John's a very nice guy, and seems to know his stuff, but he frankly ripped me off.
A couple of years ago I brought in an old Gibson Standard acoustic with a slightly humped, twisted neck that would become unplayable every winter. As soon as the humidity dropped into the 20s, early Decemberish, the neck would hump even more, to the point that you couldn't fret a note on the highest 2 strings between the 3rd fret and the octave. John assured me he'd take care of it, with some strategic clamping and a truss-rod adjustment, and sure enough: when I picked it up a month later, still in mid-winter, all was fine. For about two days, and then the problem returned, as bad as ever.
I brought the guitar back into John and he told me, with a shrug, that old guitars are like that sometimes, and I should buy a humidifier like the one he has in his shop. He was right, it turns out. If I keep the guitar in a small room and run a high-end humidifier all winter long, it stays playable.
But I'm left wondering exactly what I got for the eye-watering $300 he charged me for a month of "adjustments" that made no difference at all to the guitar I brought him. read more