I was very pleased to open up my hometown newspaper today to see an article on the tech I use to do all my repairs. I have a bit a nod to him on an earlier post because I was so pleased to find him after going the normal chain store luthier route and had the normal displeasure. Seems he was selected to be one out of a handful of luthiers in the country to be authorized by Fender to do warranty work on Custom Shop instruments. Congratulations!!! Here's a link to the story.http://www.lowellsun.com/todaysheadlines/ci_12122657

Congratulations to Bill! What part of the country will he be servicing? I guess it's in the link huh? I'm lazy!

About 25 miles northwest of Boston. I was so happy when I found him. Previously I was going to a certain "center" for work. The guy there was pretty full of himself, and acted like he was doing you a big favor by taking your money to do work, which wasnt much better than what I could do by myself. Bill did a great job, let me stand over him and showed me everything he was doing, and why. Unfortunately I dont own a custom shop, and didnt realize what a pain in the neck it was if you needed work on it.

Thanks, but he is just a little bit out of my area. I have a CS and hope I never need it repaired. You never know where it might go though with the new Custom Care Program!

Cool, he must be really good!

Huge thanks to Bill Whitsett, the Fender Custom Shop builder in Lowell, MA!

I had bought the Fender Mahogany American Strat HSS in March 2009. The guitar itself is perfect for me but something didn't "feel" right about the string height. Like many amateurs I thought that new guitars came set up right out of the box, as if there was only 1 type of "setup" for all styles.

I was going to do it all myself (setup). I'm a Medical Physicist so I'm fairly bright, but there seems to be an art to setting up a guitar that comes with all that experience.

I brought it to him a couple of weeks ago (Sept. '09, 6 months after purchase) and described the type of music I like and the style of play I intend on learning (Hendrix to EVH). He listened intently to my amateur description of what I wanted out of the guitar and walked me through how he would set it up, right down to which strings I should get for it.

He set the string height lower, leveled the frets, ect.

Completely down to earth, righteous guy! He set up my acoustic after that too.

They both play 100% better now - I couldn't be happier!

If you're in the area I couldn't recommend him more.



http://www.whitsettguitarworks.com/

If you've never had your guitar set up after purchasing it and you're not in the area I highly recommend bringing it to a pro near you.

http://www.fender.com/support/service_centers/

It makes playing so much more enjoyable.

Thanks for letting me go off on a tangent.

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Electric Guitar #1: Fender American Select Mahogany Stratocaster HSS
Electric Guitar #2: Agile Al-3110 Les Paul
Acoustic: Fender CD200SCE Dreadnought Acoustic-Electric Guitar
Amp: Line 6 Spider III 75 75W 1x12 Combo Amp
Piano: Yamaha M450

With ANY truly qualified and experienced tech, luthier or whatever you want to call them, there is no difference between working on a Fender Custom Shop guitar or any other superior guitar for that matter, Fender or otherwise. To me, this is Fender's way of acknowledging that there are PLENTY of hacks out there in their authorized facilities and Bill Whitsett is FAR from being one of them. Congrats and bravo to him!

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You dig?

Hi windwalker9649 and zappa73: we're always ready to throw brickbats - we should be equally ready to hand out bouquets too.

Good luthiers are always worth hearing about. Thank you for sharing!

Cheers - C