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Re: Sad Day....

PostPosted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 12:08 am
by PhilHunt
What a joke! If it was me, I'd rip that seller a new one and definately leave NEGATIVE FEEDBACK!!!! Do anything you can to it. Headstocks are an easy fix. I had a buddy of mine who had a 60's Gibson SG and he had a broken headstock. He was literally thinking of throwing the guitar away! Now, I'm no luthier but I took it home with me and put it back together and glued it with a hide glue, then I sanded it and put a light finish on it. You could hardly tell except for a slight hairline showing. I also did an old yamaha acoustic for someone. Don't fret....it can be repaired. But, damn.....I would have been pissed once I opened that box up. He should have gone to a music store and gotten a box from them. They have oodles of them that they are always throwing away.

Re: Sad Day....

PostPosted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 12:55 am
by alexjones
Hey guys,
Unfortunately, the break is not as clean as the pictures make it look. The neck basically tore off vertically under the fretboard, leaving a whole bunch of splinters. Thankfully it didn't break the fretboard. You can't even put the two pieces together without there being about a 1/2" gap - all because the splinters don't line up. I will take it to someone who has done this sort of thing before. It sure would be easy if I could just put glue in the break and clamp it up. Oh well - I'll keep ya'll posted. Thanks!
Alex

Re: Sad Day....

PostPosted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 9:13 am
by rhudson
Alex, be sure to save all the splinters. It is important. The right person can put this back together.

Re: Sad Day....

PostPosted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 9:34 am
by guitarchuck
It's truly sad that this guitar was packed this way. I've packed many guitars, it's very important that items are packed tight. There should be no wiggle room in a box, plenty of padding. People don't like to spend money on packing material, but it's worth it. A guitar without a hardshell case should always be double boxed. If a guitar fits loosely in it's case, more packing material should be added inside the case so it can't move around.

I went down to the post office to pick up a guitar once that came from Hawaii. It was a old Martin. I told the guy at the counter that it should be easy to find because it's a guitar and should be in a big box. He came back carrying the case by the handle and said "It was easy to find". I couldn't believe it! The seller shipped the guitar from Hawaii just in the case no packing at all! I was also amazed that it arrived in good shape.

Re: Sad Day....

PostPosted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 10:14 am
by bill park
alexjones wrote:I will take it to someone who has done this sort of thing before.

Hi Alex, it's really too bad about that guitar not being well-packed. Like Chuck said, packing is extremely important when shipping a guitar. If you take the repair to a luthier, though, you'll probably have to spend more to repair it than the guitar is worth. A Harmony, right? Give serious thought to how much you should invest into an instrument that has very little resale value. If the seller won't help you out with a USPS claim, I'd see if you could patch it up yourself, or with a friend's help. Keep us posted!
Thanks, Bill

Re: Sad Day....

PostPosted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 10:15 am
by Joey Bowie
Alex,
It's very unfortunate what happened to your Harmony but before you try to do a DIY fix I encourage you to join the Harmony Guys Board forum. http://harmony.demont.net/board/index.p ... ca6f67e662

I have a Harmony H-156 that I strung with Nylon ball end strings and these guys were very helpful to me. I've always wanted to be able to reset a guitar neck and this Harmony really needed it. I was able to lower the action on this guitar with the expert advice of the guys on this forum. Some of these guys are expert guitar repairmen and will gladly offer tips on how to do a repair job. All is not lost. Take the necessary time to learn how to do the repair and you'll only need to do the job once.
Joey

Re: Sad Day....

PostPosted: Wed Apr 10, 2013 5:32 am
by Mattes1981
Oh what a mess.
But listen: I bought 3 Harmonys last year ( 172,173 and 174 ). They shipped it with USPS to GERMANY. Everything was fine when they arrived.

But as the other people say: A luthier should be able to fix it.