Change at Heritage Guitar

[PacerX]

After a long time away from this board (not for any particularly bad reason, I wasn't any part of the drama previously, I was busy getting a doctorate), I decided to pop back in and see how things were going in light of the changes on the way.

Boy... some big changes... so I'd like to throw in my two cents...

Let's start with some background.  I'm an engineer by training, with a lot of experience in operations in automotive component manufacturing.  While not the best in the world at it, I can generally eyeball a process and see how well things are going, what is good, what is bad, and what would be needed to improve it.  A good amount of work that I did was with distressed companies.  In the period leading up to 2008/2009 (where the wheels came off the automotive industry) LOTS of companies were distressed and ALL of my time was spent ensuring our supply base remained viable and intact.  There were ones that could be saved, and we saved them, and ones that had to die.  There were others that died because management wouldn't listen and then augured themselves into the ground.

About this time, I heard through the rumor mill that Heritage was looking to sell.  I had toured the plant multiple times, loved the guitars (hated the quality) and felt that with some good, hard work, some investment and a new plan the company could be put on track and survive.  So, I made some inquiries along the lines of considering buying it, knowing full well that significant changes were needed.

I interviewed dealers and drove all over Michigan looking at every Heritage I could get my hands on (including mine).  The consensus from the dealers was as follows:

The quality of the product was poor.  Finish work was bad, set-ups were spotty at best (forcing the work onto the dealers).  For some reason, nearly every Heritage I saw had the nut cut incorrectly... and that was bad enough... but the real problem I saw was consistently bad fretwork.  New guitars simply would not set up they way they should without a level and dress. 

Now, certain things are forgivable in a largely handmade product, and ALL guitars are largely handmade.  Minor finish issues are, in my opinion, not a big deal.  Call it "character".  The unforgiveable aspect of the product was its inability to function the way it should due to bad fretwork and poor setup from the factory.  If the guitar will not set up correctly when brand new it should be caught at the manufacturing facility, but it wasn't being caught.

One of the biggest advantages to CNC production is not only the ability to get a more repeatable product, but the ability to shift labor to where it can do the most good.  Time spent by an employee bandsawing out a body can be shifted over to QC, or fret installation, or a number of other areas and you can have them address those problems that you find AND THEN FIX THEM IN THE PROCESS. 

Installing a CNC router isn't really about "saving labor", at the labor rates being paid, paying off that machine and the programming required would take ages - it's about having a higher quality part produced and being able to shift that labor to somewhere it can do more good.  Trust me on this... the guy programming the CNC machine is being paid a LOT more than the guy running a bandsaw is.

So, I went on another plant tour and discreetly asked some questions about the issues I had seen and the changes needed to fix them.  The answers in return were not encouraging.  A week or two was spent wrestling between my heart (wanting to save the company from an inevitable decline and death) and my head (knowing that there would be resistance to change, even change that was necessary to the survival of the company that would result in a better, more consistent and commercially viable company).  My head won.  I walked away knowing that the company, unless it changed, would die. 

So in the interests of my family, knowing there was no way to save it without radical changes to how the guitars are produced, and that that change would be resisted, I backed away and the other guy bought in.  The company limped along for a bit, and has been bought by the new owners - and if it hadn't, it was dead and EVERYBODY who works there would be out of a job (not just the 14 recent departures).

I am encouraged by the current management's decisions.  They've seen the same things I did and are addressing them, and if they don't the company is doomed.  If employees resisted that, they have to go, or EVERYBODY is out of a job.

 

Post-script:

I bought H-150 serial #AG05202 from Rainbow Music in Grand Rapids a few months ago.  The finish is MUCH better than my other H-150, and lo and behold the nut is actually cut right.  Lots of setup work has been done to it (two different techs), arm-wrestling with it to get it to play right, but it's still not right.  I'm happy with it, and at the same time bothered by it.  Sounds great.  Plays meh.  As before, it needs a level and dress to be right.

Take a look at this picture, one of these guitars is fairly new and has a playability problem, the other 4 are flawless:

20171024_220212 by D M, on Flickr

[deytookerjaabs]

The CNC doesn't save bandsaw time, the guitar is still rough cut before it hits a CNC. The CNC can then perform finer routs/contours/etc that are, in fact, repeatable to a pretty high tolerance. Whereas the Heritage process of a rough route and a heavy sand (before fine sanding) leaves the body routes/carves to be up to each individual doing the work thus the results differ, there'd be no point to a CNC if it was simply to rough cut when a cheap carving tool will to that just fine.

 

 

Anyways, I spent two hours on the phone the other day with some guy telling me about "needs 3 techs because no one can cut a nut right and only one guy can do frets" bla bla bla, just went on and on, because he was interested in a strat I had for sale because strats are his "hobby." Amazing stuff, I've been playing 26 years and not had all these insane issues with hundreds of guitars coming in and out that some of these guys have. I guess I should be happy about that, lol. Hell, I just bought a junk box Epi flat top at the pawner for $100 on Monday, tiny hump at neck join, dirty as hell, way out of whack, an hour later with just a set of files, steel wool, leveling beam, string winder & cutter now it's smooth as butter, used it at rehearsal last night too.

 

 

I mean, this sucker was in disarray and it was nothing to resolve. In a factory setting where it was new it's a nothing process and basically one guy's job. If that guy can't cut it, find someone who does then document the string height & relief with a couple short pics, then a 10 second vid playing the chromatic scale, then sent the guitar out that you have evidence on your end.

 

It just boggles my mind how "unobtainable" the simple stuff is in some people's minds, you have to wonder if they ever spent an hour with the stew mac 101 book, it's trivial stuff.

 

 

 

 

[Spectrum13]

Do not understand the setup and nut issues. While I did need to replace the poorly cut nut on my 2006   H150 the next five came with bone nuts that were cut well enough. Players can go as low as 8 to 13. Easier to file wider and deeper than fill the slots to go higher and narrower. Of all the Heritage guitars I played that I did not own, zero were setup as I set up mine. Some dealers offer a discounted plek as from what I read on this forum Heritage retailer contracts specify setup as a dealer thing.  The factory has no idea what strings and action the buyer will use. With your degree and knowledge of guitars, if you can't do your own setup, why would it take more than one tech for that h150 to be playable much less assume you have the skills to run the factory. I don't get it.

Main issues I see is the degree of custom offered that could only be done with skilled builders and not programmed CNC. My first custom Prospect was ordered with P90s thus no pattern to place on the top to route the pups, figure clearance and neck angle. Next try to get a factory to dust off the old 147 pattern, mix and match korina and maple, route for a staple and P90, configure for a wraptail then knock it out of the park. I realize this was too good to last and a deal of a lifetime. Compared to H building what I dared to dream up, replacing a poorly cut nut, or using a file and adjusting relief and bridge height was silly to complain about.

 

 

 

[JRL]

On ‎2‎/‎24‎/‎2018 at 6:25 PM, StephenK said:

Throbak, lean takes the personality out of the instrument. They can get super lean, efficient and improve quality by adding a CNC. I think we'll see that in the next few years too.

I personally heard directly from Archie that getting a CNC is in fact the plan and that they will also continue to build by hand as they do now on a very small scale inside the old factory when the renovations are complete.  I have nothing against CNC guitars and I don't believe one method of building is better than the other.  I do love the Heritage guitars I own, and upon touring the factory I quickly developed a great respect for the people working there and the product they made.  I too believe that "lean" takes the personality out of the instrument, especially in the case of Heritage.  I plan on grabbing me a couple more before they commence to tarnishing the legend.

[pro-fusion]

I guess I hadn't realized that Gibson sold Cakewalk to...BandLab. Very interesting bit of symmetry, there.

[LittleLeroy]

On 3/21/2018 at 9:04 AM, deytookerjaabs said:

The CNC doesn't save bandsaw time, the guitar is still rough cut before it hits a CNC. The CNC can then perform finer routs/contours/etc that are, in fact, repeatable to a pretty high tolerance. Whereas the Heritage process of a rough route and a heavy sand (before fine sanding) leaves the body routes/carves to be up to each individual doing the work thus the results differ, there'd be no point to a CNC if it was simply to rough cut when a cheap carving tool will to that just fine.

An observation and a question - not particularly directed at dtj:

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong...  I don't think PRS really does custom designs.  I know one can get all kinds of different woods and inlays and colors, etc, but one is limited to only the models in the current catalog.  After seeing all the custom work that came from Heritage, i.e. F-holes on the back of a guitar, I do wonder whether the exclusive use of CNC doesn't limit a manufacturer from producing a true custom design for an individual customer.

My question is this: how to explain the uncanny consistency in the musicality and life in my Heritage instruments that span 30 years of building?  I would think there might be - or would be - a lot of difference from one guitar to the next if the "human factor" is so individualized.  Did the builders at Heritage have something special going on, or is guitar building more of a quantifiable - and teachable - science  than I understand it to be?

[bolero]

well, they do have jigs and forms for everything

it's not like they are cutting everything freehand

[deytookerjaabs]

6 hours ago, LittleLeroy said:

An observation and a question - not particularly directed at dtj:

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong...  I don't think PRS really does custom designs.  I know one can get all kinds of different woods and inlays and colors, etc, but one is limited to only the models in the current catalog.  After seeing all the custom work that came from Heritage, i.e. F-holes on the back of a guitar, I do wonder whether the exclusive use of CNC doesn't limit a manufacturer from producing a true custom design for an individual customer.

My question is this: how to explain the uncanny consistency in the musicality and life in my Heritage instruments that span 30 years of building?  I would think there might be - or would be - a lot of difference from one guitar to the next if the "human factor" is so individualized.  Did the builders at Heritage have something special going on, or is guitar building more of a quantifiable - and teachable - science  than I understand it to be?

 

 

Yeah, the differences in some of the Heritage processes are subtle guitar to guitar.....like seriously nerd stuff, but it's the same stuff that rings true on guitars built up to the 80's as well as by independent builders.

Look at 10 H150's, the tummy cuts, the top dish, bridge height & neck angle, neck carve, definitely the weight lol, edge contours, and some other little things are all going to vary if you measure/copy each guitar. 

The soft tooling process though, that's world's apart from Fender/PRS/Gibson/Suhr etc. Having a small staff that could do 30+ models and one-offs on the same line to a degree efficient enough to keep prices out of the stratosphere means you need skill on the line at various ends.. 

 

[Steiner]

Bingo.  They were a company nimble enough to institute and keep up with small customized differences between guitars; doing so requires talented, experienced craftsmen. 

[yoslate]

1 hour ago, Steiner said:

Bingo.  They were a company nimble enough to institute and keep up with small customized differences between guitars; doing so requires talented, experienced craftsmen. 

...and the interest and inclination to do so, understanding the individual nature of players, instruments, and a player's relationship to his or her instrument, all magic which can't be quantified, but can be debated, like faith, ad infinitum.

[FredZepp]

 When you consider the business history of Heritage Guitars, it was hard to imagine where it would go when the owners retired.  It wasn't much of sellable business as they don't own the plant and have a long history of many periods of being on the verge of going entirely out of business.   After the fire was a low point and after being resurrected when Vince joined as a partner and then that not working out. The original owners have said that in recent years they haven't collected a salary.   There's not a lot of patents or marketing power associated with the brand.   Now, don't get me wrong... I am a Heritage guitar fan through and through.  I went to PSP events the last nine years in a row and was fortunate to spend time with the owners and workers from the plant each year.   I'm just saying that even if some small investor bought the brand, there's no use to a business that's not profitable to an investor. 

 It was a shock when PlazaCorp bought the plant and then the Heritage brand.  They came out with plans that could not have been predicted for their scale and depth.  There was no doubt that Heritage would be changed.  And then the big shock when workers were let go.  This was tough to take in.  Really, it was the people that we all appreciated most when doing our annual pilgrimage to Kalamazoo.   

 The changes are likely to make us proclaim that this isn't the old Heritage of Kalamazoo that we have grown to love and admire.  But that was kind of a magical miracle to have existed like it did for so long.  I'll cherish the memories even more as things are changed at Parsons Street.   I'll say that I don't feel like I have all of the information to make decisions about how the new version will operate. I'll wait and see.  I will visit the restored plant and look back at the fond memories of the time warp that was opened to us during the previous years.  I've got plenty of Heritage guitars already, so my wishes for the future are for those former employees and their success and happiness going forward.  They hold much of the magic that we witnessed at Parsons Street, along with the legendary founders of the company. 

[yoslate]

1 hour ago, FredZepp said:

 When you consider the business history of Heritage Guitars, it was hard to imagine where it would go when the owners retired.  It wasn't much of sellable business as they don't own the plant and have a long history of many periods of being on the verge of going entirely out of business.   There's not a lot of patents or marketing power associated with the brand.  

 It was a shock when PlazaCorp bought the plant and then the Heritage brand.  There was no doubt that Heritage would be changed.  And then the big shock when workers were let go.  This was tough to take in.  Really, it was the people that we all appreciated most when doing our annual pilgrimage to Kalamazoo.   

 The changes are likely to make us proclaim that this isn't the old Heritage of Kalamazoo that we have grown to love and admire.  But that was kind of a magical miracle to have existed like it did for so long.

Way to pull focus, Fred!  Good distillation of so much of what has been written on the forum since Heritage changed hands.  No speculation, here.

[bolero]

hear, hear!!

[LittleLeroy]

This may be of interest.   To me this manner of instrument building is wonderful.

 

[davesultra]

10 hours ago, LittleLeroy said:

This may be of interest.   To me this manner of instrument building is wonderful.

 

I concur 100%.

[ElNumero]

On 3/21/2018 at 10:13 AM, PacerX said:

After a long time away from this board (not for any particularly bad reason, I wasn't any part of the drama previously, I was busy getting a doctorate), I decided to pop back in and see how things were going in light of the changes on the way.

Boy... some big changes... so I'd like to throw in my two cents...

Let's start with some background.  I'm an engineer by training, with a lot of experience in operations in automotive component manufacturing.  While not the best in the world at it, I can generally eyeball a process and see how well things are going, what is good, what is bad, and what would be needed to improve it.  A good amount of work that I did was with distressed companies.  In the period leading up to 2008/2009 (where the wheels came off the automotive industry) LOTS of companies were distressed and ALL of my time was spent ensuring our supply base remained viable and intact.  There were ones that could be saved, and we saved them, and ones that had to die.  There were others that died because management wouldn't listen and then augured themselves into the ground.

About this time, I heard through the rumor mill that Heritage was looking to sell.  I had toured the plant multiple times, loved the guitars (hated the quality) and felt that with some good, hard work, some investment and a new plan the company could be put on track and survive.  So, I made some inquiries along the lines of considering buying it, knowing full well that significant changes were needed.

I interviewed dealers and drove all over Michigan looking at every Heritage I could get my hands on (including mine).  The consensus from the dealers was as follows:

The quality of the product was poor.  Finish work was bad, set-ups were spotty at best (forcing the work onto the dealers).  For some reason, nearly every Heritage I saw had the nut cut incorrectly... and that was bad enough... but the real problem I saw was consistently bad fretwork.  New guitars simply would not set up they way they should without a level and dress. 

Now, certain things are forgivable in a largely handmade product, and ALL guitars are largely handmade.  Minor finish issues are, in my opinion, not a big deal.  Call it "character".  The unforgiveable aspect of the product was its inability to function the way it should due to bad fretwork and poor setup from the factory.  If the guitar will not set up correctly when brand new it should be caught at the manufacturing facility, but it wasn't being caught.

One of the biggest advantages to CNC production is not only the ability to get a more repeatable product, but the ability to shift labor to where it can do the most good.  Time spent by an employee bandsawing out a body can be shifted over to QC, or fret installation, or a number of other areas and you can have them address those problems that you find AND THEN FIX THEM IN THE PROCESS. 

Installing a CNC router isn't really about "saving labor", at the labor rates being paid, paying off that machine and the programming required would take ages - it's about having a higher quality part produced and being able to shift that labor to somewhere it can do more good.  Trust me on this... the guy programming the CNC machine is being paid a LOT more than the guy running a bandsaw is.

So, I went on another plant tour and discreetly asked some questions about the issues I had seen and the changes needed to fix them.  The answers in return were not encouraging.  A week or two was spent wrestling between my heart (wanting to save the company from an inevitable decline and death) and my head (knowing that there would be resistance to change, even change that was necessary to the survival of the company that would result in a better, more consistent and commercially viable company).  My head won.  I walked away knowing that the company, unless it changed, would die. 

So in the interests of my family, knowing there was no way to save it without radical changes to how the guitars are produced, and that that change would be resisted, I backed away and the other guy bought in.  The company limped along for a bit, and has been bought by the new owners - and if it hadn't, it was dead and EVERYBODY who works there would be out of a job (not just the 14 recent departures).

I am encouraged by the current management's decisions.  They've seen the same things I did and are addressing them, and if they don't the company is doomed.  If employees resisted that, they have to go, or EVERYBODY is out of a job.

 

Post-script:

I bought H-150 serial #AG05202 from Rainbow Music in Grand Rapids a few months ago.  The finish is MUCH better than my other H-150, and lo and behold the nut is actually cut right.  Lots of setup work has been done to it (two different techs), arm-wrestling with it to get it to play right, but it's still not right.  I'm happy with it, and at the same time bothered by it.  Sounds great.  Plays meh.  As before, it needs a level and dress to be right.

Take a look at this picture, one of these guitars is fairly new and has a playability problem, the other 4 are flawless:

20171024_220212 by D M, on Flickr

Your mileage is way different than mine. I have owned over 25 Heritage guitars through the years and have not seen the fretwork problems you describe. Were there minor setup issues? Perhaps. But nothing radically bad in any way at all. Never replaced a nut either. I don't need to be an engineer with a PHd to notice the quality in the Heritage guitars that I own. So, if they can put out an even better product that what I have owned, more power to them. I will say, as many here have iterated, there was a certain kind of mojo about having the guitars built without automated machinery, and if the ones I have owned through the years were duds, I would not have kept them and I would not have continued to support the brand. 

[ElNumero]

On 3/24/2018 at 11:15 AM, yoslate said:

...and the interest and inclination to do so, understanding the individual nature of players, instruments, and a player's relationship to his or her instrument, all magic which can't be quantified, but can be debated, like faith, ad infinitum.

And furthermore, cannot just be replicated over and over like building widgets

[FredZepp]

18 hours ago, LittleLeroy said:

This may be of interest.   To me this manner of instrument building is wonderful.

 

Yeah... nice vid .    It is great to watch them work.  And to see Jim , Curly , Arnie and all of the gang just going about their work.   Every year our PSP factory tour was different from the previous year, but some things were constant.  This last year was enjoyable, but things had already changed quite a bit. 

[High Flying Bird]

In 2007 my wife, Linda, and our two daughters flew out of Nashvegas to Washington state to visit Linda's "sugly blister."  The day they were to come back to Nashville my cousin's daughter from Muncie was in Nashville for an AAU basketball tournament.  I drove up to Nashvegas to take photos of the basketball game and had a few hours to kill before my family got back.  I went by the Gibson Nashville mega-store. 

Almost every nut was cut wrong.  The nuts were mostly cut to short to fill the fretboard from top to bottom.  This was Gibson's flag ship store.  I was carrying my camera bag so I didn't play any of the guitars.  You could see the flaws from six foot away.  I didn't take any photos either.  After seeing a proud Indiana basketball team get run over I just wanted to go home.

A year later I walked the hallowed halls of 225 Parsons.  I didn't see the same flaws I saw in Nashville.  I see major Heritage dealers talking about quality control problems but custom guitars sold by small dealers seem to satisfy the unwashed.  Major dealers talk about all of the work they have to do on new Heritage guitars.  The small dealers can drop ship a new guitar and everything seems to work out.  Odd...  I call bullshit.

You may be a medical doctor, a major Heritage dealer, a PHD or a New Jersey urinal cake salesman but you can't bullshit the people of this forum.  There are a lot of people here, exempting myself, who are a lot smarter than you are.  They may be teachers, insurance men, bed salesmen, physicist, etc...  I call bullshit!

 

[ElNumero]

7 hours ago, High Flying Bird said:

In 2007 my wife, Linda, and our two daughters flew out of Nashvegas to Washington state to visit Linda's "sugly blister."  The day they were to come back to Nashville my cousin's daughter from Muncie was in Nashville for an AAU basketball tournament.  I drove up to Nashvegas to take photos of the basketball game and had a few hours to kill before my family got back.  I went by the Gibson Nashville mega-store. 

Almost every nut was cut wrong.  The nuts were mostly cut to short to fill the fretboard from top to bottom.  This was Gibson's flag ship store.  I was carrying my camera bag so I didn't play any of the guitars.  You could see the flaws from six foot away.  I didn't take any photos either.  After seeing a proud Indiana basketball team get run over I just wanted to go home.

A year later I walked the hallowed halls of 225 Parsons.  I didn't see the same flaws I saw in Nashville.  I see major Heritage dealers talking about quality control problems but custom guitars sold by small dealers seem to satisfy the unwashed.  Major dealers talk about all of the work they have to do on new Heritage guitars.  The small dealers can drop ship a new guitar and everything seems to work out.  Odd...  I call bullshit.

You may be a medical doctor, a major Heritage dealer, a PHD or a New Jersey urinal cake salesman but you can't bullshit the people of this forum.  There are a lot of people here, exempting myself, who are a lot smarter than you are.  They may be teachers, insurance men, bed salesmen, physicist, etc...  I call bullshit!

 

What about gate attendants?

[Spectrum13]

26 minutes ago, ElNumero said:

What about gate attendants?

Same class as the esteemed New Jersey urinal cake salesman

[DetroitBlues]

38 minutes ago, Spectrum13 said:

Same class as the esteemed New Jersey urinal cake salesman

More like taste testers.

[High Flying Bird]

10 hours ago, ElNumero said:

What about gate attendants?

 

9 hours ago, DetroitBlues said:

More like taste testers.

There you go Will.  Hahaha...

[DavesNotHere]

I've posted this shot before...the Gibson Nashville factory is just a couple of miles from my in-laws place. This shot, of my now 18 year old, is from about five years ago. Marv and the guys got a chuckle when I sent it to them.

 

 

[ElNumero]

21 hours ago, Spectrum13 said:

Same class as the esteemed New Jersey urinal cake salesman

Well,  you should know, my NJ friend who was transplanted to ATL!