Preface:

I was contacted by someone to make a guitar more playable, which is something I do quite often.  Little did I know that I would end up rebuilding the whole instrument, from top to bottom.  Stranger yet, the instrument was made to order by a self proclaimed "Luthier", and brand new.  Here is a before picture of it:

You are probably thinking that it looks OK right?  Looks can be deceiving, and in reality there is a lot wrong with this guitar, most importantly the things that separate a well playing instrument from a worthless waste of exotic woods and other resources.  Many people try their hand in this field, and there is nothing wrong with it as long as they keep in mind that it takes masters years to learn this craft, and there are reasons for it.  The ability to change the oil and tires on a car, does not qualify one as an automotive mechanic.

In this case the "Luthier" that made this guitar, thinks way more of himself than he can possibly back up, and spends more time trying to look professional then he does learning and practicing the actual craft.  After lying about his level of skill, he charged a rather low price for a well made custom guitar, but way to high a price for the unplayable complete failure of an instrument he delivered.  He failed to rectify it through it's warranty twice, and refused to take it back and issue a refund.

The purchaser can never recover from lost time in its initial design, the disappointment upon receiving it, the runaround he had to go through to try and have it fixed by its maker and others, including the fees, shipping, travel and other costs associated with it.  The $1700 guitar has costed him well over $2000 in monetary funds so far already.

Mr. X's Dilemma:

When I got the guitar in for repair, I found so much wrong with it that I felt really bad for it's owner, to whom I will refer to as Mr. X. Unlike an instrument made by a known manufacturer, in a known way with known parts and procedures this thing was a mystery.  I asked Mr. X for information on the guitars builder so that I could contact him for information on its construction.  Mr. X revealed his name and email address, but I had to squeeze other info out of him to get a better idea of the person I was to be dealing with, before diving into the unknown.  Mr. X did not want to re-live the bad experiences, and did not paint a complete picture of the builder, but he did tell me how it all came about.

As many guitarists Mr. X wanted a guitar that no one else had, and in mentioning it to friends and acquaintances, someone who deals with guitars professionally recommended one JLH highly; some friend.  Mr. X contacted JLH and not only did he promise a world class instrument, but the price was not as high as most experienced builders like I would charge.  Given Mr X's choices in hardware and materials, it was a steal.  I can not tell you what ultimately convinced Mr. X to agree, but with a professional looking logo, T-Shirts, contests and giveaways on his Facebook page, and even a sister company "TimbreTone Pickups", JLH made himself look legit, at least at a glance, and Mr. X gave him the go ahead to start on his dream guitar.

To make a long story shorter, as the build went on way longer than promised, the excuses for not meeting the promised deadline started to add up, and Mr. X grew increasingly queasy.  Finally the time came that the guitar arrived.  When Mr. X opened the case, it did not look quite like what he had expected or asked for, but Mr. X decided to play it and hear what it sounded like.  The first thing he noticed was that it was abnormally heavy, and the action was ridiculously high, it did not play in tune all the way up the neck, and it also sounded strange with both pickups on at the same time.

Mr. X called JLH, and voiced his dissatisfaction and JLH brushed off all of the features he had ignored as not having been set in stone, and blamed the bad action on the shipper, but after some pushing, agreed to take care of at least some of it.  Mr. X sent it back, and also asked JLH if he could at least take some weight off of it.  Once again it took a long time until it came back and Mr. X found it in near the same unplayable condition, and not noticeably lighter either.  It did come back with an added brass plate on the back with a JLH logo embossed in it that was not there before, which I will get to later.

Mr. X called JLH again, and was told that it left there in superb playing condition.  Fed up, Mr. X decided to bring it to someone else for a setup, and when the tech tried to adjust the truss rod in the neck, the fingerboard popped off!  Mr. X did not want to deal with JLH anymore and tried the only real luthier he could find near by, who after looking at the instrument, wanted no part of it.

Once again Mr. X Called JLH demanding satisfaction, this time he wanted his money back, but not only did JLH blame the technician for breaking it in performing a routine procedure, he flat out refused to take the guitar back and refund Mr. X's money.  Mr. X had to get hard on JLH to make him honer his warranty.  With no other option short of a law suit, Mr. X sent it back once again.  When it finally came back, the fingerboard was attached, but it was still in unplayable condition and still no lighter.  One of Mr. X's band mates became a client of mine, and after receiving quality work, he recommended me to straighten out this mess of an instrument, and after what Mr. X had gone through I can not blame him for not believing me, when I told him that I could fix it, no matter what was wrong with it.  I had to twist his arm quite a bit to let me do my thing, besides it was either take a $1700+ loss, or pay some more and at least have a playing instrument.

JLH:

I do not proclaim to be a world class luthier, but JLH does, so I feel no shame in revealing his name, but before you go searching for this character on line:  Please don't, he does not deserve to move up in the search engine rankings.  I will have some relevant links in here where applicable in order to corroborate the story, just so you know that I am not making this stuff up.

His name is Jesse L. Howard formerly of Elkhart Indiana but is now located in Columbia Kentucky.  He claims to be a devout Christian, but he does not follow Christ's teachings for real, but is rather vein, greedy, and deceitful, in other words he is a hypocrite.  He proclaims to be CEO of "JLH custom guitars" and "TimbreTone Pickups", which is strange, because it is not common practice to call yourself a CEO, president or other big title, when you are one of a two man business with the second man being an unsuspecting hanger on who never gets credit and stays unnamed, let alone if you have an unrelated day time job, where you are employed by someone else.  But wait, there's more!

Jesse only dabbled in repairing his own store bought guitars, until God himself told him to go fourth and build the best guitars in the world! At least that is how Jesse explained it to Mr. X.  Correct me if I am wrong, but God does not normally concern himself with earthly goods, harps and horns maybe, but guitars?  Well just in case, I think God would pick someone who could actually pull it off, or give the person the necessary skill, to fulfill his mission?

On the about section of his Facebook page (here) he wrote:

Hi guys! I'm Jesse Howard. I started this page up so that all my friends can watch as I set forth to make my dreams of building the best guitars in the world for some of the best guitar players come true! Hold on it will be a melodic ride