builder thing very similar to stock exchange? When you invest in a small builder, there is more risk than investing in, let's say, a gibson Les Paul standard, but for the same price you might get a product that is absolutely outstanding just like you might loose money compared to guitars of the same price or even loose it all. To continue the parallel, if you invest in an ESP custom shop, you will have a very low risk of having a bad product, but you will not gain on the quality/price ratio since it will cost you an arm and you will not gain on the resale. Just a thought, and I might be way off track, but oh well make what you want of it


----------



## Konfyouzd (Feb 5, 2015)

While your point is valid, I believe it's beside the point being made in the text quoted. Homeboy was saying that it's a bit disheartening that people's knee jerk reaction is often to come up with the most elaborately violent scenario as a means of getting even with someone. There are far more civil ways to express your frustration.


----------



## Musiscience (Feb 5, 2015)

Konfyouzd said:


> While your point is valid, I believe it's beside the point being made in the text quoted. Homeboy was saying that it's a bit disheartening that people's knee jerk reaction is often to come up with the most elaborately violent scenario as a means of getting even with someone. There are far more civil ways to express your frustration.



I am with you guys on this one, just trying to make sense of the hate on this forum when a builder goof up. 

I am slow to comprehend sometimes when tired and have one beer too many. I think I better go to sleep than continue posting


----------



## Zsharp (Feb 5, 2015)

I love my claas, I paid 2200 usd and it's a very fine guitar for this price in today's market, I play in a touring band that plays across the Midwest and southern regions of the US and I invite anyone to come play my guitar and see for yourself!


----------



## Jake (Feb 5, 2015)

Zsharp said:


> I love my claas, I paid 2200 usd and it's a very fine guitar for this price in today's market, I play in a touring band that plays across the Midwest and southern regions of the US and I invite anyone to come play my guitar and see for yourself!


I can already see for myself that OP's guitar is f_*u*_cked and wouldn't even want to touch another guitar built by this company simply by the reasoning that they let something like this at that cost leave the shop and make it into the customers hands. 

That's just bad business and a surefire way to lose a ton of customers


----------



## DapperEagle (Feb 6, 2015)

Er...I suppose it gives the guitar a 'rustic' feel. 

Ridiculous that a guitar that costs that much shipped in such a dire state with blatant errors like that. 'Full custom' or no, it's still not acceptable.


----------



## boingti (Feb 6, 2015)

I did state that my comment was unhelpful lol. I just gave an honest opinion of how I would feel if I handed over 2500 to someone and had that delivered to my door. I would not expect perfection but for that money I would expect a damn sight more that that!! I'm a firm believer in showing the respect I'm given and if I was in the buyers position why the hell would I show the builder any respect, he's certainly shown none to the buyer by sending that out. Slight imperfections are bound to happen but any one of the faults on that guitar should have been enough to start again, especially at that price tag.


----------



## DapperEagle (Feb 6, 2015)

boingti said:


> Slight imperfections are bound to happen but any one of the faults on that guitar should have been enough to start again, especially at that price tag.



Pretty much perfect way to look at this


----------



## asher (Feb 6, 2015)

boingti said:


> I did state that my comment was unhelpful lol.



But you posted it anyway...



Shame. I really liked the Claas designs.


----------



## JP Universe (Feb 6, 2015)

Guys, listen.... I had a couple douchebags tell me I was out of line for my Siggery comments a month ago. Don't go custom unless it's Ormsby or Thorn. In these parts anything else just leave it. (When you thought customs were easier than productions)...


----------



## ElysianGuitars (Feb 6, 2015)

JP Universe said:


> Guys, listen.... I had a couple douchebags tell me I was out of line for my Siggery comments a month ago. Don't go custom unless it's Ormsby or Thorn. In these parts anything else just leave it. (When you thought customs were easier than productions)...



I don't agree with this for obvious reason 

Really, don't go custom without vetting the company first. It's the same with cars, it's the same with amps, with anything you buy really.


----------



## Andromalia (Feb 6, 2015)

No nut. That's a first.


----------



## asher (Feb 6, 2015)

Andromalia said:


> No nut. That's a first.



Lance Armstrong edition.


----------



## Konfyouzd (Feb 6, 2015)




----------



## Zsharp (Feb 6, 2015)

The lack of nut is a little odd, bends on the higher strings sometimes get a slight plink, I'll be having a custom nut built for this but as you can see my neck came out great otherwise! I really am confused as to why Alexander shipped that out, the most expensive component was certainly the Strandberg hardware, I'm sure he was invested in it at that point but why not start over the wood and build process couldn't have cost more than a solid build reputation, I really have to wonder because my moby dick prototype is nothing near this bad I can't call out any major flaws other than the bend issue and he openly lists on the page that prototypes are NOT perfect which is why they are offered at a cheaper price.


----------



## Cloudy (Feb 6, 2015)

asher said:


> Lance Armstrong edition.



If rep still existed


----------



## Konfyouzd (Feb 6, 2015)

^


----------



## JP Universe (Feb 6, 2015)

ElysianGuitars said:


> I don't agree with this for obvious reason
> 
> Really, don't go custom without vetting the company first. It's the same with cars, it's the same with amps, with anything you buy really.



I really have to stop posting here when I'm hammered


----------



## nyxzz (Feb 10, 2015)

There's literally no excuse for that kind of shit on a guitar costing ANY amount of money. I'm so sorry you got majorly screwed on this one. There is simply NO way that the builder was not 100% aware of all of these faults unless he was just blackout drunk during the entire build. Things like this give custom guitars a bad name when there are hardworking reputable builders out there churning out quality axes. Shameful.


----------



## jrui (Apr 25, 2015)

horrible , bump !


----------



## Possessed (Apr 26, 2015)

I checked them in the messe this year. The build quality is not good


----------



## yingmin (Apr 26, 2015)

Randy said:


> I don't mean that as an excuse for Claas, but the fact that every brand that shows up on here has people that sing their praises and others that post guitars with INCREDIBLY evident flaws and 'bad experiences' leads me to believe, overall, there's clearly a significant mismatch in expectations among us; some of them more obvious, some of them less (Santuzzo, can you hear me? )


This might be what you're referencing, but there was a thread here recently where a user bought a custom bass from some company that only made implausibly pointy instruments with absurdly long scale lengths. When he posted the thread, he not only made no mentions of the many obvious flaws the instrument had, but actually excused them away when every other poster in the thread pointed them out and complained about them.


----------



## jrui (Apr 26, 2015)

worst so-called hand-made guitar I've ever seen, ever . 
even s7g/bernie rico didn't gone that far , done that bad .
INCREDIBLE.
Shame on you claas guitar.


----------



## Slunk Dragon (Jun 6, 2015)

Jesus, I'm sorry to hear that this guitar turned out in such a sorry state!

Judging by all the pics of his other work too, this isn't a guy I'm going to invest money in.


----------



## EchelonXIII (Jun 8, 2015)

> Quality control is one of the most important things among any profession, but especially high end guitar building. An instrument costing as much as this should not have such readily identifiable flaws.
> .


THIS THIS THIS, 100 TIMES THIS.
It's a shame how some companies who ask as much as let's say a PRS modern eagle do such a shoddy job at building them, where other guys who ask no more then the price of a decently priced ibanez prestige don't get the benefit of the doubt.

I think it's a beautiful thing that a ton of builders are popping up, but with stuff like this happening not a lot of people are willing to fork out the cash blindly to get an instrument built to custom spec.


----------



## The Q (Oct 31, 2015)

Did he refund you?

All I get from this thread is that, unless Alex profusely apologises and offers a refund, or better yet, a new, spotless build, his business IS going to suffer by his reputation going down.

Then again, someone who claims ignorance about such blatant QoC mistakes, is either lying (thus making him incapable of doing proper customer relations = untrustworthy) or is being unskilled (making the prospect of giving them money... not great, to say the least!).

He's obviously downplaying the effect a negative reputation in SSO can have for a builder and this is a road others treaded and suffered the consequences. Unless he apologises to you and offers you a new build that proves to be excellent, I don't think he'll be having a very bright future here as a luthier.


----------



## Taikatatti (Oct 31, 2015)

It really sucks that this guitar turned out like that, and it sucks even more because looking some facebook photos, reading other reviews and searching at youtube, Alex can do a lot better than that. This mess needs to be refunded.


----------

