Christopher Woods, Monsterguitarshop, Legacy One

lcsdds · #1 03-18-2007, 02:27 PM

So I have had dealings with all three of these vendors and thought I would share my experiences for those who are thinking about having custom work done and wondering who to use.

Christopher Woods- Have had quite a few bodies built by him, all jem and RG style with ZR trem route. Christopher's work has always been great. He is sometimes a little slow on email answers but I have noticed this is usually because he doesn't have anything to update you on yet so he waits until he has something to tell you before answering. He is also very fair and wants you to be satisfied. I am actually having him build me a BVD-G which is one of his own designs. It has a JS carve to is and looks really cool, for the neck I opted to have Chris modify a Carvin neckthrough blank and I think it will turn out really cool. Will post pics when it is done. I would highly recommend Christopher to anyone!! The wait times with Chris have been discussed adnauseum on this forum, but I think he is getting it under control.

Monsterguitarshop- Had Doug build me a JS body with a ZR trem route and AANJ and two necks. One neck is a bubinga neck with a birdseye maple fingerboard and the other neck is a birdseye maple neck with a cocobolo fingerboard. Both necks have an LSR roller nut instead of a locking nut. Email communication with Doug was great. Although his respnses were not what I always wanted to hear, he always responded and never ignored me. Took him about 7 months to get all the work done and I must admit I was starting to get a little frustrated because he kept saying that it would be done next week. When I finally got the body and necks I must say that they turned out EXCELLENT. The wood he chose for the necks are AWESOME. Will post pics of these when they are done as well. Now while he took awhile to get me the product and was always saying they would be done next week, I must admit that the final product in my mind was worth the wait. would recommend Doug as well, although you should be prepared to wait.

Legacy One- Had 3 necks built by him. Shoddy craftsmanship, necks are definitely not direct replacements. I had to do alot of modification just to get them in the neck pocket. Inlay work was AWFUL, lots of gaps in between the inlay and fingerboard, finish was AWFUL. You could see the sanding marks, and also lack of any sanding in some cases, and had alot of tear outs where the holes for the tuners were drilled. Very surprised he let this stuff leave the shop. I could/should of requested a refund, but by the time I decided that the necks were not going to work no matter how much I wanted them to I decided to chalk it up to experience although it was expensive experience. I don't make a ton of money but I make enough that eventually the time and energy I would spend trying to get him to refund my money was not worth it and just decided to live and learn and move on. Would not reccommend Legacy One to anybody. Although I did get my necks pretty quickly, who gives a crap if they are useless!! I could have made crappy necks myself!!

Hope these reviews helped someone who is wondering about these 3 vendors.

Monte

sanitarium · #2 03-18-2007, 02:38 PM

Very informitive reviews, and fair too. It's good to hear from someone who has dealt with a few custom shop to compare them all. The custom work I've had done I've always gone to the same person just incase it's not up to standard i'm used to.
Look forward to seeing the pictures.

C.Thep · #3 03-18-2007, 03:58 PM

Thanks, I was waiting to hear some reviews from Monster Guitar Shop.

RiverKing · #4 03-18-2007, 05:13 PM

Yes, very thorough and fair reviews. I'm on Chris' 'wait' list, so we'll see how that works out. Would love to see some pics of your customs'.

Brosa · #5 03-18-2007, 06:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by C.Thep

Thanks, I was waiting to hear some reviews from Monster Guitar Shop.

I just got a custom Universe body and neck from MGS. I'll make some pictures and do a revies in a few days.

Cheers, Sam

Koss · #6 03-18-2007, 06:53 PM

My experience with MGS was very different. A year ago, I had them make me a left handed 7 string Jem/UV body and it was really badly made.

The stud routes were not deep enough, the trem cavity was too small, the neck joint cavity was too short (left a significant gap between the neck pickup and the edge of the fretboard) It arrived with a chip on the top horn. They said it had to be due to shipping, but I couldn't find any evidence to support that.

I had to fix all the mistakes to make it useable. I waited 3 months for the body to be completed, and it was shipped out to me a week after he said that it had been shipped out. I could have sent it back and have another one made, but I really wanted to complete my guitar. A couple months later, the body started to crack. I was still under warranty, but I decided to get Chris Woods to make me a new body.

I can't comment on the Woods body, because I don't have it back yet. But a friend of mine ordered a neck from him and loves it.

If you search this site, you should come across some reviews for MGS. the general consensus that i've seen is that they don't do good work. I never recommend them, and never will.

LegacyOne, I never dealt with, and never would. Even if he did excellent work and wasn't pissing everyone off around here. I just don't like him.

lcsdds · #7 03-18-2007, 08:54 PM

I knew that someone (turns out it was KOSS) here had a bad experience with monsterguitarshop. I can only comment on my experience. The neck I received from MGS was VERY nice. Great selection of woods. One of the necks went into a body that MGS built so no mods were necessary. The other neck went into a Christopher Woods body and I had to make the neck pocket slightly larger to get it to go down. Took about 3 minutes. I think the bottom line from my experience has been this. All 3 vendors give you the runaround to some extent. I think this is a case of being overwhelmed with work and biting of more than they could handle initially. In the case of MGS and Christopher Woods I have not been dissapointed in the final product. Legacy One obviously has ALOT of issues and from the way his thread is going is a outright crook. If I had to pick a vendor I would say the overall Christopher woods has more options is easier to work with but my experience with MGS while frustrating at times resulted in a good product in the end. Here is a pic of the Christopher Woods BVD-G with the JS carve that he is working on for me. This is the one that will be using a modified Carvin neck. This is not the actual body but a test body he cut to work out the kinks for his CNC program. the body below the poplar body is a bass body he converted to a guitar body.

IMG]http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l16/lcsdds/bvdg6.jpg[/IMG]

lcsdds · #8 03-18-2007, 09:00 PM

can't figure out how to get the photos to post. Sorry!!

sanitarium · #9 03-18-2007, 09:03 PM

just needed another [ at the begining.

j.arledge · #10 03-19-2007, 04:06 AM

well so far the experience with legacy one hasn't been great at all . i just want my money back .........

i bought a body from chris , it was as described. he got back to my e-mails fairly quickly , and got the body shipped out quick . He just got a money order for a neck out of his online store and that was this past thursday so i am guessing the neck will ship monday . So far i am pretty pleased , he does wait to get back to you once he has something to say (an update) so anyone buying from him keep that in mind .

**Ayrton** · #11 03-19-2007, 05:17 AM

I have purchased from Chris Woods and was very pleased with both bodies I received.

espshredder · #12 03-19-2007, 11:48 AM

Many thanks for sharing the info -

I ordered a Kramer Nightswan neck from Monster Guitar Shop a few weeks ago - It's the only place I found that said they could make them (it's an unusual 24.75" 24 fret neck) and I'd read a few bad reports. It's reassuring to hear someone pleased with what they received.

Brosa · #13 03-19-2007, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by espshredder

Many thanks for sharing the info -

I ordered a Kramer Nightswan neck from Monster Guitar Shop a few weeks ago - It's the only place I found that said they could make them (it's an unusual 24.75" 24 fret neck) and I'd read a few bad reports. It's reassuring to hear someone pleased with what they received.

I'm also very happy with the guitarneck and body. Although it took 9 months from the order, to the day that the guitar arrived here....

Doug is a nice guy and always replies you e-mail.

espshredder · #14 03-19-2007, 02:05 PM

Hey - Thanks - It's set my mind at ease. Some of the kramerforum.com guys were not at all impressed with MGS and I was worried about the quality of the work.