Did I get special treatment from GF?

Huh? Whuh?

Cat :?

OK... so granted I have not picked up a guitar from them... but I do hear a lot of good buzz at the diferent boards about them... Im sure for that price a dud comes through once in a wile, but there has to be a lot of nice ones also coming out, that I hear more good then bad... Granted there will always be the "if its not Fender/Gibson its junk" crew....but most seem to like them. Any way... to make a long post longer... They might of, but Im thinking you just got a real good one... I would say its more likly that they just picked through all they had to find the best, and sent you that one.

Yeah, something good happened anyhow. I've never ever gotten a guitar at this end of the spectrum that I didn't have to set up at least some. My big clue is the neck relief. The weather and humidity this time of year has a big effect on them so either it was dumb luck or done recently. The frets feel like the ones on my Agile AL3000 and those come billed as having "hand dressed" frets. When I pay less than $300 for a guitar the frets usually have a certain amount of drag to them. Not highly polished. They get slippery with break in and playing so not a big deal. Some would give them a polishing to improve them but I just play them to "break them in". Usual things I do to one of these low end beauties to make them play well? Neck relief, string action, intonation. I always check the bolts on the non set in models cause I usually get a partial turn or two out of one of them. Sometimes you have to reseat the knobs on the pots cause they are crooked. Adjust the pickup height .... all of this was perfect!

I noticed with playing it my fingers got black .... thought it might be a cheap fingerboard dye job but the board is light with lots of grain?
black fingers. the oxidation on the cheap strings is the problem.

I noticed with playing it my fingers got black .... thought it might be a cheap fingerboard dye job but the board is light with lots of grain?
black fingers. the oxidation on the cheap strings is the problem.
I don't think so cause the strings are a brand new set of D'Addario's I just took out of the package and put on there. :wink: Nah, it's dust from a fret dress, be it a factory one of a last minute touch up. The strings that came on it were shiney new as well but cheap and I didn't like them. Matter of fact, they were the shineiest strings I ever got on one of these mailorder cheapies.

Sorry Dog but remember ... this ain't TR's first rodeo. :wink: I've gotten strings on these asian guitars that look and feel like unlit sparklers.

My X was dead on when I got it. It was at least a year later that I took it in for a pro setup. They only tweaked the G intonation slightly. I mentioned before that the original strings were nasty and swapped D'Addarios right after I got it. I bought an SKB hardcase for mine, the only hardcase I have. The guitar rarely leaves the house. It still doesn't have a scratch on it. Maybe because it was a present from the missus or just that I usually play out with the acoustics.

I would be interested in how other GF guitars have arrived.

Jack

PS: I'm not stalking you TR. Really.

As I've mentioned before, I've gotten two of them and a friend had gotten one. No major issues with any of them. My 870 came in kind of oddly. Each string was just as many twists out of tune as the other. It was as if each had been set up, tested, de-tuned (de-tensioned) for shipment and that was that. I just looked up in my records. I've twisted the truss rod on one of them pretty good, about 1/4 turn according to my notes. One got a new saddle - spring rattle - and the other a set of tuners (loose spots). That was about it.

The really odd thing is that each of them have gotten better, as if the wood aged and started behaving better. The 870 in particular. It's turned into a fun guitar to play, and some of you may recall that I've not always gotten aling with strat-like objects.

I think your guitar got looked at, at a minimum. I also bet that something had to be fixed on it before it left the door. We've both made many orders from them and its' three guitars between the two of us. I've never had any delay from them. Not even during the holidays.