Can I Please Wake Up?

[peacemaker]

I was hoping to write an ethereal post about the many virtues of my new Heritage. I have to write this instead.

 

I just purchased a beyond-beautiful 575 from Jazzpunk here on the forum. I have waited 10 years for this guitar--the one I've dreamed about all that time. It is exactly what I wanted. It arrived Monday afternoon and after several hours of waiting not so patiently for temperature and humidity to equalize before opening the case (as advised by some of the nice guys here), my dream was realized. My first hollow body jazz guitar! She sounds incredible. She looks dead sexy. She feels like . . . just like the old Gibson J-45 I first learned on when I was 13. I felt like I had come full circle in my playing to a new beginning. Sorry to get all poetic here, but if anybody understands I figured it would be y'all!

 

1:45pm Monday -- She arrived

6:00pm Monday -- Opened the case and fell in love

1:00am Tuesday -- Finally went to sleep!

9:00pm Tuesday -- Ugh

 

After waiting all day to spend some quality time with my new honey, I placed the case on the bed and gently wiped her down. Then I carefully picked her up keeping an eye out as I always do with a guitar in my hand for hard things like furniture and amps. I didn't look up. WHAM. Wha!? I had slammed the headstock of my new, dreamed-of, Old-Style Sunburst-dressed, Duncan Seth Lover-loaded, flamey maple 575 into a light fixture on the ceiling fan. A chunk of black lacquer clung to the frosted glass. Naked wood glared from my otherwise glossy black headstock. I shouted and swore, set the guitar down and buried my face in my hands.

 

I have nicks and scratches in my other guitars. If there is a way to prevent little things from happening to a guitar, I haven't found it. Most of them, I just chalk up to added character. But this guitar is completely different. A Rolls Royce. Scratches and dings do not add character to her. I'm not that guy who waxes his car every weekend and mows the lawn twice a week in the summer. I don't wear tailored suits or a fancy watch. I buzz-cut my hair so I don't have to bother with combing it or putting stuff in it. I don't have a hip, cool flat panel HD TV or an iPhone. None of that crap matters to me. I'm not obsessed with "stuff". But this guitar is different. She's special. She's my graduation gift from my family. I've dreamed of having her for years and years. She was supposed to stay all perfect and get the best care. Now, she's got this ugly gouge on the headstock.

 

My wife has tried to console me by saying we'll get it fixed. But who do I trust to do that? I assume it will always look like a patch unless I have the entire headstock redone. And where do I get that done? Now that I have her, I certainly don't want to risk shipping her again. And I most definitely don't want to be without the guitar I waited all this time for and now have.

 

[ingeneri]

I feel your pain. But no worries, pristine guitars are unplayed guitars.

 

I have a similar ding on the back of my Super Eagle's headstock from doing the same thing at a gig. I was adjusting my amp and didn't notice the low ceiling lamp over the piano when I stood up. Bam!

 

My worst ding is actually a a scar I got from following someone ele's advice to "be careful". I normally placed the guitar flat on a table. When the "other gutiar player" expressed disaproval, I followed his advice to wedge the guitar between a chair and the wall. When I removed it the chair had left a 1" long, but thankfully thin and shallow dent. That's the only ding I really get pissed off about!

 

But in the end, between gigging the Super and having dents or keeping it safely at home, the guitar just demands to be played. So, yeah, dings suck, but just relax and enjoy playing your 575.

[LH575]

Ouch!

 

It happens...

 

Wood filler and some finish work and it'll be like it never happened. Any decent woodworker could fix that up good as new. I'd try some local high end custom furniture builders or a custom shop luthier.

 

Don't sweat it. Easy fix.

[tulk1]

[Spectrum13]

Bummer!

 

 

 

Anyone know about getting a new headstock inlay with MOP from K-Zoo and having it cut and installed?

 

I know it's a cost saving feature to paint on "the Heritage" but I much perfer the inlaid MOP and if this could be done it would be an improvement.

[FredZepp]

it happens...

but really it's a small thing ... and could be repaired easy enough.

You bought it as a keeper , so now you've made your mark...

 

You said that a chunk was on the light fixture... is it a piece that could be carefully glued back into place?..

[Jazzpunk]

Hang in there peacemaker! I have a feeling LH575 is right in that a skilled luthier will be able to fix her up good as new.

[Doug]

Oh dude, we all feel the anguish.

 

Here's a story about me and my Takamine:

 

I bought an electric solid body and was teaching myself to play it. A couple years and hundreds of hours later I knew that playing a guitar would be one of my my passions for the rest of my life. I needed an acoustic and my co-worker had a brand new Takamine EF360 that I would get a chance to play and buy. He gave me these great terms - "just pay me $20 a week after you cash your check and you'll have it paid for before you know it." He was meticulous with his guitars and would blow the dust off (there never really was any) when he pulled it out of the case to show me. I brought the guitar home and downstairs to the basement "music room" I was close to completing. I pulled it out and started playing and then, out of nowhere, a tiny section of J-channel fell from my ceiling and hit the side of the neck while I was playing it. I did one of those "nooooooooo" takes you see in cartoons. It took a quarter-inch chunklike gouge out of the side of the neck, right where I'd be able to see it and feel it every single time I played it. I was crestfallen and didn't have the heart to tell my co-worker - who had gone to great lengths to protect it from any tiny scratch or pick mark.

 

Now the only time I notice or think about that mark it makes me laugh at how bizarre that incident was and how I thought It would change the way I felt about that guitar. It hasn't and I can tell you a little (or perhaps lengthy) story about pretty much every mark on it - and there are quite a few.

[cod65]

ahhh. my heart goes out.

 

 

did the same thing with my factory fresh 158 right out of the case! Still havent gotten it repaired.

 

 

Cheeer up tho, that is a minor repair.

 

What you wanted to do is find the missing chunk and wrap it in ice and fly it by medivac to ....... oh wait , this is a guitar, not a finger

[tbonesullivan]

easy fix, if you want to . Just get a black touchup marker from Stewmac, and then the clear gloss touchup. Put on a few coats. wait a month, put on a few more and then sand it out.

[big bob]

I will fix her up for free. send her down here to florida. I should be able to fix her up and get her shipped back my late Feb.

[yoslate]

Right after we got married, my wife cut herself pretty badly on a piece of glass. Nasty scar on an otherwise perfect arm. I could count on one hand the number of times I've noticed it over the last twenty-five years. And I didn't even take her to a good luthier....

[kath]

Send it back to Heritage!!! They will fix it and make it look brand new. This way you will know that it was repaired correctly.

[Gitfiddler]

I feel your pain! But on the plus side, I bet you can get it repaired by a qualified luthier.

 

The first ding is always the worse. Yours just came a bit sooner than most.

 

Good luck.

[Steiner]

I had a similar incident with a brand new classical guitar.

 

30 years later, I just smile and remember the good old times.

[brentrocks]

We have all done it one time or another...at least it is still in 1 piece

[TalismanRich]

Right after we got married, my wife cut herself pretty badly on a piece of glass. Nasty scar on an otherwise perfect arm. I could count on one hand the number of times I've noticed it over the last twenty-five years. And I didn't even take her to a good luthier....

 

If you had, she would have come back with strings attached!

 

Peacemaker,

 

I've got my own sob story. First it was the 157 sitting on a stand in the family room, in the corner. I left the chord plugged in, as I was coming back in a few minutes. Somehow, my big feet get tangled in the cable, over comes the guitar. I caught it before it hit the floor, but there was a nice ding right on the lower horn. Not real big, but I knew it was there. Sort of like that pimple on your chin in high school.

 

Then the biggie. Wake up on a rainy Saturday morning, walk down to the basement and when I flip on the light, my '73 Guild S100 met me at the bottom of the steps... floating in the 18 inches of water. The 157 was sitting on the stand, with water up to the volume knobs.

 

Surprisingly, the Guild came out with only a couple of finish cracks, nothing even close to what most vintage guitars show. The 157 dried out for a couple of months and off she went to the factory for a refinish. Now she's back where she belongs, looks good and they even fixed the ding.

 

Moral of the story... we can rebuild it.. make it better. And it won't cost you $6,000,000 either.

[yoslate]

If you had, she would have come back with strings attached!

 

+1

[High Flying Bird]

Peacemaker, listen to my words please! Joe got a ding like this on a new H-150. The local guy used low tack tape to mask the heritage decal. When he was finished with the repair he removed the decal with the tape. Don't make this mistake.

 

Before logo removal.

[MatZen]

Peacemaker, listen to my words please! Joe got a ding like this on a new H-150. The local guy used low tack tape to mask the heritage decal. When he was finished with the repair he removed the decal with the tape. Don't make this mistake.

 

Before logo removal.

Holy crap! I couldn't imagine!

 

Peacmaker sorry about your ding. Easy fix like everyone has said but you will more than likely begin to overlook it soon.

[LH575]

18 years ago, I got a Taylor acoustic for my birthday. Played it all day, then put it to sleep for the night before I went to bed.

 

But then, decided to play it for a bit before I went to sleep. I pulled out a metronome - one of the old school pyramid styles that have the rod that swings back and forth - tick, tock, tick ,tock.

 

I pulled the cover off the metronome and in slow motion, it flew up in the air and fell on top of my not quite 24 hour old guitar. Put a ding in the top that I still look at ever time I pull it out of it's case.

 

But you know what? I've played the hell out of that guitar since and it has brought many years of happiness. That ding brings me right back to that day that I got it. It is a scar, but the fact that it brings me back to that day makes me actually like that ding. I wouldn't remove it even if I could!

[FrankV]

Ouch! I bought my first ever brand new guitar in October, a lovely 535. I've been dreading the first major ding, and have been a little unhealthy in my examinations for any little scratch, buckle dent, scratches on headstock from changing strings. At least I don't have to leave it in the parking lot at the supermarket! Thanks guys for your tales, I hope I can remember them and be philosophical when I do finally whack it a good one. (Low ceilings in basement) or heaven forbid, flood (keep it up on the table now when I leave it!!!)

[simon]

If you bumped it on stage during your sell out concert I'd say leave it but on a ceiling fan? Oh dear. On my six month old LP custom I noticed a tiny rice grain size dint in the lacquer and having time on my hands decided to do a bit of polishing. There is now an inch diameter patch of dissolved lacquer where the dint was. Moral: use the right polish for nitro. How dumb is that?

[Thundersteel]

I bought my new LP Custom way back in 1990. This was the first, really good guitar I had ever bought, so it was (and still is) very special to me.

 

The dealer had left the price sticker on it. It was on the outer rim by the output jack, so I peeled it off, but there was still some gooey residue left.

 

So, I put some acetone on a rag, and voila! A quarter-size area of paint was damaged. I thought "Oh sh!!!!t"

 

Luckily, the dealer (Elderly) was only a couple hours away, so I took it back the next weekend where they buffed the bad spot out--for free, IIRC.

 

When I got the guitar back, you could barely tell it was there. It wsn't perfect, since they just buffed it, so I took a black permanent marker, and

touched up the rest.

 

Fast forward some 20 years. The spot is still there, but hardly noticeable--I consider it a tribute to my naivety (and stupidity)!

[mark555]

I will fix her up for free. send her down here to florida. I should be able to fix her up and get her shipped back my late Feb.

 

Send it to me, I will fix it up and NOT send it back....

 

But seriously, seen a lot worse than that been made to look brand new. Get the repair done and chalk it down to experience, then don't open the guitar case in the same place again...