unikh550 Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 Drove up yesterday, and met Bill Paige and Marv Lamb. They remembered building my guitar in '98, in that they didn't put fretboard inlay, a pickup, pickguard, or v/t controls on it. Were nice about it, but did not want to refinish it because: 1. The finish was still great and 2. Most importantly, they did not want to go through the torture of dealing with the Charlie Christian pickup removal and re-installation. When my request for a gold finger tailpiece led to an "all out of them", they didn't want to send me back empty handed. So, they called an employee at his home who has experience removing and putting in CC pickups. Marv and I talked to him, and 45 minutes later, I was at his home. He's going to take the finish down to the bare wood with stripper to see if all of the red of the ACB comes off. If it does, he's going to refinish the H-550 in golden amber. If it doesn't come off, he's going to refinish it in a medium brown that will show the extensive grain that's everywhere on that axe. A golden sunburst will be the burst in that case. He's even going to patch up from the inside a side crack at the jack site, put on new tuners from LMI, fill in holes in the headplate because the tuners aren't aligned the same as those on it now, fill in holes from where I had removed a Tal Farlow type pickguard, and look for a gold tailpiece to replace the chrome 'H'. He had just removed the H from a gold tailpiece, and made it a conventional trapeze tailpiece because the customer also didn't like the H. Total time, because he has other work:6-8 weeks. Am borrowing an Epiphone Joe Pass until that redhead is returned to me a blond. As for those of you who might have problems finding their factory, it's amazing how many people on the street could not tell me where Parsons was, although they were 1-6 blocks away. Don't have GPS, and my calls to Heritage along the way only helped a little. Don't have GPS, and mapquest wasn't specific enough for me. Kalamazoo Rd.(M-43) is the main road that you turn off of in downtown Kalamazoo. Do not take the exit off of 94 that says "Downtown Kalamazoo". It drops you off way on the other side of town. As for the building, inside and out, the proof is in the guitars that they make. They're sort of in a basement of sorts, in a yellow stone building that they share with other companies. As for the people whom I met, they were extremely interesting, obviously love guitars, and were very gracious.They were insistent that I was to talk to that employee, right then and there. Called them while on the road, and thanked them for the referral, and that it had borne fruit. Absolutely amazing visit, one that I really can't compare to any other musical experience except when I visited Barney Kessel in '99 in his home in San Diego for eight hours, and had him examine my H-550 that I had modeled after his ES-350 with the CC pickup. His response: "Those CC's from '79 aren't the same as mine". Felt like a kid at DisneyWorld while at Heritage. - Charley Bevell, Bloomington, IN
Steiner Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 Hey Charlie - now you know what the draw is for PSP! Fun isn't it.
DavesNotHere Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 That's awesome, isn't it? The owners taking that kind of time and interest in a "customer" is a large part of the the draw of Heritage guitars. (480) 596-7195 Ask for Larry 1-800-444-2766 Ask for Henry 269-385-5721 Ask for Marv See who you get to talk to. The other guys both make fine guitars but you will never get the same kind of service you get from Heritage.
FredZepp Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 Ah... a happy ending to the story, or at least .. there will be ,eventually. And YES... those People and that Place are magical. It sounds like you had a great day at Parsons St.
Guest HRB853370 Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 That's awesome, isn't it? The owners taking that kind of time and interest in a "customer" is a large part of the the draw of Heritage guitars. (480) 596-7195 Ask for Larry 1-800-444-2766 Ask for Henry 269-385-5721 Ask for Marv See who you get to talk to. The other guys both make fine guitars but you will never get the same kind of service you get from Heritage. Larry??
DavesNotHere Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 Larry Thomas. Fender CEO I don't want to seem like I'm knocking the other guys, because I love a lot, if not most, of what they have done, but you will never get the same level of support from the top as you do with Heritage.
DetroitBlues Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 He'll most likely have to completely remove the finish... Just like my 140... https://skydrive.live.com/view.aspx/H-140%20Refinish%20Presentation/1985%20Heritage%20H-140%20CM.ppt?cid=02bebae0b7d110e7&Bsrc=Docmail&Bpub=SDX.Docs
Tim Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 How to find the factory? When in downtown K'zoo, I always just look for the old Gibson smokestack!
unikh550 Posted March 28, 2012 Author Posted March 28, 2012 My first impression was that it was an abandoned building because I had passed it several times. The nondescript Heritage plate on the door could not be seen at 20 m.p.h. There also weren't any cars in front of it. Then, I gingerly walked down some creaky wooden steps and pulled ajar a wooden door that said "Heritage" . Then, I saw unfinished guitars lined together on the floor ahead of me that were unattended. It kind of looked like my home's interior. But, the attention that came my way was indescribable. Yep, DB, he's going to take it down to the bare wood, something that Heritage said over several phone calls last year that they wouldn't do. If he can't strip away all of the red, it'll be sort of a medium brown sunburst that'll completely cover the red.
DetroitBlues Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 He'll be able to remove it all and still keep the nice grain of the wood. Its going to be a cool project, so please keep us updated if you can.
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