Factory Visit

Sucks to hear of the gout Adam, but great to hear you pulled through the trip!

Some more photos of the Factory...

These are all ours. You can see some MK-2 bodies bottom right.
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A shot of the factory floor. The women are doing some detail work. The factory was clean and very professionally set up. Not as I had pictured to be honest.
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Installing triple binding on one of our FV-1G headstocks.
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cont...

Mmmmmm, Mahogany
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And don't forget the Basswood and Ash
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And here's a bunch of our bodies ready for packing for our October/November order.
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That looks like a cracker of a trip Ads... Great shots of the factory...

Great pics Adam. I think we are conditioned by TV to think that Chinese factories have dirt floors and one 25watt bulb to light the whole place. Although there ARE places like that they are few and far between these days.

Here's a better shot of the factory complex.

I only got to see the first building, where they make the electric guitars and brass instruments.

They also make acoustic guitars, keyboards, electronics and other accessories. I'm not sure if they are made in the other buildings behind it, or elsewhere.

One takeaway from the trip was that I have a better understanding of the set up there. The factory is literally in a farming town. The workers also have farms or work on farms. This explains why we have delays when it is planting or harvest times.

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Of course, there was the obligatory long lunch involved and the food was fantastic. I was already a huge fan of genuine Chinese food and I was not disappointed once in the whole 10 days in China. I did make the mistake of not reading up on Chinese meal customs and made a few embarrassing mistakes, but it was very enjoyable. Note the three drinking vessels (not counting the tea).

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I don't what this was, but I did get feeling back in my face after 3 hours. It tasted a little like Japanese Sake, but much more alcoholic.

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The host seemed disappointed that I couldn't "Gambeh" (skol the whole glass) every time they yelled it. "I just had a kidney transplant and my nephrologist would not be happy with me drinking that excessively" does not translate easily. Amanda did her best.

some great pics you posted Ads, I agree I didn't think the factory would be that modern and clean. Some nice stash of timber and bodies ready to ship.
Hopefully the future tele's will have a single neck pup route and the bridge pup cavity moved north 5mm

Nice pics and summary of the visit, I must confess I'm surprised by the number of ST bodies compared to the rest though.

Our Factory is a 3 hour drive North of Jinan, in the Shandong Province. I was thinking, "great, we might drive out of the smog", but we seemed to drive into the source of the smog.

On the way back it was a 5 hour drive 'cause a Truck crashed into one of the overpasses (I would bet my life he was on his phone while driving... everyone in China operates their phone while driving)
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You know it's bad when people get out of their cars and have a picnic from the back of their car. The guys over on the right started gambling on the road.

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@ Adam Looks like you had a great time over in China visiting the Factory mate.