#5 and #4 not flat or square?
I was hoping to borrow some knowledge from you guys.
I recently bought some pretty pricey planes from a vendor I do not care to name. Anyway, when I put the planes up against a high quality straight edge, granite surface plate, etc... I can see a lot of light between the sole of the plane and the straight edge and the granite plate. The toe and heel of the plane rest against the plate/straight edge, but there is a lot of bow inbetween. I can slide two pieces of paper between the granite surface plate and the plane. Also, when I use my Incra square, neither the #5 nor the #4 are square.
Am I over reacting/being fussy if I ask for a replacement? I wanted to dedicate the #5 to my shooting board. And the #4 just for general finishing work. Am I way off in asking for an exchange?
A post only the guitar-happy folks will appreciate
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Sam Takeuchi
. Incidentally straight edge can pin point high and/or low frets if there is one right away.
The following is probably only for the few people who like guitars, and doesn't relate to the topic. I thought about not posting, but I figure george will be either entertained or appalled since I know he would never make a guitar like this, and it follow's sams discussion of finding high frets with a straight edge.
A starrett edge was extremely telling on mine, and it reaveled something rotten - the high side of the fingerboard had a huge dip in it at the dovetail joint to the body - one that you could see with the naked eye looking down the neck. The dovetail joint was off (twisted) and the neck is slightly below the body on the high side (some genius at the maker's shop glued it up anyway). The maker either didn't check it or got lazy and clamped a fingerboard onto it, anyway, which left the fingerboard higher past the neck joint. This creates obvious and immediate problems.
I'm not above sanding a fret that's a bit proud of the others, but this was a much larger problem and I was hoping to preserve the ability to dump the guitar at a later date after all the trouble I had. I called the maker and told them that it was completely dead on the high strings as soon as you fretted a note several frets up the nut, and explained why, and they said "oh, we can fix that easily, you'll never know there was a repair and it'll be perfect" (this had already been a relations fiasco with the maker just getting the guitar). I got it back really quickly, and it was clear that they had just sanded the frets *very* hard past the neck joint. I could've done that myself. It's a shame because the guitar has sparkling tone and a big sound on the lower frets, but it isn't consistent all the way up the neck.
It doesn't intonate, either, so you couldn't record anything with it, anyway.
I have had three other (still have two) off-the-rack instruments from the same maker, and they are all very good, but none is a guitar.
That's a long way of saying, you don't have to worry about checking a
martin with a straight edge, because someone at the factory already did.
Should've broke out the extra bucks and commissioned a george wilson guitar! Next guitar I bought off the rack was a bourgeois. It is relatively plain and made with a level of fit and finish that boggles my brain. Very valuable lesson, especially to anyone here with deep pockets who is just picking up the guitar. There is a reason why pricing is different on guitars that appear to be the same spec (irrespective of "signature" models and all of that kind of nonsense, those are a separate issues).