First off, I will say that John is a capable luthier, in general. He is also a pretty friendly guy. Having said those things, my complaints about him are that he overcharges for his work, and also gave me outright misinformation about the best way to set intonation on an acoustic guitar. He lied to me about this because it made his work easier, and as a result, the work was poor.
I brought him a high quality acoustic steel string that really needed intonation work, which is to say that even once I tuned the guitar perfectly with a tuner, chords or notes fretted in some places on the neck would sound okay, while others definitely would not. Intonation is a complex subject, but the basics are that you need to customize the length of each string at the saddle, which is where the strings "touch down" at the base of the instrument. On an electric, this is easy, as the saddles are mechanically adjustable with the turn of a screw.
On an acoustic, you need to change the string length by carefully carving the bone saddle at each point where a string passes over. You may even need to do some carving at the nut, which is the anchor point at the top of the fretboard. It's hard work that pays off in the form of a guitar that sounds in tune all over the neck.
John told me that to carve a custom ("compensated") saddle was a waste of time, as it is not really possible to set the intonation of an acoustic guitar with precision. He claimed that a straight saddle made of good bone would produce overall better tonal results. This is a serious lie. It is simply not true. It is quite hard work to properly carve the saddle and/or nut to get the intonation right, but it is done all the time by good luthiers. John also said to me that his guitar set-up process included a kind of "laying on of hands". In the end, I got a guitar with a well made, perfectly straight saddle-that did a very bad job of making the guitar play in tune. This guy is a snake oil salesman. Don't buy it! read more
