Quentin T.

So I am standing filling my car up, in the twilight... some homeless person has used the squeegie water container as a urinal, and a large billboard that belongs to the service station I am at has an electrical display...I stare fixedly at my message for the day...'Welcome to ', then after about 5 seconds.... 'We have lots of'.... 5 seconds more... 'We have both hot'..... and finally....'Thank you'. If it had started to flicker and one of the bulbs had blown out dramatically, I would have known I was in one of Quentin Tarantino's Zombie flicks...but it didn't .... But it did make me think of China. China is still working on getting down how to do certain things for the American market...they have silk tapestries, herbal remedies, and are the home to acupuncture... they also have Kung Fu, loveable Chinese English-overdubbed Martial Arts movies..the Great Wall.....and...er....Chinese Fender Guitars. Some say it is time to ignore those little 'Made in China' stickers on the back of some guitars, and embrace them as being as good as, or better than USA-made guitars. Er....NOT YET. I swear it.... keep waiting... they are getting better... it will happen... but their guitars are not (yet) like USA-made instruments. Case in point... I rented a Burns guitar... which was new, with a little sticker on the back. The fretboard felt plasticky, the nut kept making little metal pinging sounds when I played... and it had so much poly on it, I never really felt the wood was there... but I know it was... deep down. Maybe it just needed a good set up... but don't take my word for it... go to Hank Marvin's 'Fender Stratocaster Handbook' (published in England in 2007... but China could have done it for less, and done a good job).... under 'Case Studies'...they looked at a USA Custom Shop '54:...Condition on arrival: 'impeccable set up and workmanship'. They also looked at a Chinese made Standard Squire™.... condition on arrival: '...a reasonably good instrument...however, low-cost saddle materials, lightweight trem block (the US one might have this too...) and.. it did have (what I had problems with on the Burns guitar)... a bad fretboard/fret problem... with '... rather uneven fretting- putting this right could cost as much as 50 percent of the purchase price of the guitar'. So.. my word for the day... Standby on China... I am sure they will get it...but not yet...not with electric guitars.... (I am not crazy about 'Agathis' wood either... but that's my problem...). A Japanese friend of mine when asked about Floyd Rose trems told me 'stay away from the ones made in China... they break'. I won't get them in a room together....to discuss that one....