Some very disturbing news from 225

[kidsmoke]

It's heresay. I don't know you Jaabs, but I do know Arnie. I've handed him tools at his bench on the Heritage floor, broke bread with him. Great guy. I've no reason to doubt what that he believes what he says may be in Heritage's future. But he didn't say there are CNC machines on the floor. Meng hasn't lied to me, or us, as far as I know, and has made a specific statement that does not contradict anything Arnie said in fact. There are other businesses in that space with their own agendas. Until I have new facts, I'll operate on the old ones. 

Ya'll are getting lots of mileage out of speculation, and virtually none of it is based on verifiable facts. 300 guitars or 10 guitars and a bunch of slivers? I don't KNOW. And I'm fairly confident you don't either. I try...try...to limit my assertions to things I can back up. 

[Polo]

6 minutes ago, kidsmoke said:

It's heresay. I don't know you Jaabs, but I do know Arnie. I've handed him tools at his bench on the Heritage floor, broke bread with him. Great guy. I've no reason to doubt what that he believes what he says may be in Heritage's future. But he didn't say there are CNC machines on the floor. Meng hasn't lied to me, or us, as far as I know, and has made a specific statement that does not contradict anything Arnie said in fact. There are other businesses in that space with their own agendas. Until I have new facts, I'll operate on the old ones. 

Ya'll are getting lots of mileage out of speculation, and virtually none of it is based on verifiable facts. 300 guitars or 10 guitars and a bunch of slivers? I don't KNOW. And I'm fairly confident you don't either. I try...try...to limit my assertions to things I can back up. 

 

........Red alert.......It's another one of them rationalists!!!!!

[deytookerjaabs]

1 hour ago, kidsmoke said:

It's heresay. I don't know you Jaabs, but I do know Arnie. I've handed him tools at his bench on the Heritage floor, broke bread with him. Great guy. I've no reason to doubt what that he believes what he says may be in Heritage's future. But he didn't say there are CNC machines on the floor. Meng hasn't lied to me, or us, as far as I know, and has made a specific statement that does not contradict anything Arnie said in fact. There are other businesses in that space with their own agendas. Until I have new facts, I'll operate on the old ones. 

Ya'll are getting lots of mileage out of speculation, and virtually none of it is based on verifiable facts. 300 guitars or 10 guitars and a bunch of slivers? I don't KNOW. And I'm fairly confident you don't either. I try...try...to limit my assertions to things I can back up. 

 

We are nothing more than Judge Judy here, that's how the court of public opinion works. Your "smoking gun" accounting sheet with the list of instruments is never going to come to light thus "where are the facts?" will always be a fallback, neither is management sharing the secret sauce on the future of production. 

 

Maybe none were cut up, maybe many were, but there's obviously differing philosophies/outlooks/plans going on here that leave us individuals to interpret/speculate what the future may hold...like reasonable minds do. 

[HANGAR18]

Wow! The news at Heritage and at Gibson all in the same week seems to have actually been so Earth shaking that the news has reached me while I have been deliberately hiding from the guitar world since last year. (btw I like the new look of the place.) Clearly there are a lot of ways to look at what has happened. So since I'm here, I suppose I too shall weigh in on the Heritage news.... before ducking back out again... maybe.

Here's how I see it. I love hand crafted things that are made VERY well. I understand that things which take time cost money because time is money as the saying goes. I understand that some materials cost more than others. So, understanding that people getting paid by the hour to build things which are made out of expensive materials is going to mean that I (the customer) am going to be expected to pay more for that particular product which came about as a result of better materials and workmanship than a lesser guitar. Fine.

But (there's always a "but", isn't there?) I have no interest in paying someone to perform some monotonous, labor intensive task which isn't terribly important. I would rather a skilled craftsman focus the majority of their time on the most important parts of the guitar building process and allow room for a lower cost and more efficient invention to do the ugly grunt work. Heritage doesn't pay their guitar builders, I do when I buy the guitar. So as I see it, that makes me the boss.

For example. When carving a neck, the only important part of carving a neck is the last 1/8th of an inch. The 3 inches of rough wood above that is useless and I don't want to pay a guy to spend a lot of time slowly working all that wood down to its final neck carve. Find a faster, cheaper way to get rid of the rough stuff and I'll be happy to pay a guy to take his time getting the final shape of the neck perfect. (This is just the best example I could think of to demonstrate my point but there may be better ones.)

Maybe perfect isn't the best word to use either. The nut is HUGEly important and it doesn't have to be perfect but it better be as good or better than "the other guys" who are currently doing a fantastic job. The fretwork doesn't have to be perfect but it better be as good or better than "the other guys". I should not have had to spend hundreds of dollars getting my last brand new Heritage "fixed" before I could play it. When I buy a brand new guitar, I shouldn't have to toss pickups, bridges, pots, caps and so on into the trash and overhaul the whole thing before it becomes "playable".

I still love heritage guitars, and I wasn't there so I don't know if the shoe fits or not, but were I to learn that there were guitar builders working at the factory who didn't want to get with the proverbial program and produce high quality workmanship all the way down to the finest little details, I would hold the door open while they were walked out of the factory. As the guy who ultimately pays their wages when I buy a guitar, I will not put up with sloppy workmanship.

[ironmike]

Cnc machines are the future.nkone can compete in a factory setting without  one..

[JeffB]

Cnc isn't the future, they're more like recent history.
They're every where and have been for a while and they are getting cheaper by the year.
Not something to fear if you are a consumer but an window company I used to use has half the staff in the office and in the factory because of Cnc and computer programs. That happened over the last decade.

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