RIP strictly7?

[petervindel]

After reading the whole tread I have to agree with ElRay here.
He obviously tried to get some final $ from you, with no intention of ever shipping your guitar.
At least you should be able to get the last part of your payment back, allthough I guess it'll be hard to get the money you payed upfront almost 3 years ago...

I really feel for you man. I remember how freaked out I was when my build was only 2 months past deadline

 

[HighGain510]

Anybody told that your guitar was complete, made the final payment, but never received the guitar? Call law enforcement, that's almost certainly crossed the line into abject fraud.

Anybody actually snail-mail a payment? That would open-up the possibility for mail fraud. Check with the post office.

Ray

Yep, believe if anyone had done that it falls under committing mail fraud (which is a federal offense), doesn't it? Sadly with credit cards and PayPal becoming more and more the norm, I doubt most folks paid him with checks. That being said, if anyone DID pay with a check in the mail, it would be in their best interest to get that information to law enforcement immediately. They should probably do it before S7 shutters up completely and Jim moves on to making meth in the workshop…

 

[drmosh]

I just watched that video for the first time. Holy ...., what a petulant, condescending person.

 

[hairychris]

They should probably do it before S7 shutters up completely and Jim moves on to making meth in the workshop…

If he does that there's at least a small possibility of folks getting their money back.

Seriously, though, this is a shitty situation. Not sure what passes as a consumer protection agency in the US, but hope folks get at least some of the bucks back.

 

[capoeiraesp]

I just watched that video for the first time. Holy ...., what a petulant, condescending person.

Dude, I felt sick watching most of it. This guy deserves every ounce of the negativity he's put out coming back.

 

[will_shred]

I kind of feel bad for Jim, but I don't really know what ya'll expected. I listened to an interview with him where he stated he started S7G by taking warmoth necks and building bodies for them. He thought that because he built himself a warmoth bass, he had the luthier knowhow to start a whole company. I mean, he didn't even go to Luthier school, the dude was/is a message therapist. Does this add up to anything that can end well? I don't think so.

 

[canuck brian]

You got a problem with Ohio Brian!?

Nope, seeing how far it is away from Toronto in case Jim takes my offer to help out for a weekend to get guitars out the door.

Will - I never did luthiery courses.

 

[will_shred]

Nope, seeing how far it is away from Toronto in case Jim takes my offer to help out for a weekend to get guitars out the door.

Will - I never did luthiery courses.

ah point taken, but my point was that he literally started the company re-selling warmoth guitars and slapping that logo on them. He wasn't even a self taught builder (of course, we know there are many on here who do amazing work) the dude was totally green to the industry, and for a while the team did make decent guitars until they got in wayyyyy over their head and the build team who was making decent guitars all left a long time ago.


I made a warmoth guitar to, I think it's pretty cool. However I don't think I'm qualified to go start a guitar company.

 

[underthecurve]

As a customer waiting for a Strandberg s7, this is horrible news. I was in the original run of boden 8s, and actually received the guitar, but it had a few qc issues. It was sent back for a rebuild. This was about 6mo ago. When I originally heard about strandberg and s7 producing models together, I was weary from s7's reputation, but felt that with Ola on board things would be taken care of.

 

[Tom Drinkwater]

What's wrong with using parts from another manufacturer on your guitars? Is using a Warmoth neck some sort of sin but using a bridge from Hipshot is ok? Is it wrong to use Dimarzio pickups when I could just wind my own? Is there an sso approved list from which builders can select their part manufacturers from? Jim should go back to using Warmoth necks, clearly spending the time to build his own didn't pay off. Heck, if I were in his shoes I'd give up on the extended range market and just make strats and teles and sell to the other 99.9% of the guitar playing public where people will pay ridiculous amounts for parts guitars built at factories and rebranded by business men with marketing skills.

There needs to be a company that doesnt do custom orders, but just makes super exotic guitars and sells them and works on them in their own timethat doesnt sound so bad right? As long as the builder has nice tastes and thinks out the box.

That isn't a company, that is an extremely expensive hobby you're talking about right there. If your business model was the standard one for small shop guitar builders then only about 1/1000 of the demand would be met and you'd see a NGD about ever 10 years.

There is high demand for this type of instrument so you are going to have companies stepping up to make them. The problem is that people apparently don't want the guitars enough to pay a realistic amount for them so some of the companies try to increase volume at the expense of quality and customer service. As the consumers you guys should know that you completely control this stuff. If you want better guitars and better customer service from small builders then pay the builders more for the instruments. That will make it possible to take less orders and spend more time on both the guitars builds and customer service. Until you're ready to do that then unfortunately you'll get more of the same.

Does anyone see a pattern here? Every couple of years a whole new batch of builders is here and then they start disappearing, walking away or going out of business? The builders come and go but the community remains and clearly it doesn't work.

 

[ElysianGuitars]

There needs to be a company that doesnt do custom orders, but just makes super exotic guitars and sells them and works on them in their own timethat doesnt sound so bad right? As long as the builder has nice tastes and thinks out the box.

This is actually something I want to do, have wanted to for some time. There may come a point where I can afford to start doing it.

 

[ElysianGuitars]

What's wrong with using parts from another manufacturer on your guitars? Is using a Warmoth neck some sort of sin but using a bridge from Hipshot is ok? Is it wrong to use Dimarzio pickups when I could just wind my own? Is there an sso approved list from which builders can select their part manufacturers from? Jim should go back to using Warmoth necks, clearly spending the time to build his own didn't pay off. Heck, if I were in his shoes I'd give up on the extended range market and just make strats and teles and sell to the other 99.9% of the guitar playing public where people will pay ridiculous amounts for parts guitars built at factories and rebranded by business men with marketing skills.



That isn't a company, that is an extremely expensive hobby you're talking about right there. If your business model was the standard one for small shop guitar builders then only about 1/1000 of the demand would be met and you'd see a NGD about ever 10 years.

There is high demand for this type of instrument so you are going to have companies stepping up to make them. The problem is that people apparently don't want the guitars enough to pay a realistic amount for them so some of the companies try to increase volume at the expense of quality and customer service. As the consumers you guys should know that you completely control this stuff. If you want better guitars and better customer service from small builders then pay the builders more for the instruments. That will make it possible to take less orders and spend more time on both the guitars builds and customer service. Until you're ready to do that then unfortunately you'll get more of the same.

Does anyone see a pattern here? Every couple of years a whole new batch of builders is here and then they start disappearing, walking away or going out of business? The builders come and go but the community remains and clearly it doesn't work.

Making a neck is far different from making a bridge. The neck basically IS the guitar, it's what you interact with the most, and a bad neck completely tanks a guitar. You aren't going to be a successful builder by using other peoples necks, IMO.

On your second part, there may be no current demand, but there certainly is a market. People don't always know what they want until they see it.

 

[Suho]

Didn't Ola Strandberg say he would take care of all the folks who ordered Bodens from S7 and got the shaft? From reading this thread, it seems there are many who are still in limbo.

 

[RagtimeDandy]

Irrelevant of all that, the QC issues are/were so obvious, calling S7G a place of skilled luthiers is an insult to luthiers. As far as I'm concerned, if you're a small team of dudes handmaking guitars, 3-5% fail rate is still unacceptable. You have the guitars that YOU designed in your hands start to finish. You are the constant. And while materials can fail, that's fair enough, you should be able to recognize those failures. And I do get some long term stuff can happen (neck warping for example), but the sheer number of problems in the short term from the Strandberg runs was absolutely ridiculous. This isn't some Ibanez Premium factory where a bunch of random people are given a certain number of jobs to do and occasionally issues arise - as a small scale builder, there is little to no excuse outside of your own incompetence for the number of botched guitars that S7G produced. And to boot, these guitars weren't $500, they were over $2000. People should be able to expect top notch quality for the product at that point.

If you claim to be able to build high end guitars and it turns out you can't, don't bitch and moan. Get better. Making excuses just makes you look like a prick, and at this point its borderline criminal.

 

[Tom Drinkwater]

On my second part I said "high demand" not "no demand". Also, having a neck made by a North American OEM doesn't automatically mean that the neck is bad. Most OEM's build to their professional customers specs and can do so faster and with more consistency than can be achieved in a small shop with hand tools. Who do you think that these OEM's build for when only a small part of their sales come from the public? As a side note don't bother asking an OEM to make a multiscale neck, not gonna happen.

If you think $2000 gets you into the high end North American made guitar range you're kidding yourself. And price comparing a $500 import against a $2000 guitar made in a small shop in North America is pretty much proving my point. Just due to the cost of living difference and labor rates that $500 import would cost $2000 if it was made in an American factory. Fender, PRS and Gibson are all demonstrating that very clearly. What does that say about the Ibanez Premium costing up to $1000 if those have occasional quality issues? Why do you find that acceptable? Take an average north american made factory guitar and ask a luthier to replicate it and I guarantee it will cost 2x more at a minimum if that builder is trying to make a living while being everything from the builder to the bookkeeper of his own business.

 

[underthecurve]

Didn't Ola Strandberg say he would take care of all the folks who ordered Bodens from S7 and got the shaft? From reading this thread, it seems there are many who are still in limbo.

Ya know, he did:
http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/se...-i-got-my-strictly-7-boden-9.html#post3576937

Which was an extremely generous gesture. From there I was put in contact with Paul, and things seemed to be moving in a positive direction. At some point I got an email from Ola saying that he didn't plan on fulfilling orders, essentially washing his hand of the whole thing.

 

[Estilo]

Was there any kind of lead time given when you placed the order?

I dont know good ole' America works, but in Australia you never DONT have an option. You could go to consumer affairs etc etc.

This is one of the awesomest things about Aussie-land. Those in power really do care about the masses, the 99% especially, and they strive to make everyone comfortable.

Hope something works out for the OP and all affected and may you all get your rightful settlement.

 

[Suho]

Ya know, he did:
http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/se...-i-got-my-strictly-7-boden-9.html#post3576937

Which was an extremely generous gesture. From there I was put in contact with Paul, and things seemed to be moving in a positive direction. At some point I got an email from Ola saying that he didn't plan on fulfilling orders, essentially washing his hand of the whole thing.

Funny, I somehow missed that update. Did he say anymore on the subject? I'll withhold commenting on that until you or someone else provide a bit more, but that really sucks.

 

[maximummetal288]

Ya know, he did:
http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/se...-i-got-my-strictly-7-boden-9.html#post3576937

Which was an extremely generous gesture. From there I was put in contact with Paul, and things seemed to be moving in a positive direction. At some point I got an email from Ola saying that he didn't plan on fulfilling orders, essentially washing his hand of the whole thing.

I contacted Ola about mine after I saw his post in that thread. The same happened to me, I was in contact with Ola, Paul added me on Facebook and it looked like everything would be ok. I was disappointed when I got a message from Jim saying that he would be taking care of the guitars/refund and then not hearing anything final from Ola or Paul on the matter.

Has anyone with an outstanding order tried calling Jim?

 

[lurgar]

If you think $2000 gets you into the high end North American made guitar range you're kidding yourself.

Would Carvins count as a high end guitar? If so, then you can get a really damned good instrument for $2000 from them.