SE 35th Anniversary Poor Quality Control

[John Greenan]

Hi,

So I just received my 35th SE custom 24 (UK), initial inspection I found that whoever filed the nut corner had damaged the binding on the fretboard.
Next I had serious stability issues using the tremelo. The nut was badly cut anyway, but when I had a look at the cavity, the trem block was rubbing the inside of the wood - I couldn't even slip my smallest feeler gauge between it. Also the springs aren't straight because of the claw screws being misaligned, I think to compensate for the block and stop the spring hitting the corner.
Lastly, high frets at the 6th and 8th causing serious fretbuzz -tested with a metal ruler.

Needless to say I am trying to get it replaced.

 

[toothace]

How 'bout some pics of the whole guitar?

 

[John Greenan]

How 'bout some pics of the whole guitar?

Here you go. Beautiful guitar, just broken where it matters...

 

[xjbebop]

Wow... that's unacceptable...

 

[toothace]

How about the back? Any full body shots?

 

[dmatthews]

Yeah, that doesn't look right.

 

[John Greenan]

Yeah, that doesn't look right.

I actually think its a machining issue with the cavity, it has been routed out at a tilt to the left. You can tell by the backplate screws, they look machined to a template - both the screws on the left are out of position, when you put the back plate on it barely covers the cavity on the bottom left. Also the claw screws - these are supposed to be straight but whoever installed it has put the left screw in far deeper than the right to compensate for the tilted cavity.
So I think the hardware is fine, its just a bad cavity job.

 

[shimmilou]

Possibly, a jolt has knocked the bridge knife edge out of the mounting screw slots, tilting the bridge to one side, and/or the mounting screws are not even.

 

[Dirty_Boogie]

Unacceptable. Send that back ASAP. No excuse for those issues.

 

[Egads]

How is the front edge of the bridge?

 

[John Greenan]

How is the front edge of the bridge?

The bridge is fine. Pivoting ok on the knife edges, all level, 1,5 mm all round.

I get that if the bridge had dropped off the knife edge to one side it might cause this but not in this case.

 

[Egads]

The bridge is fine. Pivoting ok on the knife edges, all level, 1,5 mm all round.

I get that if the bridge had dropped off the knife edge to one side it might cause this but not in this case.

Interesting. Yeah, send it back. Sh!t happens, but it needs to be right from the get-go.

 

[PDC]

Looks like someone decided to send it out anyways with the pressure of them being so far behind on shipping for these. Where was it made?

 

[John Greenan]

Cor Tek Indonesia. Everything about this one was rushed so yes it all points towards them production being slower than demand.
It has been replaced now, I managed to get one that was manufactured way earlier and the difference is night and day, the older one is perfect. I don't know if the serial numbers run sequentially for this model, but the replacement I managed to get was around 2000 guitars earlier, the inspection sticker date stamp was months earlier.

 

[PDC]

Yay! Good for you. So nice to hear about a positive outcome.