I sent my 1964 RM 1999 bass to Chip Little to take care of a list of things I wanted done to restore the bass. Upon getting the bass back, I could not be sorrier that I picked him to do the job. ~AND~ paid him to do it. The bass came back with more issues than it had when I sent it to him.
First, and in all fairness, Chip did a good job correcting the forward bend to the headstock. It's at a good angle and so far has held strong and true. After correcting the bend, he installed carbon fiber rods on either side of the truss rod cavity and covered the routes with a well-suited layer of veneer. He also helped the neck's back-bow via the same method - carbon rods under the fretboard.
But that's where the good news ends. The following laundry list is the outline of all the stuff he either messed up or failed to correct.
1. The veneer job he did on the headstock was incredibly sloppy. He didn't even bother to trim back the ⅛" of overhang into the cavity, and leftover glue had dripped down and dried. Not only that, there was a ¼" by ¼" chunk of veneer folded over into the cavity that he didn't even bother to trim off. I wish I had taken a picture of that mess, but my first instinct was "Clean up this mess!" It took me a mere 15 minutes to trim off the excess veneer, clean out the excess glue, and sand the edge smooth. Something a competent luthier would have done.
2. Along with straightening the neck, he did a refret… using the wrong sized frets. In the MANY conversations we had about this project, I made it very clear that the overall goal was to get the bass back to 1964 spec's. So, the fact that he put in jumbo sized frets on a '64 RM is just baffling to me - one of the many signs that this guy's head just isn't in the game. HE SAW the size of the ones he removed… ???
3. He put a super-thick glossy layer of finish on the fretboard which cracked over several of the dot inlays. Again, see: period correct failure.
4. He did a real half-*** job putting the fretboard back on the neck - glue and gaps everywhere along the seam, cut marks as well. ~AND~ the fretboard is split from the neck between the nut and first fret. This might be fixable by injecting glue in the seam and clamping, but considering the fact that the whole fretboard is going to need to be pulled and reset, it's a moot point. But there it is for the record.
5. He was supposed to fill one of the missing tiny dots that are set into the E side of the fretboard. Over the phone, he talked about what a simple thing it was to do… simple enough I guess if you're not the least bit concerned with the new dot matching the old ones. The original dots are a greyish white, he used something with a bright orange-hued white color. AND - when I sent him the bass, only one was missing. He ended up replacing TWO for some reason. (How do you lose a freaking fretboard dot???) So now TWO don't match.
6. The fret job itself - done incredibly sloppy. There is damage to the fretboard wood all along the neck now - completely marred by chips and compression marks. The fret ends weren't even cut uniformly or crowned. The edge of the fretboard looks like someone smiling with broken teeth. It looked like a beginner's very first fret job attempt. Hopefully all the damage to the fretboard edges can be sanded out when a refret is done.
7. Somehow a bunch of superglue-fingerprints got all over the nameplate. I had to sand & buff all that out.
8. He wound the horseshoe pickup bobbin I gave him, but didn't even bother to solder the ground wire to a fish-eye washer and screw it to the bottom of the baseplate; he just wrapped the bare wire around a loose baseplate screw and left it at that. Subsequently, the D/G horseshoe magnet was flopping around loose.
9. He did a lousy job with the setup. For some reason the G string was buzzing like crazy. I finally discovered that he had the G-side of the mute cranked all the way up and the string was buzzing on it.
10. WITHOUT ASKING ME IF IT WAS OK FIRST, he replaced the original hand-cut bakelite nut with a brand new RIC issue nut. (period correct fail)
11. As above, he did the same thing with ALL the original PG, surround, and jack screws. (period correct fail) I sh*t bricks and let him know the err of his ways - fortunately, he still had the original hardware and sent it back to me.
12. And I guess this is the perfect icing for the cake - he also managed to damage the spine on the guitar case while it was in his care. Now it flops open about a foot further than it should.
I decided that I deserved to be refunded on AT LEAST the fretboard related part of the work since I'm going to have to pay someone else to do another refret with the correct size fret wire as well as reset the entire fretboard. Chip dodged my emails and calls for about two weeks, then finally called me back to discuss. Results there: he basically filled the air with lame excuse upon lame excuse for why he did his work so shabily, and avoided acknowledging any of his mistakes. Example: "I thought someone else was going to fix the veneer later." (Well, "he" sure did, but wouldn't have had to if Chip had completed the job himself.) Probably the biggest gem of an excuse re: using the wrong fretwire - "Aaaw heck. I've got TONS of vintage fretwire. Yeah, I don't even like using that jumbo gauge wire."
???????????
And since the question BEGS to be asked, I asked it:
"Then why didn't you USE the vintage fretwire?"
His infallible explanation: "Well heck - there's tons of stuff on that bass that isn't period correct." Mostly thanks to him. Baffling. Completely baffling.
So he basically used the opportunity of this discussion to try and talk his way out of refunding me the $175 - obviously more concerned with hanging onto that money than satisfying a VERY unsatisfied customer. And that's how it ends. Except that by now he's already lost WAY more than $175 in business and will probably continue to lose even more. Overall, Chip doesn't strike me as a particularly bright individual.
(photos to follow)
