Center seam on guitar not centered?

[Matthew]

I have a 2009 Breedlove Roots Dread that I picked up a month ago.I have noticed that the top center seam is not centered between the D and G string bridge pins. The center seam actually falls right against the D string bridge pin. It looks to be off center 1/8".

The neck is put on perfect with the bridge and strings and both E strings are set perfect to the edge of the fret board.

So looking further I found the low E string tuner is closer to the edge of the headstock than the other high e string....the difference was 1/8".

The guitar sounds great and plays great. Am I just being to picky?

[William F.Eden]

Make sure that the back is not upside down to. You are to ++ picky Bill.::::::::::

[Greg Mirken]

I would call that guitar a 'second' and it should have been priced accordingly.

[Russell Vance]

Hmmm, we were asked to check out some expensive American acoustic guitars that were shipped in with a few rough edges..........bad grain runout in the soundboard bookmatch, lacquer drips inside the soundhole and a glue thumbprint under the UV finish.......obviously a bad QA day or, more of concern, this sort of crap being sent overseas where it is harder for the distributors to send it back. Which means it gets flogged to some poor unsuspecting mail order client or newbie buyer. This sort of thing can only damage the brand reputation in the long run. Selling badly made guitars as seconds is not something that I would see as a good practice but it certainly is on the rise. I agree with Greg - it should have been sold as a second.

[Matthew]

Thanks for the replies....The guitar was marked as a "blemished" model, basically a 2nd. It was priced accordingly.

The blemished it was priced for was a finishing flaw on the body on either side of the neck. No big deal, I can live with that. It was some other things that I started to notice that have been bugging me. I have owned a lot of guitars.... from this maker and many others, Martin, Taylor. While no guitar is perfect I would think these other issues would have been caught and also made known.

I guess the bottom line is the fret work and the neck are perfect, The guitar really sounds good.

[Greg Mirken]

I sold Breedlove guitars and mandolins for quite a few years, and I always expected (and got) first-rate craftsmanship from them. I don't believe I ever sent anything back as unacceptable. I was never offered seconds, and I didn't ask for any. On the other hand, some manufacturers we dealt with were incapable of turning out anything but seconds, so I welcomed the opportunity to buy blems from them. It was always easy to point out a whoops or two on a 'first quality' instrument from them for comparison.

I agree with Russell's excellent point that in the long run, selling seconds does the manufacturer no favor. Unfortunately in American corporations these days there is way too much focus on this quarter's figures and not nearly enough thought about what position the company wants to be in in 10 or 20 years.

[Matthew]

Just as a follow up.....I called Breedlove today with my concerns, they offered to replace the guitar, honestly, I got a really good price, the guitar sounds great and I have bonded with it.

I decided to keep it. It will pick up dings and scratches anyway by playing out....And thats the main reason I bought it for. Plus I have a lifetime warrenty with it.

I would have liked for the issues that bug me not be on the guitar but tone and play-ability are king in the end.

[Bob Webster]

What about resale value, Matthew?

Bob

[Rick Homan]

Some years ago, when I toured the Martin factory, another visitor asked if factory seconds could be purchased at the end of the tour. Our guide explained that there are no seconds. If a guitar cannot be put right, they run it through a bandsaw. No guitar leaves the factory in less than top condition. As a stated policy, I like it and I have no reason to doubt that's what they do.

[Magnus Hultin]

I have had the opportunity to occasionally sit down and ask questions to people with origin in the Levin Guitar company (You know....the Swedish made Goyas), one of them being the last member of the Levin family to be president. He managed the company between 1962 and 1979.

I asked him of factory seconds and he said they normally didn´t offer it. On one occasion though, they had a return shipment of 1000 flattops, where the bridges had come loose on to many. Their internal investigation showed that there had been poor control of the mixing of hideglue, to much water added to yesterdays gluepot or something like that. These guitars were fixed up, removed of any Levin marking and offered to emplyees in the companys diner. I think the price was 1/3 of the retail price.

I actually think I have one of these guitars, a 1974 Levin spruce top, mahogany Dread (W-36). The only sign of Levin (if You don´t know it by looks) is a relief logo on the black end pin. It is a very nice guitar, and I am happy today that they didn´t put the bandsaw in it.

But then again, some of You may ask "And where are Levin today?"

[Tony Webber]

I was discussing Breedloves at my (fairly) local Music store about a month back. They said they had returned several to Breedlove because of poor build quality and would not be stocking them any more.

Good that they offered to replace your guitar Matthew, but maybe they need better QC in the first place. Reputations can be lost in a fraction of the time they take to build.

[Matthew]

As for resale value the issues would hurt it, I have a good stable of guitars so this one fit another hole that I wanted to fill.

I dont think we will ever see a Martin 2nd in the stores. The Martin tour I was on also discussed that there are no 2nds and even had parts of cut up martins for sale in the Martin gift shop.

And you are right....reputations can be lost quick.

[thefishinmusician]

I had to share this...Many moons ago, when I first started in this biz..( right before Elvis left the building ). I worked at the Hohner warehouse in Palo Alto..I was an apprentice to a luthier from Austria, and all day we would attempt to fix the large numbers of faulty guitars sent back to us from dealers all over the west coast...Each day a U.P.S. truck would show up with returned guitars, and our job was to try fix them...We had 3 neck heaters going all the time..One of our main tools were different colored markers to hide finish defects..Cases of guitars came in and went right out to the music stores without even a peek inside the boxes...So I suggested we look at all the guitars before sending them out...Good idea Kurt, it's your new job!..So,..all day opening boxes to find all forms of suprises!.Sometimes 7 out of 8 guitars in a case would need attention,but, after months of doing this, the U.P.S. trucks would come back with fewer and fewer guitars, then less frequent arrivals..I must have set up thousands of guitars! Excellent training!..Rudy, ( the real luthier ) would show me how to fix them enough to ship them, and tell me " never do this in a real guitar! ".Then he would take me to his home shop and show me the right way!..Best defect ever..A bridge so out of alighnment that the E,B, and G strings were off the neck at the neck body joint!.That guitar would have gone out to a music store!.Thanks Rudy and Hohner for my start in lutherie!...