Are guitar necks getting worse?

"You're saying neck issues are a QA/QC problem?"

Yes.

Quality Control and Quality Assurance are standard procedures in the manufacturing of anything. Lose the QA/QC or cut corners so only the bare minimum of standard is met, and your product suffers for it.

What I personally believe is that necks are good at the factory when they come off the production line, even for the cheap guitars. It's the transit and storage afterward that wrecks them. All that banging around and wild temperature changes make frets and nuts pop and sprout like crazy.

The fix for this issue would be making two inspections mandatory instead of just one. Factory inspection alone obviously isn't cutting it. I'd ask for three inspections but that will never happen, so I'd be happy with two. Someone who knows how a guitar works is supposed to cut that box open and inspect the product before it goes to the retailer.

I don't care whether the second inspection is done by the manufacturer or by the retailer directly. It just needs to happen.

Nobody wants to spend over $500 on a guitar to find high frets, sharp fret ends and bad nut slots. That shouldn't happen. But it is happening and something needs to be done about it.

If you spend over $500 on a guitar and encounter neck issues like this, TELL THE MANUFACTURER

This only way this crapola will ever get fixed is if guitar players start communicating directly with the manufacturers more.

DON'T go on a forum or social media and complain. That obviously doesn't work. Go to the guitar manufacturer's web site and TELL THEM DIRECTLY.

If enough people write in, then better guitars will be delivered to the retailers. These neck issues are on a manufacturer QA/QC level and the problem has to be taken care of there. So if you're going to complain - which you should - do so to the people that matter.

Published 2020 Mar 3