Guitar Quality Control, Are we really getting the best from our favourite brands? Options

[Becca]

Now we are getting somewhere with this. I admit that there was a touch of mischief in the way I posed this question. I think TeoWulf was the first to suspect ,so well done that man. However I did want to see how this forum handles itself even when someone, ahem, drops a boulder in the pond. What I learned was this site is not only fun but has musos on here who are thoughtful and articulate and who love a good debate. Mudbone really picked the ball up when he pointed out the low cost of manufacturing pups compared to the mark up. Kenny, the irrepressible, told us the lengths he had to go to on one of his guitars to improve the shielding. This is part of what I want to get at. We slog to buy the best we can afford to do the job we love. If we were builders and our tools were not made to the highest standard that manufacturer would be out of business pretty darn quick. I admire Ken for being able to do the extra finishing work on his guitar that it needed. It just makes me cross that it hadn't come from the factory adequately shielded.
I mentioned my old USA Fender Strat . It was a ltd edition reissue in a lovely Antigua finish. Kind of like a pearl grey sunburst if you don't know it. It had a micro tilt neck so it was possibly a '72 reissue? It cost hundreds of pounds more than the standard Strats hanging next it in the Fender dealership in Ealing. It also weighed a ton. I gradually became aware of how noisy it was as said before, but also lots of finishing issues. The scratch plate was bowed outwards from the body. The slot for the five way was left rough cut. Turning down the the tone knobs increased the buzzing and operating the switch varied from a bit of crackle to thumps and bangs. I had to take a can of WD40 into the orchestra pit every session! The dealer tried to tell me it was "authentic Fender" but in the end used the TINY argument on me (tough, it's now yours)!
By raising these sort of issues here, amongst musicians who routinely help each other out and who can discuss the hind legs off a donkey we may be able to bring issues that have plagued us , all of us, for years out into the sunlight. Perhaps get companies to raise their game a bit in response. Hell, even Gibson now offer coil split and phase shift on the Les Paul. It took them until 2012 and undoubtedly in response to PRS eating into their sales but it shows that mountains can move. Eventually.
A friend has a Mexican Fretless P bass that is pretty much unplayable. Bought new from Fender dealer on web. He also got the TINY retort. Worryingly this was only in 2012.

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