Dan's Tips......Shameful !

[David Schwab]

Hey, in Dan's defense, he specifically states that this is a quickest and dirtiest way to get this job done in a hurry for a total cheapskate customer.
He's working with the cheapest pickups imaginable. No one is going to read this and start working on a vintage guitar with the same procedure. I don't personally think a $200 guitars merits more than a few minutes of my time. Some one else can come along and put a new cable on that pickup when it suddenly becomes valuable...

That said I wouldn't do it that way.

Exactly.. these aren't pickups you would reuse for anything. They are just going in the trash (or parts bin) anyway.

Obviously Dan wouldn't do this on a more accessible guitar, but those hollow bodies are a PITA to rewire.

[David Schwab]

Seriously, though - even if you were so inclined to hack at the lead wire as he describes, wouldn't you just take the wire cutters you have on hand rather than buy his fret puller? I just don't see how this article would lead to more than a very small handful of sales.

Any repair guy has fret nippers.. they aren't selling fret nippers with this tip. They are hawking Golden Age pickups... but this is just a tip.

The pickups on ebay with short wires is because the people removing them are idiots.. they didn't get the idea from Stew-mac. They don't have any business doing their own guitar wiring, but yet they do over and over again. Just go to project guitar or the talkbass forums to read all the people asking for help after they botched up trying to do something that they have no business doing, and didn't even take a few minutes to research the correct way to hold a soldering iron!

I get these emails from them all the time. They do show what products they have as mentioned in the tip, but why wouldn't they? Dan knows his stuff, so anytime you get some free advice, even in the form of trying to sell some of their products, isn't a bad thing.

I bought many of my tools from Stew-Mac.. some of which I've had for 20 years. Some of their stuff is over priced... like felt. But you are paying for convenience of ordering everything from one source.

A little common sense will tell you when not to buy something from them.

The same can be said of the many sources of hard woods for instrument making. You can pay out the wazoo for some curly maple, or head over to a local lumber yard and rummage though their stock. I got some nice figured maple for dirt cheap that way. Of course I had to dress and resaw it myself, so that's where the difference in price came in.

it's all about convenience.

[GlennW]

I used to work with a guy who'd hammer in small screws. He'd say, "Those little slots are for takin' 'em out, not puttin' 'em in, know what I mean." It was Bubbamania.

[jonson]

hammer em out again

I allways thought a hammer was a chinese sclewdwiver anway but no probs Glenn just drill a hole in the other side and use a nail to knock em out again.

[Liam]

I don't get what he's done wrong? Ruined the resale value of a Korean 335 copy?

Have any of you ever tried to change a pot on a 335? You wouldn't waste your time doing the job properly just to swap pickups on a cheap copy. What if the punter didn't like them and you had to swap them back?

[Stan H]

I don't get what he's done wrong? Ruined the resale value of a Korean 335 copy?

Have any of you ever tried to change a pot on a 335? You wouldn't waste your time doing the job properly just to swap pickups on a cheap copy. What if the punter didn't like them and you had to swap them back?

Doing it in practice when necessary is one thing but going onto a public forum and showing it to millions of inexperienced newbies in another all together. We're all (or most of us are) professionals. Many of the folks checking out Dan's Tips are not. I'm thinking of the kid that wants to surprise his Dad by installing SD's for him in his '59 burst.

[Brad1]

Quote :

This pickup replacement had to be done fast to keep the cost low.
Time-saving means money-making, so here’s how I moved quicker by avoiding unnecessary steps...

Not sure I get that statement.

Does he charge a flat rate for a job? Or does he charge by the hour?
If it's the first, yes, it does save...but it seems wrong to cut corners on a person's instrument to save HIMSELF a few bucks.
If it's the latter, what's it matter...it will actually make LESS money on each piece, than if he did it properly and charged for the extra time?

Am I the only one who wondered about that?

Brad1

[mkat]

I bought many of my tools from Stew-Mac.. some of which I've had for 20 years. Some of their stuff is over priced... like felt. But you are paying for convenience of ordering everything from one source.

A little common sense will tell you when not to buy something from them.

It was kind of tounge in cheek and I agree. I bought a few tools from there too. I like their catalogue and Frank Ford's site because I've made around 20 tools so far.

[cwmont]

I'm thinking of the kid that wants to surprise his Dad by installing SD's for him in his '59 burst.

Please stop! I almost spilled my starbucks. I can see it now.

Son: Hey dad I saw this cool thing on pickups on the internet. So I put these really neat day-glo green pickups in your guitar.

Dad: Eyes wide, moment of silent counting to ten. Then calmly. Son, what did you do with the pickups that you took out?

Son: Dad, thats the best part! My friend told me about a site called Craigslist. I went there and was able to trade those old pickups for this xBox 360! Pretty cool huh?

Dad: ARGH ........................................................ ..........................

[David Schwab]

Not sure I get that statement.

Does he charge a flat rate for a job? Or does he charge by the hour?
If it's the first, yes, it does save...but it seems wrong to cut corners on a person's instrument to save HIMSELF a few bucks.
If it's the latter, what's it matter...it will actually make LESS money on each piece, than if he did it properly and charged for the extra time?

Am I the only one who wondered about that?

Brad1

He probably charges a flat rate for certain things, and hourly for others. That's what I do. I charge a certain amount to replace a pickup. The easier it is for me, the less time I spend on it, and I made more money.

I made my wife laugh the other day when I told her I turned down doing a job because it was too "piddly" lol it was too much work for what I could get away with charging the guy.

If a job is super easy I might even fix something else I see for free as long as I'm in there.

It's like cutting the strings off with a dike. I usually don't, but I have when I was in a rush and had a lot of work to do.

You have to take flat rates and divide them by how long it takes you to do a job. If I charge $30 to install a pickup, and it takes me 2 hours, I just made $15/hr. If it tales me am hour , I just made $30/hour. If it only takes me 30 minutes then I made $60/hour!

I didn't get $60, but now I have more time for other things. Your time is valuable, which is why they say "time is money".

[Phil m]

EDIT: Oops, screw up. Didn't mean to post