Gretsch quality control?

[saxjag]

Last week I found myself in a guitar shop in a smallish town on the West Coast. (New stock of electric guitars mostly in the low- to mid-range pricewise. Lots of Strat knockoffs & the like.) OK, so I happened to notice that all of the Gretsch electrics in the shop appeared to be misaligned.

What I mean is, not one of them was perfectly symmetrical around a vertical axis. In any configuration of pickups/bridge/tailpiece, at least one of those hardware elements was a bit too far to one side; if you focused on the screwholes you could plainly see that they didn't all conform. The bass strings in particular seemed to fan away from the center line before re-converging at the tailpiece. And on the Gretsches equipped with Bigsby trems, it was even worse.

So here's my question. Has Gretsch quality control in general gotten sloppy? Or is one particular factory to blame? Or -- & here's the most intriguing question of all -- is it possible for a low-end, off-the-beaten-path shop to carry a consignment of B-stock guitars? Is such a thing even a thing? I can't even.

[DesmondWafers]

Are we talking electromatic/streamliners? I'm playing my streamliner as I type this and it appears that everything is properly aligned.

[lizardville]

If they were models with floating bridges is a common thing.
They just need a set up.

[StevenO]

If they were models with floating bridges is a common thing.
They just need a set up.

This.

I think they probably arrive at the stores with the strings somewhat slack, just enough to keep the bridge in place or fixed to the guitar, but not enough to keep the bridge from sliding around slightly on the guitar's surface. The shops probably then just kind of eye ball the bridge placement, if they do this at all, tune the guitar up and put it out for sale.

I've picked up quite a few Gretsch guitars and have had to reseat the bridge just to be playable and in-tune past the first few frets.

[UlricvonCatalyst]

Is it possible that a few people are missing something from the OP?

In any configuration of pickups/bridge/tailpiece, at least one of those hardware elements was a bit too far to one side; if you focused on the screwholes you could plainly see that they didn't all conform.

To me it reads like the hardware has been slapped on any-old-how; like the pickups aren't centred correctly and don't even line up with each other. Or have I got that wrong?

[spacecadet]

I have an Electromatic and as far as I can tell the workmanship is perfect. It should be - for a "cheap" guitar these are still pretty expensive. $800 isn't quite down to Squier territory; Fender sells some US-made models for around that price.

I know the OP said the screw holes looked misaligned, but IMO that's kind of hard to tell for sure without taking a guitar apart because there's a lot of stuff in the way, and some of it might cause optical illusions. For example, sometimes from certain angles I feel like my neck pickup doesn't look quite parallel to my bridge pickup, but it's just the way the pickups want to sit with the wiring and pickguard and stuff pressing against them - there's a little play there if I really wanted them dead straight.

Like someone else said, I also wonder if the floating bridges might throw a person off. If you don't know they're floating, you might even think they're screwed in (and therefore think the screw holes are misaligned) - they do have two bridge screws on the sides, but those just screw into the wood shim thing, whatever that's called. Then that whole piece floats against the body - it's not held on by anything. You could take it out and have the guitar look like this: http://g04.a.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1iSxEKFXX ... ipping.jpg

Usually when you buy one of these new, the bridge is in some random goofy place because the strings are de-tensioned, so it slips up or down somewhere. Threw me off a little when I got mine because mine was straight and was just a *little* off, so I didn't realize it wasn't in the right spot and could not figure out why my intonation was so, so bad. Had a "duh!" moment when I realized the bridge was floating.

[saxjag]

IIRC, many of the bridges were Adjusto-Matic, so no slippage. And I'm talking about pickups & bridges screwed in slightly diagonal to one another (as viewed from both left & right), which I eyeballed pretty closely from a variety of angles. And yes, I understand that some of those bridges are slanted by design. I'm talking about the screwholes. Not vertically symmetrical. Not equidistant from a central axis.

I'm not putting down Gretsch. I'm not suggesting that all their guitars are badly built. I'm simply reporting that at one shop, a number of similar guitars of that brand seemed to be off-kilter in similar ways, and this struck me as something out of the ordinary. I've seen guitars in shops before, I've seen sloppy setups before, and this is different.

Is it possible that a major brand would sell B-stock? Or that somebody with access to B-stock would sell it at a discount? And that an out-of-the-way shop would knowingly carry B-stock (unlabeled as such) for added profit? Not trying to start a conspiracy theory here. Just curious whether such things have been known to happen. Please, could somebody with actual knowledge of guitar manufacturing & supply chains weigh in with an explanation or an alternate scenario?

[repoman]

I've owned about 10 Gretsch guitars. Gretsches are my favorite but they do have issues more than other guitars IMO. As far as budget models, I've had extremely well made MIC jets (I had one with the minihumbuckers that was amazing probably 2006 model), poorly made newer MIC jet (with filtertron style pickups- twisted neck, horrible routing underneath, miles of wire, 2015 model), I've had two Korean 5120s that were amazing, a Korean centerblock Jet that had a really bootleg remedy done to an issue with the bridge posts that was done at the factory, a Indonesian streamliner that was pretty great for 500 bucks, and 3 MIJ guitars (2 jets and 1 6120).

I think the QC issues is somewhat on par with other budget/intermediate guitars, maybe a little worse, but kind of in the 'comes with the territory' realm.

On MIJ Gretsches-

You read about these on forums like they are immaculately made instruments perfect in every detail...this is not my experience at all. Of the three MIJ Gretsches I've had (all 2005 or newer), all have had issues with the necks. One Jets neck was quite twisted, the 6120 and other Jet I had had dips in the neck on the bass side, they are minor and workable issues but still pretty crazy for guitars that cost that much. Other stuff- grover sta-tites are crap tuners. The posts tend to develop slop in the bushings. Lots of people always chase a well cut nut for tuning stability issues with Gretches, but on the worst one (one of the jets) the Sta-tite posts had considerable slop in them and was the source of really bad tuning issues as the string post could bound back and forth in the bushing when using the bigsby or bending notes. The little knobs on the tuners also develop play. The nuts are cut very poorly from the factory. On Gretsches with a rocking bar bridge, sometimes they equip the guitar with a bridge that has the incorrect radius so correct action is impossible until you get a new bridge. They didn't bother to finish the underside of the neck on my current Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins, unpainted body and not finish sanded under there. When I took out the pickups to replace them, I was surprised to see the two braces that run down the body to be roughly hacked at and not finished, hasty scrap wood shims placed in there for setting the pickup height correct. It looks like whoever drilled the hole for the truss rod cover had too much sake at lunch and its offset by so much you can tell they cut a custom cover plate for it that veers off to one side. Just quite shameful stuff for guitars that are $3000-3500 new.
I still love Gretsches though despite that.. love how they play, the slightly shorter scale length than Gibsons, the pickups, the general vibe.

So as far as the question has Gretsch GQ gotten sloppy? I don't think it was ever all that. It was good in the beginning, then somewhat bad, then somewhat good.