I bought a body from sims on ****. Didn't go so well. Only communication I got from him said it was shipping 'today' and would be with me 6-10 days. A month and a half later, and after several e-mails, no reply, so had to claim my money back from paypal. Glad I paid with paypal!

I wouldn't use him again, ever. He gets people to buy from him by doing amazing work, but then just, well, lies. I left negative feedback for him, and his 'response' on the feedback listing on **** was a complete fabrication. There's no reason why you have to believe me, but he left similar messages against the other peoples negative feedbacks - would you rather believe the 5 customers or the 1 seller?

I'm sure this post won't make any difference, and people will continue to get ripped off by this man, and a few might even do good business with him and be happy. But I won't be doing business with him, and I urge people who might read this to just stop and think before buying anything from him (unless it's covered with paypal, then knock yourself out, just don't forget to claim back before the 45 day cover period expires if your item doesn't show up).

Even if you're one of the lucky people that does good business with him - do you really want to support this man?

EDIT: I just posted on sevenstring.org, though I read earlier in the thread and the moderators there seem to be protecting him. Why? No doubt I'll get kicked off of there, though I only signed up to post to warn people about my experiences, which I think is justified really. But it does seem odd that the site seems to back him up, rather than try and protect it's users against people that are at best, unreliable. Ah, well. You can't help some people.

I'd also like to just put, that I'm sorry if my postings have upset anyone, which it might do. I'm just angry that this kind of thing goes on, it's very stressful looking forward to a new guitar item and slowly realising it's never gonna happen, but I guess at least I've learnt a lesson from it myself.

No worries Adam, and hopefully you will stick around if you like what you see here.

I actually signed up on jemsite a while back, I was looking around at other peoples topics at jem pics to get ideas for a custom build and also pm'd a couple of members I think? So far it's been quite useful and people generally seem quite nice.

I meant that I signed up at severstring just to post, as that is where sims seems to be active, hehe.

Not the same evilbay account. The one with the 5 or 6 recent negatives was simscustom.

Okay, thanks for clearing that up mate.

We all believe you btw. Just the way we believe the dozens of other jemsite members(including me) he has tried to rip off in one way or another. Welcome and hope you stick around.

shesky

I posted my recent experiences here

http://www.jemsite.com/forums/f19/mo...oes-92212.html

I locked that thread.

This is the only thread for Sims comments.

Has anyone actually been 'ripped off' by SCS? I would like to hear that story. Although the trem rubbing on the side of the cavity is a new one, Why walk out of a shop with a problem that obvious. Without knowing the complete history of the guitar, maybe something got changed after production etc.. If you don't have a guy that you trust locally to deal with this kind of thing, you should find one no matter if it's for this or something else. Eventually you will run into something and it's nice to have someone to trust. And another thing, every one of these earth stopping disasters has to do with how long it takes to get something back from SCS. Not the work, the price etc.. it's the time. I have looked into this as best I can, and from what I have learned, everybody that does custom paints, swirls etc.. average about 15 months. He has one of mine now, and I just got preliminary pics of it last week, Wow!! Unbelievable. Patience, my friends, patience.

I stopped using Patrick after Marty Bell did better work and had both guitars back in my hands 3 weeks after they were shipped.

It is quite possible to get high quality work without the drama and excuses.

With anything in life YMMV, but I have had a very good experience still. I have bought two bodies from him. The first one is in my hands and I gig with it several times a week with it. It is beautiful and the quality is great. I get compliments comstantly. The finish is the smoothest of any guitar I own, including my custom PRS. BTW, my custom PRS took me 18 months to get, when I was first told a year. My orange one I ordered from Patrick had a slight problem after the finish settled, so I don't have it yet. Was I told I would already have it? Yes! Would I want to have it already with a line where the wings join the center chunk? No! HE sent pics we he had it done and it looked great, then after the paint settled, the line showed. If he hadn't held on to it, and just sent it to me while the finish was soft, I would have the line showing. Had I been impatient and demanded my guitar, I would have it, but wouldn't be happy. Now I do have a custom soloist that has that has that same line on the back. The soloist that took me 14 months to get.

I'm not saying Patrick is perfect, but his work is DAMN good. If he is guilty of anything that I have seen so far is giving time estimates that he hopes he is able to fulfill , but then gets delayed. If you have ever done finish before you know how long it takes. Hell, I have made and finshed several, and it takes me 4 months and I'm only making one. Let me tell you, if you try and force it, you pay the price. Never buff one too early, you have to let it cure properly and some times it takes months to REALLY dry. Hell I have wrinkled the sh*t out of a finish by buffing too soon. I had one stick to the case lining. Ever seen a white guitar with black fur stuck to the back. It sucks.

I would say if you want quality, give him a call. If you want fast, absolutely do not.

I'm sure that a lot of people do good business with him. It's just for me that, if you're spending a lot of money, and £350 quid to me is a lot of money (although I was considering anything up to around £1600 on the project, 350 was just the body that I ended up getting, I originally asked him for a full quote for the entire job), even if there's a 90% chance you'll actually get the thing you pay for, that's unacceptable. I wouldn't order from amazon and expect that my item will come only 60% of the time and just pray that I'm one of the lucky customers. Obviously, it's not the same with guitars, but I believe that principle still remains, you can't treat your customers or even potential customers like scum and cause them the stress of worrying about it for months, if not for business reasons then simply as a matter of ethics.

You're not looking hard enough then because there are painters show can turn around a custom job in significantly less time than that. I had Mike Learn (who does work for Charvel and Jackson) paint a guitar (with graphics mind you, not simple single color job) in 4 weeks and the work is just as good as anything from Sims (yes, I have 2 guitars that Patrick refinished).

Patience is one thing but everyone has their limits and when one starts getting jerked around (it will be ready next week, it will be ready next week, etc. etc.) eventually your patience will run out. That's what pisses people off.

My mom used to say,"It's just as easy to marry a rich girl", but she neglected the obvious point - they are much tougher to find!

With all due respect to everyone else out there doing custom paining, Mike Learn is really in a class by himself. Guys like Sims and Paul at BigHead are good (Paul is really good), but Learn is a step above.

I won't disagree with that statement, especially when it comes to quality but my main point was the turnaround time and also communication. He hit almost every deadline along the way or he communicated to me why he was going to slip (other obligations like NAMM or teaching gigs). I also only had to pay half of the cost up front which made me feel like he had some impetus to get the job done in a reasonable amount of time, assuming he wanted the rest of the money in a reasonable amount of time.