Flaws
I bought a new guitar in November. It never came. It was on backorder into January, so I canceled it. Then I got a hard-on for a sweet Fender Stratocaster with a mahogany body, gorgeous red finish and black headstock, a humbucking bridge pick-up and a fast, maple neck. But it was a right-handed model. They didn’t make a left-handed one. I am not Hendrix. I passed on it.
In my dejection over the red and black Strat not turning out, I re-purchased the guitar I’d ordered in November. It came at the end of February and I’ve had it about a week.
At first glance, she’s a beauty. Nice, glossy black finish, black fret-board, pearloid inlays there and in the headstock, which is uniquely shaped to give the axe some nice character. The knobs are a combination clear- and goldish-acrylic, the pick-guard and pickup cradles are somewhat cream colored…
But the pick-guard and the cradles are not exactly the same color and that was my first gripe. I decided to shrug it off. Then I noticed a white speck on the body and tried to rub it off. I couldn’t. It’s under the acrylic body coating. Then I noticed that one of my tone knobs looks like it lost a fight with a belt-sander. And today I noticed that the plastic plate around the jack looks to have lost that same battle … oh, and the neck pick-up rocks back and forth in its cradle; it’s not snug.
To add to my woes, the action was too high … so I lowered it and the fat E started to buzz, so I raised the action and the buzz went away again, but the G-string intones sharply … and I can’t get at the saddle screws because the bridge pickup cradle is in the way.
Cosmetic flaws aside, the rocking pickup (in a literal sense, not a figurative one) and sharp-at-the-12th-fret G-string need to be addressed. A professional setup could also result in lower action sans buzz, the result of an expert truss-rod adjustment … oh, this reminds me that the fret job on the first fret looks a bit like shit.
But what should I expect? I notice flaws. And nothing is flawless.
Granted, I feel as though I am always dealt the shittiest, most flaw-filled hand there is, but that could easily be my obsession with flaws making it feel that way. Still, why can’t I get the pristine axe delivered to me? Why can’t my adventurous purchase be paydirt instead of plain dirt?
I will likely obsess about these flaws for a while. Worse yet, I took a deal from where I purchased the guitar, they agreed to compensate me marginally for the defects (5% of the cost of the guitar) … but the caveat was that it will preclude me from returning the thing. Does it make me feel any better that I got it for $190 less than their asking price and now, with the credit, have paid even less for the guitar that any other left-handed schmuck forced to buy their instruments sight-unseen?
No.
Because the flaws stick in my mind, and so displeasure twists in my gut like a cancer eating me alive from the inside out.
Tags: Fender, Jimi Hendrix, Stratocaster