Leo_Gnardo wrote: ↑Tue Oct 23, 2018 12:03 pmAgree. What I'd like to do, is take that chump's $500, drop a pile of parts in his lap, there you go! Thanks for your business.
"True to form" story, just 2 days ago. I have a crustomer, he has a factory-fresh Blues Jr in early 60's style brown Tolex. He wanted me to gut it, & build an entirely new amp inside. That was over 2 years ago. So I sat on it, waiting for him to tell me what sort of tone he's going for. Never an answer. Which means, no matter what I do, he's gonna come back with "couldn't you make it a little more this, or a little less that? I'm not quite satisfied..." But he did reveal what he expected to spend: maybe $600 tops. He stopped in Tuesday with his recently bought 2010 ES-355 for a pot cleaning. Plugged it into Junior: "Hey that actually sounds pretty good!" So I saved him $600, saved myself a near infinite amount of aggravation, we're all still friends. It's nice when things work out.
"True to form" story, just 2 days ago. I have a crustomer, he has a factory-fresh Blues Jr in early 60's style brown Tolex. He wanted me to gut it, & build an entirely new amp inside. That was over 2 years ago. So I sat on it, waiting for him to tell me what sort of tone he's going for. Never an answer. Which means, no matter what I do, he's gonna come back with "couldn't you make it a little more this, or a little less that? I'm not quite satisfied..." But he did reveal what he expected to spend: maybe $600 tops. He stopped in Tuesday with his recently bought 2010 ES-355 for a pot cleaning. Plugged it into Junior: "Hey that actually sounds pretty good!" So I saved him $600, saved myself a near infinite amount of aggravation, we're all still friends. It's nice when things work out.
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Give it an enema: loosen the bolts on the speaker a half turn or so, increase the NFB resistor till it sounds good cranked up and charge him for your time. Most of those little combos are fine once you get rid of the constipation. You did the right thing, doing a full rebuild is just asking for headaches down the road.
I work for a custom rifle receiver manufacturer. Received a call recently that the receiver built in 2003 wasn't extracting the fired case from the chamber after it had been fired 300 times with perfect extraction over the previous years.
Then comes the it's gotta be the part's fault [YOUR FAULT] question... "Could it have been out of tolerance when you shipped it?"
I busted out laughing on the phone. "Wait, you told me it worked perfectly for 300 cycles and now only just started to fail to extract?!?"
I told him to check the spring steel extractor and he went on to argue with me about the construction of the bolt / extraction bits. I told him to send me pictures. Never did.
A few years back I sold a Mesa Mini to a guy in Hawaii with a full set of extra tubes and a custom head shell. I build a double box with foam between to ship everything. He wanted it express shipped, fussed at me about the packing and was sliding back toward diapers rapidly. It finally arrives and he goes full stinky diaper. "It's making a funny noise! You SAID it was in perfect working order!! How could you!!!" ETC. I didn't know much about tube amps at the time so I type - I do kno how to do that - what he described into the WWW and shazzam! Bad tube. Emailed him back with my findings and said I SENT YOU EXTRA TUBES!!! Never heard another peep.
Geeze wrote: ↑Sat Oct 27, 2018 1:35 pm
I work for a custom rifle receiver manufacturer. Received a call recently that the receiver built in 2003 wasn't extracting the fired case from the chamber after it had been fired 300 times with perfect extraction over the previous years.
Then comes the it's gotta be the part's fault [YOUR FAULT] question... "Could it have been out of tolerance when you shipped it?"
I busted out laughing on the phone. "Wait, you told me it worked perfectly for 300 cycles and now only just started to fail to extract?!?"
I told him to check the spring steel extractor and he went on to argue with me about the construction of the bolt / extraction bits. I told him to send me pictures. Never did.
A few years back I sold a Mesa Mini to a guy in Hawaii with a full set of extra tubes and a custom head shell. I build a double box with foam between to ship everything. He wanted it express shipped, fussed at me about the packing and was sliding back toward diapers rapidly. It finally arrives and he goes full stinky diaper. "It's making a funny noise! You SAID it was in perfect working order!! How could you!!!" ETC. I didn't know much about tube amps at the time so I type - I do kno how to do that - what he described into the WWW and shazzam! Bad tube. Emailed him back with my findings and said I SENT YOU EXTRA TUBES!!! Never heard another peep.
Russ
Dont ever ship anything you sell Express, 1 day or anything extra expensive because when they dispute the charage you give them back every dime they gave you. And you lose 99% of the time. Buyer is always right saying.
This thread has been a great read! I can relate. I have given up my starry-eyed vision of building and selling amps for all the reasons above. Now I just do it for me. And by special request (which is rare).
I follow some of the facebook amp pages, and it seems like amp building has become a "thing" among all the idiot musicians out there. Thanks in large part to facebook. It seems like an epidemic lately. There is a lot of misinformation on those groups. Many of these guys are just looking for a cheap way to get a tube amp, but they aren't interested in actually learning electronics. On top of having to study, they are always surprised at how much the parts alone cost.
However, it appears that anyone can build a kit or paint-by-number tube amp. I think the market is being flooded by poorly built kits with the builder's name on them, marketed as boutique amps.
It's a wonderful thing to come across a customer who is willing to pay $$$ for a top-notch amp built by a skilled craftsman. Those customers are few and far between. Most guys aren't even willing to pay the cost of the parts, let alone a bit of labor.
So yes, I have given up the idea of selling amps. Except that when I build them for my own amusement, they tend to pile up until I have no room left, and then I am forced to sell one off. For the cost of the parts.....
Intelligent Design.
So I saved him $600, saved myself a near infinite amount of aggravation, we're all still friends. 
It's nice when things work out.
