LGM Guitars announcement, March 21, 2006

littlegreenman · #1 03-21-2006, 04:02 PM

Hello to all of our customers.
The time has come at LGM Guitars and Graphix where we sadly are backlogged so far with work that we regretfully will not be taking orders on guitars until the current backlog of work is completed and shipped. We are still doing custom paint, if you have an inquiry for airbrush work please let us know. Due to the move, LGM Graphix custom paint taking off MUCH bigger than expected, and some poor use of time management, we have fallen very far behind on our guitar orders. Rather than continue to take orders and miss deadlines, it is in the best interest of LGM Guitars and our customers to stop taking orders for guitars. This is not a permanent issue. We have no plans to stop building the Leviathan line, and are currently looking into other alternatives to our current building process in order to streamline production. Please check back to the website for updates on Leviathan availability often.
We apologize to those of you who are still waiting on instruments, and apologize to those of you who want to place orders right now. Please bear with us until we get through this batch of guitars.
Thank you

Sincerely
Jeremy Ferguson
LGM Guitars and Graphix

dangomles · #2 03-21-2006, 04:11 PM

I have no intenttion to be rude or irrespectful or anything like that. But you guys should have made that decission way back, glad you make it anyway.
Again, no mean to be irrespectul or anything, best of luck with everything!

littlegreenman · #3 03-21-2006, 04:23 PM

Well, sadly, "way back" as you put it, stopping taking orders would have probably bankrupted us. I am very upset with where things have ended up in the guitar business for us. But hindsight is always 20/20. Now we're doing what has to be done in order to get caught up and grow again.

velocity · #4 03-21-2006, 04:35 PM

jeremy check your pm

fettouhi · #5 03-21-2006, 05:55 PM

All the best Jeremy getting all that backlog of completed

so you can start making new Leviathan's.

Regards

André

jay ratkowski · #6 03-22-2006, 12:33 AM

Jeremy, if you need any advice or suggestions on what to change/improve, or moral support in general... just send me an email.

Shredcows · #7 03-22-2006, 01:14 AM

I don't know Jeremy personally, but for one thing, Leviathans are very very nice looking guitars.

I can't count the number of times, I've gone on Jemsite and went to take a look at pics of Leviathans, esp the monster 8 stringers. And I do it again and again!

Great guitars! Keep at it man.

Koss · #8 03-22-2006, 11:05 PM

Glad I placed my order a couple weeks ago!

fettouhi · #9 03-23-2006, 03:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koss

Glad I placed my order a couple weeks ago!

Lucky you

.

Regards

André

Platon · #10 03-23-2006, 03:44 AM

I don't mind being part of the backlog

The result will be worth it. Until then I savor the anticipation...

fettouhi · #11 03-23-2006, 06:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Platon

I don't mind being part of the backlog

The result will be worth it. Until then I savor the anticipation...

Same here

.

Regards

André

ATDVSBL · #12 03-23-2006, 02:06 PM

Best of luck Jeremy...I sincerely hope you get everything the way you want it. You have tremendous talent, I can't wait to see the what you come up with next!

Shad

Koss · #13 05-13-2006, 01:29 PM

Sorry for the bump, but I was wondering how things have been going since you stopped taking orders.

littlegreenman · #14 05-18-2006, 12:42 AM

As an update:

Ok, since I now have certain customers making threatening emails, ridiculous demands, and otherwise, I will get into the down and dirty side of what's going on right now.

I've sent this as an email to a few customers to let them know the status of things, for everyone else wondering:

First of all, the paint booth was finally delivered on December 23, 2005.
Myself and 4 friends got it put up that day, however, that was only the
beginning. Of course right after that was Christmas. I had to get an
electrician, fire suppression technician, and roofer all in yet. Well,
nobody was available until the new year. First the electrician came in,
he finally started approximately January 20, 2006. The downside to the
paint booth is a specific electrician specializing in explosion proof
wiring was needed. His job took a long time. Then, while he was working,
he required all the exhaust ducting to be installed. This required a
roofer. Finding one with time was a challenge, finally the first week of
February a roofer came in and did the job. Unfortunately they did it
wrong. Then I was stuck waiting for them to come back, finally I said
screw it and corrected the problem myself. Then I installed the final
ducting. The electrician was then able to come back and do more work.
Then the fire suppression had to be installed. This was the only
relatively quick part in the whole ordeal. Once that was installed the
Electrician was able to come back and finish the wiring (yes, there really
was that much wiring, almost $11,000 worth). So, this ended up taking
until the beginning of March. During this time, zero money was coming in.
I was broke, I still had to make payments on the booth ($815 per month)
along with rent ($2200 per month) and live. As a result, I have had to
sell off every guitar I own along with many other personal items just to
keep from going bankrupt. Add to this the additional items I had to
purchase for the booth and it was astronomical. The booth is on a lease,
the lease was for $24,000, in the end my paint booth has cost me almost
$40,000. That was an additional $16,000 I had to come up with out of my
own pocket. After all the issues with the booth were completed, I had to
wait for the engineer to come give it a stamp of approval before I could
use it. It took him a week to get here to do that. So here we are, mid
march and finally I can use my shop. In the past few weeks I have had to
paint a few cars just in order to pay my rent and other bills. As a
result of all of this I haven't been able to work on guitars.
Previous to moving to the west coast, I admit that I utilized my time very
poorly and this put me behind. As things sit right now, I am working 16 hours per day trying to catch up on everything I have here.
I am in no way telling this looking for sympathy, I just feel my customers deserve a detailed explanation as to why their guitars are not finished. I
have not just been sitting around doing nothing, I have been doing all I
can to survive and get things up and running. If I could do everything
over again I would do so many things differently but hindsight is 20/20
and all I can do now is work diligintly to get caught up.

So that's where I'm at, things are starting to settle down into a reasonable pace again and I'm able to slowly get back to doing some guitar stuff.

That is the good news, however, the bad news is, in the new shop, with the bills as high as they are, guitars do not even come close to paying enough to cover the bills. I would have to be building 15 guitars every month to break even. Considering I couldn't even keep up with the work load I had before that would be totally unreasonable. As a result, I do not see anytime in the near future that I will be taking orders for guitars. The only plan I have for guitars in the future as of right now is to build them as time permits and then sell the completed guitars.

I blame myself for all the delays, but all I can do is keep pressing forward and hope that the majority of my customers can bear with me and continue to be patient, I am not out to rip anyone off, you will ALL receive the guitars you paid for in the end.

I apologize greatly for all of this, did I bite off more than I could chew, possibly, did I make poor use of my time, yes, if I could do things differently I certainly would.

Again I apologize for the delays, please understand that I have to keep the bills paid, without bills paid I'm out of business totally and that leaves me with no possible way to complete any outstanding jobs. Bad excuse I know, but it's the truth, and that's the best I can do at the moment.

Thanks
Jeremy

velocity · #15 05-18-2006, 01:01 AM

hey everybody. i feel i should add jeremy kept his word to me, and has been a stand up guy. yes, there have been delays. in the end, my guitar is on it's way. my wife questioned my sanity on several occasions, but he came through. and jeremy.
how about unfinished kits? say leviathan neck and bodies? unfinished of course.
seven or eight strings. we build them ourselves.
i am not making light of the situation, i truly love the design.
and that is my two cents