PDA

View Full Version : Quality Control



adam
14-08-2016, 12:34 PM
I got an email from someone in the US today, who has been building kits for years. He commented "From what I have read on the Internet, Pitbull must have found one of the better Asian manufacturers. There are horror stories about some of the other companies offering similar kits."

I think we did luck out, deciding to go with our factory. I guess there must be at least a few dozen guitar manufacturers in China and we only sampled 5 of them. We went with the one who demonstrated the best quality and communication, not necessarily the best pricing. Personally, I'm really happy with the quality now, but of course our kits do have issues; some minor 'build issues' and others major, like twisted necks and body cracks.

Twisted Necks

We've seen a spate of twisted necks recently. A few on the forum, that managed to slip eagle-eye Phil W, who has become a straight neck Nazi, and many more that we have stopped from going out to customers. All up there's about 20 kits with twisted necks we have identified.

After contacting the factory, they suggested that one of the shipments may have gotten wet while on its way to be loaded onto the ship. This rang a bell for me as I recalled the shipment before last had about 6 boxes that appeared to show signs of dampness (crinkled cardboard).

So, we have identified the suspect kits (TL-1, EX-1, MMB-4, RCA-4) and put them aside for replacement necks. The factory will replace any neck that has twisted.

As always, if you think you've received a neck that has a twist in it, photograph it, looking down the fretboard from the heel to the headstock and the other way. If the general consensus is that it's twisted, we will send a replacement and get the dodgy one back.