HANGAR18 Posted October 5, 2018 Posted October 5, 2018 12 hours ago, Millennium Maestro said: First off.... This thread is silly, no one can evaluate a guitar from pictures! Also when you buy factory direct there is no outside QC a typical dealer would perform to ensure a quality instrument is being delivered! You saved money, spend some of that to have a PRO tech evaluate what was really delivered. At minimum I suspect the setup was totally turd quality! Nice piece of wood there... It's not just the setup being screwed up but it's the stupid answer they returned when they got called on it that rubs me the wrong way. Before I got bit by the Heritage bug, I used to spend countless hours hanging around in a small Gibson dealership (back when they had those), so long in fact that they taught me in great detail how to do Les Paul setups. Everything, neck adjustment, string height, intonation and so on. I could also elaborate in great detail as to how Les Pauls are made and the fine details which differentiate a American model versus a Korean made Les Paul. So I consider myself to essentially be a factory trained expert on that one little tiny subject (while still being ignorant on others perhaps). So, as a subject matter expert on the subject, the whole thing is instantly recognizable as complete Bravo Sierra. Feel free to disagree with me if you like. No hard feelings. But as of right now, this story adds to all the other things I have learned recently about the current version of Heritage Guitar Inc. and as of right now (see time stamp of this post) I feel like i have bought my last Heritage guitar EVER and shall resolve to keep the three that currently own and just be happy with them. (Throws the microphone down and walks away.)
Jerkey Posted October 5, 2018 Author Posted October 5, 2018 I"m not disagreeing with you at all. I was just letting everyone know where I stand quality of the instrument itself. The setup and the email reply was horse crap.. Also I gave Heritage another call today went right to voice mail had to leave another message. No return call as of yet.
HANGAR18 Posted October 5, 2018 Posted October 5, 2018 1 hour ago, Jerkey said: I"m not disagreeing with you at all. I was just letting everyone know where I stand quality of the instrument itself. The setup and the email reply was horse crap.. Also I gave Heritage another call today went right to voice mail had to leave another message. No return call as of yet. I appreciate you sharing your experience. I always prefer the truth even if the truth isn't very pleasant.
Kuz Posted October 6, 2018 Posted October 6, 2018 Hangar is correct, that is a crap guitar with an awful neck angle (a polish piece of poop, but poop none the less). I will never, ever, buy a guitar that is top wrapped over the stop tail because you can be stuck with a guitar like this one. I have owned over 15 Heritage guitars and have never had to set the stop tail high to get the strings over the back of the bridge. I have a McIntuff, Gibson ES-345, and two Collings City Limits guitars where I can set the stop tail as low as I want without the strings hitting the back of the bridge. Heritage should be ashamed to even put that guitar on the market let alone come up with that bullsh!t excuse. It obvious that either they don’t know how to build a quality guitar for sale or they are Just shoveling sh!t out the door intentionally and lying about the issues.
tulk1 Posted October 6, 2018 Posted October 6, 2018 Well, it's not like the old boys didnt drop a turd or two in the wild. The one thing, in this scenario, they would do is own it. And fix it. Here's hoping the new crew do the same.
Kuz Posted October 6, 2018 Posted October 6, 2018 1 hour ago, tulk1 said: Well, it's not like the old boys didnt drop a turd or two in the wild. The one thing, in this scenario, they would do is own it. And fix it. Here's hoping the new crew do the same. Exactly Kenny.... own it, apologize, offer to fix it or refund. But don't say that is normal and give a BS excuse why.
big bob Posted October 6, 2018 Posted October 6, 2018 What’s wrong with the strings hitting the back of the bridge?
mars_hall Posted October 6, 2018 Posted October 6, 2018 Have you considered the radius of the bridge is different than the radius of the tailpiece and/or the saddles are shorter than the combination requires?
RhoadsScholar Posted October 6, 2018 Posted October 6, 2018 I echo Kuz's reply. Send it back if you have the opportunity. The reply Heritage gave you is crap. Beautiful guitar. I bet you could find a NOS 150 from 2015 or 2016 before things started to change. That is what I would do. So sad to see this happen to you man. Thanks for posting and generating a lot of questions about the new Heritage.
HANGAR18 Posted October 6, 2018 Posted October 6, 2018 1 hour ago, big bob said: What’s wrong with the strings hitting the back of the bridge? While I remember it being put to me in terms of that being a seriously bad thing, I am under the impression that it has to do with avoiding being robbed of tone as well as the resistance it would provide against the string, interfering with the relationship between the bridge saddles and the stop bar. When I do the final stop bar height adjustment, I have a small piece of paper in one hand and a screwdriver in the other hand. I move the piece of paper in and out, under the string where it would eventually make contact with the bridge and then back it off so that there is a gap equal to the thickness of a piece of paper between the string and the back of the bridge.
Spectrum13 Posted October 6, 2018 Posted October 6, 2018 They had a two piece curly maple top and carved the arch with too steep an angle from the bridge to the tail piece. If the carve top was higher where the studs were drilled for the tail, the string angle would be fine. They should have made this a stoptail or destroyed it like the legend of the three hundred. As a reality check this is the only reported turd from the new owners.
Kuz Posted October 6, 2018 Posted October 6, 2018 2 hours ago, big bob said: What’s wrong with the strings hitting the back of the bridge? It can cave the bridge over time. It can severely effect the ability to set the intonation. It can effect the tone & sustain. It is just wrong and not intended to be set up that way.
deytookerjaabs Posted October 6, 2018 Posted October 6, 2018 Intonation is set by the string break so as long as the saddle is in it's right place and breaks the string there will be no ill effects on intonation. If there is tone robbing then every Telecaster & Stratocaster ever suffers the same tone robbing fwiw. That said, for a small production place it looks like what some Les Paul folks' refer to as "Violin Bridge" which certainly appears on some "Friday Afternoon" Les Pauls. The saddle slots are notched ridiculously deep and the base of the bridge seems wider than a normal ABR along with the angle and/or plane of the top carve (it is a combination of factors) all combining for a stupid looking setup. It would probably look better with a proper ABR & saddles that don't have a huge notch but I'm guessing the strings would still hit if the tailpiece was all the way down. I'm more surprised they're cool with a tailpiece dangling up that high if that's how they sent it to ya. I don't know how deep those studs are but damn. Still, optimally, scoping out the relief in person is important too. You can really raise a bridge/saddles if you have a ton of relief with modestly set action.
Jerkey Posted October 6, 2018 Author Posted October 6, 2018 I sent them this email today since I'm getting no answer by phone. Dear Sirs: I bought a Heritage H-150 directly from your factory. I received it on August 6th. On August 16th I sent you an email with pictures about the stop bar being set so high and the E strings still making contact with the back of the bridge. On August 21st I received an email reply back from Dan telling me this is totally normal. I had this checked out and it is not normal at all. I am currently running a thread on the Heritage Club Owners Forum about this issue I'm having with your company. I think you should check it out. I'm ready to ship this guitar back to you for a refund or a replacement. And for 2500 dollars it's gonna have to be no less than perfect. Let's get real about this. The neck angle is wrong. I'll be waiting for your reply. http://www.heritageownersclub.com/forums/topic/33459-h150-stop-bar/ Sincerely, Mike Read
Kuz Posted October 6, 2018 Posted October 6, 2018 From the Les Paul Forum, when asked about the same exact question of why it is a bad thing for the strings to hit the back of the bridge.... ”pressure they are putting on the bridge. If they are really pulling down on the bridge, it can cause the bridge to slant toward the nut making it hard to intonate the guitar. This would be more of an issue with an ABR-1 than with a Nashville bridge. Another issue is the strings can start cutting into the bridge and eventually cut themselves a groove in the bridge which could cause string breakage. The other issue (and some may arugue) but my luthier told me that having them touching the bridge does not promote the best oscillation of the strings from the bridge saddles to the nut. He has told me that the design is for the strings to have their two points of contact where vibration occurs at the bridge saddles and at the nut not also with the bridge itself. I trust his opinion since he is a master luthier and once worked for Gibson and designed guitars for Alvarez and others back in the 80's. My experience is if you find the position you like best with the tail piece and they touch the bridge just a bit, it may not be a problem, but it may not be the ideal situation for performance and tone.”
HANGAR18 Posted October 6, 2018 Posted October 6, 2018 4 hours ago, Conneazoo said: Send it back. Buy a PRS. Well, I wasn't going to come out and say that, but... Consistency is a very highly desirable feature for a manufacturer to achieve when they are building something. That whole bit where 1959 Les Paul guitars differed from one to the next to the point where people today celebrate those manufacturing differences is stupid. I don't want to have to go through a whole bunch of different guitars of the particular model I am interested in order to find the best of the bunch because "some are better than others". That is crap! If I special order a guitar, I want to have some confidence that the one I receive is just as awesome as the one(s) which convinced me to order one just like it to be my own. Heritage Guitar and PRS Guitars (the companies) are the same age. After 30+ years of building guitars, it is painfully clear to me that PRS is FAR better at producing extremely consistent guitar builds than Heritage. New PRS guitars, 2015 and newer, have amazing build consistency. For example, I have two McCarty 594's (the PRS version of a 21st Century improvement to the Les Paul design) and the build quality differences between them you would need a microscope or micrometer to discern the differences between them. But, as we learned from this post, the differences between some Heritage guitars, you can see across the room. Maybe the guitar here in the OP can be fixed simply by installing a new nut, bridge and lowering the strings to a normal low playing action. But that should have been done at the factory. Build quality consistency is extremely important if you want anyone to take your brand seriously.
Kuz Posted October 6, 2018 Posted October 6, 2018 I would add Collings guitars (and their LP style model, the “City Limits”) to guitars produced with the highest tolerances and unparalleled customer service.
Polo Posted October 7, 2018 Posted October 7, 2018 4 hours ago, Jerkey said: I sent them this email today since I'm getting no answer by phone. Dear Sirs: I bought a Heritage H-150 directly from your factory. I received it on August 6th. On August 16th I sent you an email with pictures about the stop bar being set so high and the E strings still making contact with the back of the bridge. On August 21st I received an email reply back from Dan telling me this is totally normal. I had this checked out and it is not normal at all. I am currently running a thread on the Heritage Club Owners Forum about this issue I'm having with your company. I think you should check it out. I'm ready to ship this guitar back to you for a refund or a replacement. And for 2500 dollars it's gonna have to be no less than perfect. Let's get real about this. The neck angle is wrong. I'll be waiting for your reply. http://www.heritageownersclub.com/forums/topic/33459-h150-stop-bar/ Sincerely, Mike Read Sorry to hear about the trouble you're having here Mike! You have every right to be upset at both the quality issue and the lame response. I am however quite confident they'll inevitably do the right thing by sending you a replacement. Is this you're first experience owning a Heritage Guitar?
Jerkey Posted October 7, 2018 Author Posted October 7, 2018 Yes this is my first Heritage. And ya I'm hoping for a good outcome on this. Thanks for your vote of confidence.
deytookerjaabs Posted October 7, 2018 Posted October 7, 2018 15 hours ago, Kuz said: From the Les Paul Forum, when asked about the same exact question of why it is a bad thing for the strings to hit the back of the bridge.... ”pressure they are putting on the bridge. If they are really pulling down on the bridge, it can cause the bridge to slant toward the nut making it hard to intonate the guitar. This would be more of an issue with an ABR-1 than with a Nashville bridge. Another issue is the strings can start cutting into the bridge and eventually cut themselves a groove in the bridge which could cause string breakage. The other issue (and some may arugue) but my luthier told me that having them touching the bridge does not promote the best oscillation of the strings from the bridge saddles to the nut. He has told me that the design is for the strings to have their two points of contact where vibration occurs at the bridge saddles and at the nut not also with the bridge itself. I trust his opinion since he is a master luthier and once worked for Gibson and designed guitars for Alvarez and others back in the 80's. My experience is if you find the position you like best with the tail piece and they touch the bridge just a bit, it may not be a problem, but it may not be the ideal situation for performance and tone.” If you're gonna quote the MLP'ers when asked about the bridge height here ya go: "Picture looks ok." "From what little I know, that doesn't look too bad at all." "I see nothing wrong here." "I wouldn't worry about that bridge height, but the TP looks higher than I'd care for" "Yup...I would deck that tailpiece and topwrap!" " As soon as the OP provided a pic, members could readily see that the setup falls into the norm." "Right, 1/4 inch, not bad." "Looks fine to me as well." http://www.mylespaul.com/threads/bridge-height-question.401068/
HANGAR18 Posted October 7, 2018 Posted October 7, 2018 On 10/4/2018 at 7:05 PM, Millennium Maestro said: First off.... This thread is silly, no one can evaluate a guitar from pictures! Also when you buy factory direct there is no outside QC a typical dealer would perform to ensure a quality instrument is being delivered! You saved money, spend some of that to have a PRO tech evaluate what was really delivered. At minimum I suspect the setup was totally turd quality! Nice piece of wood there... But, to add to what I said earlier, seeing the guitar in person and having it checked out on a bench IS the preferred way of looking at it, rather than just seeing a bunch of pictures on the Internet. If the string height at the 3rd fret can be made to get down to the 4/64th string height by filing down the nut slots, then the whole setup may be brought around to acceptable specs. I think both Gibson and Heritage may not be trying to send out guitars with really low actions. Some people like high actions. Isn't that a jazz guitar thing or a slide guitar thing? This post is a good illustration of one of the important roles a dealer can provide. Even when I once bought a Les Paul directly from Gibson, they had a technician right there in the gift shop to set the action to exactly how I wanted it.
TalismanRich Posted October 7, 2018 Posted October 7, 2018 It does look high, but it may still be perfectly functional, other than it affecting the feel of your picking hand, which should be important. If a guitar isn't comfortable to play, its not going to be used. All the talk about it "killing the tone" is a bit of a stretch to me. There are guitars with very hard break angles like strats and teles, and archtops with flying trapeze tailpieces which have flat break angles and very long string lengths behind the bridge. They ALL work. They all have "tone" (whatever THAT is). Besides setting the neck angle (which might be off a couple of degrees) its possible that the carve might have be sanded a bit too aggressively on the slack belt sander. Taking an extra 1/8" of wood off the top near the tailpiece will make things look much worse. Many of us have seen this done at the factory and it wouldn't be too hard to sand a bit too much of the arch away. I've seen some photos of other 2018 H150s which didn't look to have the same height on the tailpiece, so I don't think it's like that on every guitar. That said, the " shows off the wood in the light better" argument is pretty lame. I would try to get in touch with Pete Farmer. He can probably advise you better than the sales or customer service guy. He actually makes the guitars and probably knows more than 99% of the folks here or on MLP.
Conneazoo Posted October 8, 2018 Posted October 8, 2018 I see everybody talking about what is wrong with this guy's guitar and possible ways to fix it. NOT THE POINT. This poor dude bought this guitar "Factory Direct". Yup. Go back and reread it if you must. Factory Direct. From the time that he opened the case it should have been right. If this is the route that is going to be taken by Heritage, then they should have checked themselves. That DID NOT happen. We all know of the stigma that we put on the "G" QC. Bullshit excuses and all. I stand by my previous statement. Send it back. Buy a Paul Reed Smith.
TalismanRich Posted October 8, 2018 Posted October 8, 2018 4 minutes ago, Conneazoo said: I see everybody talking about what is wrong with this guy's guitar and possible ways to fix it. NOT THE POINT. This poor dude bought this guitar "Factory Direct". Yup. Go back and reread it if you must. Factory Direct. From the time that he opened the case it should have been right. If this is the route that is going to be taken by Heritage, then they should have checked themselves. That DID NOT happen. We all know of the stigma that we put on the "G" QC. Bullshit excuses and all. I stand by my previous statement. Send it back. Buy a Paul Reed Smith. I understand it was Factory Direct. I agree with you on the lame excuse. If he's not satisfied with the guitar, it should go back. I just suggested he talk with Pete, as he's pretty much in charge of the shop floor from what I have seen. If things are going out wrong, he needs to know about it, so it can be corrected. This will be an interesting case to see how the factory direct model really works for them. If they don't stand behind it, that will kill the factory direct deal in short order! If I was ordering a new Heritage, I would prefer to go through my local dealer, but would probably opt to drive to K'zoo to pick it up at the factory anyway. Its not like I've never been there before.
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