PAUL WILCZYNSKI RETURNS

Setup, repair and restoration of Rickenbacker Instruments

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jingle_jangle
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PAUL WILCZYNSKI RETURNS

Post by jingle_jangle »

I don't want to make a huge deal out of this, but since many of you newer members have not interacted with me, I want to let members know that, after a nearly eight-year absence by my reckoning (where life situations took over), I am back at it here, moderating this section and getting to know our newer members and getting reacquainted with old friends.I'm very happy that Peter has kept my part of the Forum active all this time!

I'm retired from my former careers in automotive design and fabrication, and as a university instructor and department manager in a Transportation Design program, and have detached from daily Facebook use, so I have time to do some real good for Rickenfolks and share my tech knowledge in this Forum once again. Last year, my wife Rhonda and I relocated to Italy, where we bought a two-story loft property. We live upstairs and I have built out my workshop downstairs, so I can build and restore stringed instruments as always.

Anyone who is not familiar with my work with Rickenbacker instruments can head over to my website at http://www.studio-california.com.

I look forward to interacting with members and assisting in any way that's appropriate.
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rickinroma
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Re: PAUL WILCZYNSKI RETURNS

Post by rickinroma »

Glad to see you back, Paul!
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collin
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Re: PAUL WILCZYNSKI RETURNS

Post by collin »

Hi Paul (or should I say, "ciao!"), welcome back.

Glad to hear you guys have settled in Italy, I'd heard some rumblings about you moving out of country and good to know everything went well.

Not much traffic on the RRF these days, but a few of us check in regularly.
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Re: PAUL WILCZYNSKI RETURNS

Post by jingle_jangle »

Everybody seems to be on the FB pages, which is too bad. I'm posting on FB less and less, myself. Thought I'd go back to where my own interests are strongest.
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Re: PAUL WILCZYNSKI RETURNS

Post by jingle_jangle »

rickinroma wrote:Glad to see you back, Paul!
Thanks, Francesco!
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Re: PAUL WILCZYNSKI RETURNS

Post by cjj »

jingle_jangle wrote:Everybody seems to be on the FB pages, which is too bad. I'm posting on FB less and less, myself. Thought I'd go back to where my own interests are strongest.
I too am becoming less and less involved with Facebook, just getting tired of it.

Glad to have you back here at the RRF!
I have NO idea what to do with those skinny stringed things... I'm just a bass player...
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Re: PAUL WILCZYNSKI RETURNS

Post by beatbyrd »

Welcome back, Paul. Would you be willing to share any info as to your activity during those missing years? The decision to leave one's country for another is (to me anyway) a real major decision. Why Italy? Why now? I moved from SoCal to the Dallas area two and a half years ago. For me, it was mostly a quality of life decision, but also partially political in the sense that the 2 states in question handle themselves very differently. Was something similar involved in your choice?
It's fine if you don't want to elaborate, but my guess is that you still have a bunch of fans here that would be interested in some of the sharable details. You have quite a reputation for excellence, at least IMO.
It's a Byrd, it's a playin'..........

'73 4001 MG
'09 360/12 FG
'10 360/6 FG
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Re: PAUL WILCZYNSKI RETURNS

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beatbyrd wrote:Welcome back, Paul. Would you be willing to share any info as to your activity during those missing years? The decision to leave one's country for another is (to me anyway) a real major decision. Why Italy? Why now? I moved from SoCal to the Dallas area two and a half years ago. For me, it was mostly a quality of life decision, but also partially political in the sense that the 2 states in question handle themselves very differently. Was something similar involved in your choice?
It's fine if you don't want to elaborate, but my guess is that you still have a bunch of fans here that would be interested in some of the sharable details. You have quite a reputation for excellence, at least IMO.
I had a nice, well-written, semi-detailed response for you, Tom, and then as I was ready to post, my computer crashed as I accidentally kicked the plug out of the wall...

I'll redo it, but in less detail.

This is a timeline. I should point out that the major events that have occurred since mid-2012, have each taken all of my spare time each year, to deal with and resolve. The details of each year would each be a novel-length book, too. It sounds dramatic, but when life events hit fast and hard, it interrupts the established flow of things. My daily involvement in the RRF was the first thing to go, and the last to return.

I've virtually left Facebook after more than a decade, out of disgust and what I'll call, for lack of a better term, "Facebook Fatigue". The raw emotions and contempt for a proportion of my fellow Americans, coupled with the conviction that that type of unmoderated social medium was bad for our discourse, relations, and brains, pushed me off the edge of frequent posting, and brought me back here. Hopefully other Rickenbacker enthusiasts will see the unhealthy form of communication that FB encourages, and settle in this softer, friendlier place.

2012--I'm beginning to be wrapped up in an exhausting divorce, which carries on until late 2014.

Besides the "usual" Rickenbacker work, I'm in the middle of designing a new line of "Pulstar" solid body guitars to use the new solid state dedicated Light Show circuitry that my other company has been developing for four years.

My posts on the RRF decline precipitously.

2013--Early in the year, my Mom suffers a stroke. I have to travel back to Chicago several times. Later in the year, she passes away.

The "Pulstar" project sits on hold, Meanwhile, patents and copyrights are procured in the company's name.

2014--I move house and shop across the Bay to a new larger location. It takes three full months to build out the shop. I swear that I will never move again. (See below, 2020).

Mid-year, my Dad passes on.

Later, my divorce is final.

I miss both parents terribly. I feel like an orphan sometimes. They were kind and always supportive.

2015--I leave my position at the University to pursue guitar work full-time. I'm constantly busy, to this day. "Pulstar" picks up, again. We begin to look for a factory to produce the first run of these guitars.

2016--Every free minute outside of guitar work is spent finding a college for Juliana and arranging for her college loans (actually, MY loans for her college!). "Pulstar" patents and copyrights are granted, one by one.

2017--Juliana begins college in Canada. She transfers to a law school in the Netherlands, and after three more years in the Netherlands and Copenhagen, she completes her degree studies in 2021, but I'm getting ahead of things here...

Mid-year, I meet Rhonda, and we begin dating. Guitar work is full-time, and I'm completing most of the "Pulstar" engineering details and building one last prototype by hand using production electronics.

2018--Rhonda and I discuss a new fantasy--what if we "retired" to Europe? Hmmm...

We attend a charity auction for the Ronald McDonald House in Palo Alto, which she donated many hours to, organizing the interior design of the huge addition. We bid on a two-week deluxe package vacation in Northern Italy, and are the high bidders.

Do you see where this is headed??

2019--We take that vacation--the first for us in several years. We return and settle on Northern Italy as our place to "retire", and begin to search for a house to purchase. We review over 900 listings. The house needs to have a certain amount of space, be close to or within a city's limits, convenient to transportation, in move-in condition, with space or a separate building to house my workshop. Out of 900+ listings, the pickings are mighty slim, but we plan a trip to view 7 possible listings. The plan is to move in early 2020

Rhonda and I decide to get married, so on August 21, 2019, we tie the knot (cliché, I know) at SF City Hall.

Image


The first production "Pulstar" guitars arrive from China, and we put them into storage. I build a "Pulstar" web site, and design another for INDIEGOGO. Were unusual for INDIEGOGO, as we've financed the first production run ourselves. We have actual product to sell, not pie in the sky.

January, 2020--We spend ten days in Italy looking at properties. The very last one is a two-level loft conversion (VERY rare in Italy, where 70% of the populace lives in flats). It has its living area on the upper level and a garage and workshop below. It's in town and a ten-minute walk to the railway station, which puts us within a couple of hours of anywhere in Northern Italy and only a few more from the South. The airport is 15 miles away, and most of Europe is between one and three hours by plane.

We make an offer and sign a contract. We get our Italian tax numbers, and open an Italian bank account to handle bill paying in Italy. It's a whirlwind.

We return to the Bay Area on January 18, the very day that our area of Italy is hit with the COVID pandemic. Somehow we dodged the bullet.

We watch helplessly as Italy is overwhelmed by the pandemic. The entire year is lost before they get a handle on their response.

The rest of 2020 is spent arranging financing with an Italian bank, procuring three shipping containers, booking ocean shipping for the household, workshop, and two cars and my Ducati, selling off excess possessions and giving away much more, seeing the closing date move back twice, and putting together financials for the mortgage bank and the Consulate in order to secure our extended retirement visas.

The Italian Consulate closes, from March 25th through October 1st. Our visa applications are in limbo but we proceed on sheer willpower. On October 10, we finally secure a hearing at the Consulate and appear in person to present our financials and be interviewed.

We close on the house on October 10th. We book flights. Guitar work continues uninterrupted until November 10th.

Meanwhile, there's no word from the Consulate. I write one last desperate email asking for status. Two days later, on November 22, our visas arrive by FedEx.

Our containers arrive at the house on December 1st. With a crew of eight, we pack two containers with 507 boxes, our furniture, and my machinery and tools. The containers leave on December 3rd, and we fly to our new home on the 4th. This is us on the flight from SFO to Frankfurt. We are the ONLY people in Business Class. The doggies are on the floor at our feet...

Image


It is the darkest days of the pandemic. We cannot leave our house except to buy food and supplies for the house remodel.

It takes until roughly April to finish redoing the living part of the loft, and I put up 100 running feet of walls in the workshop, run new wiring for the machines, install lighting, and build out a spray booth. That's finished in May.

I've been back at guitar work since then.

Italy has come out of the pandemic with flying colors, thanks to a new PM who reviews the stats weekly and adjusts response accordingly. Masking is universal and mandatory indoors, compliance is nearly 100%, with no political nonsense. Vaccination levels are high and growing. We carry a computerized green pass with a QR code that cannot easily be forged. Life here is normal except for the indoor masking.

That's it.

Meanwhile, Juliana completed her studies for a degree in International Law (many of you will remember her from NAMM and SoCal Rickenbacker get-togethers, as that cute little blonde girl!), and will take her diploma later this month (October 2021). She has already begun working for a "four-letter international governmental body in Brussels". We'll see where that leads, but I can finally breathe freely after nine years.

Don't ask me about the cars...that's a true RANT.
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Re: PAUL WILCZYNSKI RETURNS

Post by rickinroma »

you should write a book :)
Look forward to meeting you in Brussels.
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Re: PAUL WILCZYNSKI RETURNS

Post by jingle_jangle »

rickinroma wrote:you should write a book :)
Look forward to meeting you in Brussels.
I think I have. And that was the brief version, I ask myself?
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Re: PAUL WILCZYNSKI RETURNS

Post by blueflamerick »

Congratulations on pulling through some very tough times and coming out on top. Also, a huge congratulations to your daughter for graduating college.
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Re: PAUL WILCZYNSKI RETURNS

Post by aceonbass »

So tell us about "the cars" Paul.... :wink:
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Re: PAUL WILCZYNSKI RETURNS

Post by doctorwho »

It's good to have you back, Paul! 8)
It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing. - Seneca
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Re: PAUL WILCZYNSKI RETURNS

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doctorwho wrote:It's good to have you back, Paul! 8)
Thank you kindly, Gary. And life goes on!
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Re: PAUL WILCZYNSKI RETURNS

Post by jingle_jangle »

aceonbass wrote:So tell us about "the cars" Paul.... :wink:
It's another book Dane. Fortunately, below is a cut and paste from a narrative that I wrote in order to bring some good friends back in CA up to date, so that they could coordinate in applying for duplicate titles, which FedEx had lost for 31 days (on a three-day promised delivery).

This will give anyone with the patience and curiosity to read it, a primer on shipping cars overseas using a "trusted" carrier with a sales/operations coordinator who had his head firmly up his butt, and who was insulated from any disciplinary action by the corporate president himself. His name was Christian, and he messed up ferociously, which ended up costing us twice the original shipping cost in car rentals and paperwork fees.The only angle I could come up with was that this kid, Christian, who was given too much responsibility and leeway, was the son of the Board Chairman, or something equally vile.

NARRATIVE FROM HELL

On October 12, as soon as we closed on the house, we contracted for a big container to ship everything in, movers to help Rhonda to pack and move stuff from her house to my container in Vallejo, and A DIFFERENT SPECIALIZED “NO WORRIES” COMPANY TO SHIP THE VEHICLES.

This story focuses on the vehicles. I signed the shipping contract, and specified November 27 as the pickup date for both cars and motorcycles. On October 16, I got a call from a guy who was right in front of my house, who wanted to pick up the bike. I told him the bike wasn’t ready, and I didn’t want it to get to Italy 6 weeks before I did, so…NO. I sent an email to the shipping company, and got no response. After three emails on the bike topic, the last one angry, I finally received a call from their Sales Manager, Christian, who told me he was sorry for the mistake, and verified pickup dates again. This should have clued me in that their communication was BAD, but, no...

Again, on October 26, the carrier was back to pick up the bike. Fifteen minutes' warning, but this time it was ready. I started it up and rode it into the trailer. I didn't know that it would be over a year before I could ever legally ride it again...

The car carrier arrived on December 1, and I loaded the cars up and signed bills of lading. They were to be trucked down to Gardena and loaded onto a boat at Port Of Los Angeles. The driver asked me if I wanted to leave the titles with him (as original titles are required by customs to release the cars onto the ship). I got Christian on the phone and he emphatically static that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WAS I TO GIVE THE DRIVER THE TITLES.

Christian said he would email me when they were needed, and I should FedEx them to him at that time.

My mistake was in taking Christian at his word. He never emailed me, and as I was going through my papers on the 16th of December after I’d been in Italy 11 days and somehow thought the cars and bike had been shipped, I found the envelope with the original titles. I immediately emailed Christian and he emailed me back that I should send them via FedEx. The very next morning, I took them to FedEx Italy near my house, and sent them off. I emailed Christian that they would arrive on the 21st at his office, and told him that he should send me shipping information as soon as the cars were loaded onto the boat.

NEARLY TWO WEEKS WERE LOST BY THIS TIME. Meanwhile we were renting a car at $800/month.

No word from the shipper on the 21st or anytime until after the Holidays. Period. Finally, on January 2, I sent Christian an email asking what ship the vehicles were booked on, and when it was due to arrive in Genoa (200 miles away through the mountains, in the winter...)

HE WROTE BACK THAT HE NEVER RECEIVED THE TITLES.

This was TWO WEEKS after he should received them. Do you think he could call me on the 22nd to say they never arrived? If I hadn’t written him on the 2nd, I would still be in the dark about this.

I immediately called FedEx in Europe and on my fourth attempt a clerk in their Belgium hub sent me their internal tracking screen shot. The titles had left Modena on the 17th and arrived in Memphis, TN, USA, on the 18th...

…AND HAD PROMPTLY GONE MISSING. And had been missing by then for two weeks.

It took seven calls to FedEx in the USA on January 3rd to finally get a woman who agreed to do a trace. She said she would call to give me an update. (The six calls I made before I reached her got me six different answers and six dead ends.) Anyway, she never called back, and I began calling FedEx every day for updates. On the 9th, I got another lady who made the same promise, with no follow-up.

I assumed the titles are lost. Christian then put me in touch with their DMV facilitator, who steps in in cases like this. In several emails and two phone conversations, it became obvious that this lady hustler plainly knew doodly-squat about the DMV, as I had already researched procedures and spoke to the DMV help desk, and had the process and fees written down. This scam artist ("specialist") wrote me three useless emails that got the facts all wrong. I told her I would not consider using her. She then sent me an email anyway, with her fees to perform butthole surgery—$895 and four weeks waiting time.

LIKE HELL.

DMV fees are in fact $22 per duplicate title and maybe a couple of hundred on the motorcycle. But $895.00???

Meanwhile, the cars and bike were in a warehouse in Gardena, SoCal, with dead batteries and high-value items in the trunks that I didn’t want to load into a container. (New iMac, my Jazz-Bo guitar, etc., my $$$ stereo…). The trunks would have to be emptied to charge the batteries. If they jump-start either car, they stand a chance of destroying both electrical systems.

They won’t be shipped, however, until the idiots at the shipping company have duplicate titles in my name.

I had two friends in the Bay Area running interference on the title issue, because in talking to the DMV, I was informed that I could do the whole thing online if I was willing to wait 6-8 weeks for processing. However, if I could present the paperwork in person (or proxy), this would shorten to 2-3 weeks.

So, at the very soonest, I thought I might see my cars in 60 days, or by, say, March 15? The shipping company’s total failure in communicating with me cost me at minimum $2400.00 additional in car rentals, plus registration, etc., not to mention lost time on the phone and frustration.

My biggest worry was the Maserati. I’ve owned for 6 years, with NEVER any reliability issues in 50K miles. I am very concerned at what will be the result of not starting its Nikasil Ferrari V8 for nearly 3 months and then having some warehouse guy jump start it and fire it up to drive it into the container.

This is compounded by the fact that the battery needs to be on a tender at the very least, but the battery was dead the week before I shipped it (I suspect a dead cell) and is most certainly sulfated by now after sitting dead for 5 weeks. I did not have time to replace the battery in the last minute rush to get the containers loaded, and I figured I would meet it in Genoa after 3 1/2 weeks, charge up the battery, and drive it home. Then replace the battery here. But NINE to TEN WEEKS? We’re in trouble territory here.

My two friends coordinated to meet at the DMV and process my duplicate titles on the spot. Another buddy, who I know from both Rickenbackers and exotic cars, and who is an excellent mechanic in his own right, agreed to take delivery of a brand new battery for the Maserati, and drive to the warehouse where the cars and bike were being stored, replace the battery, start the cars, and let them run until they were warmed up.

Image

Then, on January 19, I got an email that my titles had been found and were being delivered to the shipper in California the next day. The same day (January 20th) my friend Peter replaced the battery and checked out the vehicles' condition. He got both cars started and reported that everything was OK.

I had *** U MEd that the cars would be loaded into a container within a couple of days of having been picked up (roughly before December 7th), and would spend the same amount of time on the water as our other containers--3 1/2 weeks. WRONG!

The shipper finally informed me that they had been loaded onto the ship, the Rotterdam Express, on the 22nd, and it was due to leave the Port Of Long Beach on February 24th. This was a couple of days short of TWO months after they were picked up at my house. Christian informed me that they were due to arrive in Genoa on the 14th of April.

(NB: The Rotterdam Express was the same ship that was initially blamed for snagging the pipeline that cracked and fouled Huntington and Newport Beaches a week or so ago...)

I logged onto a ship tracking site and began to follow the Rotterdam Express' transponder signals on a daily basis. It did NOT head right for the Panama Canal, as it had about a dozen stops to make first, running all the way North to Vancouver, BC, before heading South again, then to Mexico (2 stops), Panama City, Cartegena, Colombia, two more stops in South America, then finally across the Atlantic to Gibraltar, Marseilles, Livorno, and Genoa.

My cars finally arrived at the Port of Genoa on May 3rd, FIVE MONTHS and two days after I saw them off in Northern California. I booked a carrier, as they were not registered in Italy, and thus illegal to drive on public roads. They finally were garaged at my new house on May 16th, and have not moved since, although I start them every week.


Image

Why have they not been driven since December 1, 2020? Because the process for registering a foreign vehicle in Italy ("immatriculazione") is exceedingly complex. People have told me that it is impossible. After a month and a bit, we found an agency in Milan that will take over this process for us, at a fairly hefty price. But I'm exhausted with bureaucracy and above all, inefficiency, at this point, so after getting the titles notarized by sending them back to the States and doing a Skype call to certify that I'm the true legal owner, and then obtaining apostilles for all three, we move into step two of the process--setting up tech inspections on the two cars.

Yeah, I know, another book...
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