To Whom It May Concern

*** The following is a letter from someone outside the normal GMW community who sent this to Lee Garver. He asked me to add it to his initial response below, without any additions, deletions or corrections. It speaks volumes. Thank you

Hi again,

I can now appreciate why you would take such a stance against "genebaby". In my very limited experience dealing with him I already want nothing to do with him. He is running a series of auctions with bidding restricted to approved members only, and he approves no-one. The purpose? 10 days of anti-GMW advertisement for the cost of a $0.01 listing with no obligation to give his precious sob piece away at the end. Apparently his experience with GMW justifies him wasting the time of everyone who sees his auction and takes an interest in purchasing the fretboard (yes I actually wanted to buy it, for a display-only guitar so alleged playability problems would be a non-issue). He's even going to the extent of sending himself questions from other eBay accounts which are more like one-sided mini essays rather than any meaningful questions just so he can display the questions on the item listing and look like it's other people pointing out all the flaws and he's just being neutral.

Anyway this email is basically just warning of the kind of thing he's still doing. He clearly wants to keep the fretboard but still draw as much attention to it as possible regardless of the inconvenience to others. Might be worth noting on your repsonse web page. Although it doesn't excuse the shocking ethic or workmanship behind doing a fretboard replacement job like that, I can certainly see why you'd have no interest in assisting him any further with it. He's obviously a dodgy character and I feel sorry for anyone who has to deal with him directly.

Initially, I'd like to first mention that this letter is NOT directed towards Vic (genebaby) or any of the other GMW/Lee bashers out there. In reality, I'm writing this to the rest of the more "reasonable" players out there who will read this response with a more rational and unbiased viewpoint. I realize I've lost many of the JCF crowd as clients because I've simply worn out my usefulness in regard to being a supplier of the strat headstock guitars they normally couldn't get from Jackson back in the "old days", prior to the arrival of Fender as the new owner. But given that Jackson will now provide these same strat head models through their Custom Shop, my usefulness in this arena has come to an end, as has interest in my guitars without a strat or Jackson pointy headstock.

Next, I fully expected this decline in business from the JCF crowd to occur. I appreciate the fact that I'm in a consumer based business. So if I can't/won't produce a product that people want, then my business in that arena will be affected accordingly. Brand loyalty is common among all types of products, so the fact I've moved on to do other things unrelated to building certain types of guitars will certainly have an impact on who my future clients will become, and who will remain. But my business is still very brisk, so I've made the transformation with little ill effect.

Plus, I've simply grown very weary of following on the heels of other companies in regard to basically making replicas of specific guitars that can now be ordered directly from Jackson . So the time is/was right for GMW to move on. A few of the current JCF membership have been privy to many of the new ideas and concepts we're currently developing. And although I'll let them speak for themselves, to date, they've each been blown away by the new stuff we have coming out. Trust me, it's not the typical Jackson/Charvel fare. Irregardless, for now, that's a different topic for discussion.

However, I do want to address this ebay auction that "genebaby" is currently conducting, and the many comments therein. As usual, I fully expect and predict that no matter what comments and rebuttal discussion I provide, they're be misconstrued and criticized, despite whatever "facts" I may bring to the table. As with politics, this is to be expected, so I'm not concerned. I'm more than OK with simply letting the chips fall where they may. I'm not moved by attacks, only reasoned arguments or commentary. But I'll attempt to address the issue of Vic's neck and I'll then be more than happy to let the market place decide. If certain people want to continue with all of their GMW/Lee bashing, bash away. As with many of you, I can easily locate examples of inferior workmanship produced by alternate companies, some of which is so "wrong" that I've often wondered how in the world the final product ever made it out the door. But that is not my intention herein. So I'm simply not going to bother. It serves no useful purpose other than to initiate a "tit for tat" type response.

First, I would like to comment that to the very best of my recollection, out of the many thousands of guitars we've produced over the years, we've NEVER had one single guitar come back to the shop for a structural or mechanical defect. Vic's was/is the first. So I'll put our track record for consistency and quality up against any other company, including Jackson . In fact, it was the JCF that directed Vic to us in the first place, and that crowd is highly observant and critical in terms of quality. So if we were so terrible in regard to the product quality we ship out the door, then the complaints and criticism would have occurred far sooner than Vic's arrival on the scene. But it didn't, and hasn't.

True, we've had a few minor paint issues, whereby I've forgotten that a guitar was to have a matching headstock, or the paint didn't adhere well around some of the fret tangs (common with ebony boards), so they had to be redone. Or frets had become uneven and we had to either re-mill or refret an instrument. But this work was performed ALL at no extra charge, and without complaint. So my dispute with Vic started NOT from a structural stand point, but rather from the fact that he wasn't satisfied with the quality of the inlay work and the area around the nut clamp. But I'll return to that topic shortly. I certainly have put the issue to rest, but apparently certain people who appear to like being victims, have not.

However, what's so amazing is that the discussion has reached such a level of acrimony and animosity. My guess is that people are taking sides because I used to be so closely associated with those in the Jackson/Charvel camp. But now that I will no longer build or sell guitars with strat or Jackson pointy headstocks, the various people involved are now taking a far more active interest in this entire situation than would ever be normally warranted. Fortunately, many of my clients recognized the quality and value we provide by dealing with my guitars over the years, so they've continued to support my company and its current endeavors. As a result of this situation, two camps have tended to emerge, which would tend to explain this current round of "ranting".

But specifically, we now seem to have the pro GMW group on one side, who have experienced nothing adverse in regard to my company, versus the "we hate GMW/Lee" bunch that may still like my guitars, but will always find fault from everything to my delivery periods to my phone etiquette. And so it goes. But now that an opportunity to bash my quality has emerged, this fingerboard laminate issue seems to have become the cause celeb for those hatters in the anti GMW camp.

However, being someone who always attempts to take full responsibility for each and every guitar that leaves my shop, including product that I'm not directly responsible for being involved with (like some past inlay work), I will readily admit that the neck in question is from my shop. However, since the neck was ordered with black neck binding, like the client from Australia (Vic), I didn't realize at the time when I shipped the guitar that a new ca. 1/16" thick maple laminate had been installed on top of the original fingerboard by my past inlay guy. Like Vic, I had assumed that the person responsible for the new inlays had followed my direct instructions to install a new board and inlays.

Now normally, we would handle all of that work ourselves, but we had discontinued offering sharkfin inlays about the same time as Vic had placed his order. Therefore, in the past, we used to install the pearl inlay sets ourselves by hand, since the inlays and precut fingerboards came directly from Jackson . In was pretty straightforward to fulfill an order when pearl sharkfin inlays on an ebony board were requested.

But in this instance, we not only would have had to cut the fingerboard, but also the ebony inlays. And I wasn't interested in tackling that work myself. So.....at the time I had two options. (1) I either use my old inlay man (Ron Thorn) who does outstanding work, but takes a year or more to complete this type of project, or (2), I use another inlay guy who does more than adequate work, but is much faster. Unfortunately, there was a third option, but I simply neglected to consider it. It will be noted below.

Anyway, I went with option (2), fully expecting him to pull ALL of the old board, install the inlays, rebind the neck and then fret up the guitar. I've used him on occasion for some other small projects with no ill effects. So I wasn't anticipating any difficulties with this project. I wanted to get the guitar back to Vic in a timely manner, and option (1) simply wasn't viable.

Incidentally, it should be noted that all fingerboard installations are actually laminates, with the fingerboard thickness varying anywhere between 1/8" and 1/4" in most instances. It's no different then when a 1/8" to 3/16" figured maple top is "laminated" on top of a body. It's only when that laminate starts to become thinner than about 1/32" does the word veneer start to come into play. But this is simply semantics. Vic can call it a veneer, but it's actually a laminate.

Anyway, as we all now know, in this instance my old inlay guy went with installing a laminate maple board on top of the old board, which was unknown to both myself and Vic at the time. But when we shipped the guitar the second time, it was my true and honest opinion that all of the original maple board had been removed, and that a new maple board had been installed prior to the installation of the ebony sharkfin inlays. I saw no reason to believe otherwise. The guitar played great, so I was more than satisfied.

The very fact that Vic also didn't catch this mistake until the neck binding was removed, also speaks to the quality of the work the second inlay person performed. But....do I wish my old inlay guy had specifically followed my instructions the first time? You bet. But the fact he didn't doesn't explain why Vic would now be honestly able to complain about issues related to playability. However, I'll speak more on the topic of playability below.

First, one of Vic's main complaints had been the shims in the neck pocket, plus the quality of the inlay work. It was a straightforward, albeit time consuming, process to address the issue of neck shims by installing the trem recess. We then painted the newly installed recess to match.

Next, in my opinion, the inlay installation appears to be more than satisfactory for a hand cut inlay, as evidenced by Vic's own pics of the board on ebay, as taken from a distance further than one inch away from the surface. They look more than fine on his ebay auction. And to the best of my recollection, Vic didn't complain about the playability of the guitar at the time it was being returned. But I may be incorrect on that point. I'm certain that Vic will claim otherwise.

Meanwhile, in order to address his issues, we (1) dismantled the guitar, (2) cut a new Floyd trem recess into a red ghost flames graphic, (3) repainted the guitar after painting the recess to match the rest of the body, (4) performed a second light mill/dress on the frets just to guarantee that the guitar played great, (5) reassembled the guitar, (6) set up the guitar, (7), ordered up a new form fitted case and finally (8), shipped him back the guitar, all of this work/shipping being completed fully at our cost. Of course, not word of thanks was forthcoming from Vic, although I did note that he finally made an effort to render some form of acknowledgement within his ebay auction "story". So for that, I appreciate his effort.

BUT....I simply did not trust Vic whatsoever in regard to him being fair about this guitar since we didn't address his main complaint.....the inlays. He insisted we make him a new neck, but because the neck easily met my specs for hand cut ebony inlays on birdseye maple, I wouldn't agree to his request. It also played great, so I was more than satisfied with the final product.

But just to cover my ass, I had three very respected JCF members (Curt Dudley, Jon Shoemaker and Alex Johnson), who are also excellent players in their own right, come to the shop and test drive the guitar. They were instructed to fully play and examine the guitar without interference from myself, which they did. Each gave this instrument an unqualified full thumbs up. Even the inlay work was deemed adequate. True, the inlays were not the "CNC perfect" inlays we now install on every GMW guitar we make (with the exception of dot inlays), but each agreed that the inlays were more than adequately installed. NO issues related to poor playability were noted by myself, or any of the JCF members who gave the guitar a full examination. And no issues related to the existence of a maple laminate on the fretboard were mentioned or brought up. Therefore, I shipped the guitar back to Vic with my full confidence that I had rectified all of his concerns (no neck shims, trem recess, form fitted case, return UPS), other than the new inlays.

Now normally, with any customer other than Vic, I would have immediately corrected the situation once I learned of the laminate fingerboard issue, and this current incident would never have happened. However, there is such a bad blood between Vic and myself that once he decided to have some one else rip off the binding from the old board, I simply decided to move on and not fix any more issues with the guitar beyond the several I addressed earlier. Specifically, it was (and is) my contention that the guitar played fine when Vic received it back. He will emphatically dispute this fact, but I stand by my statement, as I'm sure he will stand by his. But I feel that he finally decided to get those inlays replaced, and the only way to accomplish that work was to remove the old board and install a new one with the new inlays. And that's where he discovered the fact that a maple laminate (not a veneer!) had been installed. So once he contacted me, I was as surprised as he was.

However, I also felt zero obligation at this point to now do any further work since we were still at the same place as were stood originally...Vic wanted a new neck and new sharkfin inlays, and I wasn't going to agree to his demands. So he now states that the guitar played '"funny", whereas myself and the three players mentioned herein, found no such evidence. So given that he had already decided to replace the board, I wasn't going to proceed further. Which is where we currently stand today.

Of course, I easily found a photo for an older Fender strat possessing a rosewood fingerboard that is so thin, that literally 50% of the side dots extend down into the maple neck beneath. So, how is it that the frets stay in fine on a thin rosewood fingerboard, but Vic claims that they're funny on a solid maple board of nearly the same thickness? It doesn't make any sense, so I stand by my initial conclusion that Vic had the board removed to get the exact inlays he wanted. It essentially had zero to do with poor playability, which no one here (including those three JCF members) ever noted before it left my shop.

Now.....had I known at the time that the board was a laminate, it never would have left GMW. So for that, despite my ignorance of the matter at the time, I will take full and complete responsibility. The buck always stops with me since it's my name on the headstock.....well, in this instance, Vic took the liberty to install a gold Jackson logo on this particular guitar since we shipped it without any identifying logo. So the history/origin of this guitar will be forever muddled. But I'm sure the GMW bashers will have little problem justifying Vic installing a Jackson logo on a non-Jackson made product. But that's on him, not me.

But back on point. The guitar did leave with a thin maple laminate board on top of the original dot inlayed fingerboard. I agree that it's thin (it appears to be about 0.10" thick), but it's not considered to be a veneer. The pic I've included from page 48 of A. R. Duchossier's book, The Fender Stratocaster, 40th Anniversary Ed. shows a fingerboard in which the frets tangs extend essentially down to the maple neck beneath. There were obviously no "funny" issues with those necks, so I wouldn't expect any issues in this instance. And none were encountered when myself and others played the guitar.

But again, I agree that this is not proper neck or fingerboard construction, so for this aspect of the guitar, I do extend my apologies to Vic. Had we been on better terms, I would have repeated the work and taken a full set of pics of the new inlays and fingerboard prior to installing the new neck binding. The new board would have been obtained from the same source that currently provides Jackson with many of its custom inlays, so the inlay quality wouldn't have become an issue. That way, everyone would be in full agreement that all issues related to the neck had been resolved. However, we've past that point at this juncture, so hopefully, Vic was be able to finally acquire the " Jackson " he's been so eagerly seeking. Then again, it's my contention that Vic enjoys being a victim in this entire situation. Others have commented similarly, as well. But I'll let the reader decide.

So herein, I've done my best to provide you with an appropriate response to the topic at hand, without casting blame on either myself or Vic. Hopefully this will help resolve the matter to everyone's satisfaction, along with those involved on the forum. (I know, that's very unlikely.) Also, the two pics provided are NOT intended to become an attack mechanism on either Fender or Jackson. They simply highlight what was/is considered acceptable inlay quality (for the late '90's at Jackson ), and what was/is acceptable in terms of fingerboard thickness, without any of the ill results reported by Vic.

This will also be my last response to any of the current "discussion" now occurring on the forums. So if certain people still feel the need to continue with the current round of GMW bashing, you will be doing so without my participation. Thanks for listening.