[Daniel Rohr Minnesota Guitar Repair]

I’m a fan of any of the K&K options there’s usually a solution there. They’re in Washington state they’ve been responsive to emails for technical questions also.

[Daniel Rohr Minnesota Guitar Repair]

Matt, I’ve worked through most iterations of these arrangements: Drop-off and pickup, straight up referrals, taking work originating from their store for a percentage, (avoiding) an “independent contractor” arrangement, and several versions of renting a spot in their basement.

In the rental arrangement concept they wouldn’t agree to all potential repairs going through me first and I would allow them to do repairs based on a scale and I even offered training of interested staff for a fee which would give me an exit strategy as I saw it as a short term option.

It was a pretty bold idea, but the percentage they were asking from repairs originating from their shop, and my need to pay my bills, looked good on paper under this arrangement -but the owner wanted to dole the repairs out as they saw fit. Fair enough.

I have a great relationship with this shop, I would describe it as ideal, since I’ve known these people for years and years and the manager and owner were open to discussing and trying these arrangements. Bottom line, I never found an an answer that didn’t require some token of exchange or one that would prevent them from taking the job outright for cheaper, or scale in a way I had enough control over to budget appropriately.

I tried baking their percentage into my pricing, which meant I was charging their customers more on a scale than if they had come to me directly. I supplied a handful of my own repair tags and had some of my customers drop off work to them and I would pay them a flat rate for each completed repair.

They want to see everything first. If they can (or think they can) do the job there cheaper, they will. I watched them struggle replacing a banjo tailpiece for two weeks. They created a pricing sheet for things like Nuts and Saddles for the cost of the part. They are the competition. Even without a proper repair department or anyone with experience or training. If anything, during my time there, they took on more band-aid repairs than they did before. I get it.

As an LLC, I think you have more options to set up a Vendor relationship that will work better in terms of income and taxes, etc., but then at best they’ll want a processing fee of some kind if they are taking payments on your behalf or a “wholesale” arrangement.

Best arrangement I came up with was drop off and pickup of my own customers where I do all the footwork and billing and they slap a tag with the customers name on it and hands them a claim tag. I pickup, and when I drop it off, they get ten bucks.

I had to be very clear with them that this is not their repair (even though it is IN their shop) but that ground is shaky since I can’t seem to get them to stop consistently pawing every instrument that comes in. Again, I get it. Best option is referrals in my experience and to push hard to get your name out there and advertise – posters, local “Shopper” publications, Craigslist – do it all if that works for you. Hand them a stack of business cards and be friendly. Buy stuff from them – they’ve helped me with some kickbacks. Nothing has beat referrals and good clean work. Good luck! You got this.

[Daniel Rohr Minnesota Guitar Repair]

I grabbed one from Harbor Freight, the $89 dollar 2.5 liter. I like it – stainless steel tub, heat setting, decent fitting cover, detachable cord. I’ve used it to knock the big chunks of oxidation off flat pieces and bridges with the powder they sell there. I’ve also used it with the Bora rust remover (Amazon from Doug’s list on the affiliate links) and that works just fine.

It has a plastic lift out tray but small parts slip through it. I would find some kind of stainless mesh to line it with.

[Daniel Rohr Minnesota Guitar Repair]

I have a neck I’m messing with right now like that. I’m planning to tear into I’ll take a look and snap some pics and if you don’t hear from me, connect with me later. I remember a section in one of my books about something similar also I’ll dig through those tomorrow.

[Daniel Rohr Minnesota Guitar Repair]

Hi Ben, I’m curious about the neck alignment to the body.

[Daniel Rohr Minnesota Guitar Repair]

The anchor is definitely compressing into the wood around it.

[Daniel Rohr Minnesota Guitar Repair]

Nope. Forgot. Reminder set for Tuesday latest.

[Daniel Rohr Minnesota Guitar Repair]

Thank you Joel – yeah I don’t want to make things worse in the long run or leave some surprise down the road that’s not reversible.