RAN custom guitars - anybody got some experience with them?

[tekbow]

The quality of Warmoth stuff is excellent.  

All their unfinished (or transparent finished) solid bodies are two pieces at most (one piece usually costs a bit extra), the two piece bodies are centre-joined and they match the grain so well you can hardly see the join (Fender take note...!).  The neck pockets are tight-fitting, whether you use a Warmoth or Fender neck (again, much more accurately made than Fender stuff).  Their paint shop does nice finishes too.

The necks are great too, again extremely well made (CNC cut, so very precise).  My only complaint would be that the fingerboard and headstock edges are left a bit "sharp", I like them rounded off so I personally wouldn't buy a finished maple-board neck.

They do sell hardware too, although I buy mine from other places, and they'll also cut scratchplates to your specs (not too expensive either).

As Alex said, they don't sell assembled guitars, that's up to you, but most of the tricky stuff is done (including your choice of bridge and pickup routing, and they even drill the holes for the neck screws).  You could put everything together "out of the box" and have a very decent guitar, but I think they need a little more work to make them perfect - a fret dress, the aforementioned fretboard edges, and obviously a good setup.

i think i would probably get some basic stuff from them before trying to build something like what i'm going for here, room to play and experiment, might be an ideal training guitar if i could get the most basic of the basic.

i don't mind 2 piece bodies either, i've heard a bunch of 2 or 3 piece bodies that sound better than a one piece.

still think i'll go with the RAN based on my level of experience an skill. but it was a great idea

[dave_mc]

> > Neck Pickup: BareKnuckle - Nailbomb
> > Middle Pickup: none
> > Bridge Pickup: BareKnuckle - irish tour neck

i think you've got those backwards (not being pedantic, i don't want you to order a guitar and not get what you want!) :)

[tekbow]

Actually, you're dead right, good spot, cheers  :P

[jayveekay]

Reviving a dead thread because I recently acquired some experience with Ran Guitars:

In short: several dead spots and weird uncontrollable harmonics. Model was the Crusher 6 string.
Yes, tried with three different string gauges, brands and tunings, adjusted the truss rod and intonation. Nothing helped.

I warmly suggest everyone of you Ran owners take your instrument and sit down for about 5 minutes as you play through all frets with all strings and see how long each note sustains. Shouldn't take too long. Really, just do it!

Same goes for Mayones owners (see my previous post about my Regius).
Administered the same test for 12 other Mayones guitars and all of them had same problems. Fun.

[DoomBuggi]

Reviving a dead thread because I recently acquired some experience with Ran Guitars:

In short: several dead spots and weird uncontrollable harmonics. Model was the Crusher 6 string.
Yes, tried with three different string gauges, brands and tunings, adjusted the truss rod and intonation. Nothing helped.

I warmly suggest everyone of you Ran owners take your instrument and sit down for about 5 minutes as you play through all frets with all strings and see how long each note sustains. Shouldn't take too long. Really, just do it!

Same goes for Mayones owners (see my previous post about my Regius).
Administered the same test for 12 other Mayones guitars and all of them had same problems. Fun.

Sounds like you got a dud, or just got bad luck.

[Alex]

Reviving a dead thread because I recently acquired some experience with Ran Guitars:

In short: several dead spots and weird uncontrollable harmonics. Model was the Crusher 6 string.
Yes, tried with three different string gauges, brands and tunings, adjusted the truss rod and intonation. Nothing helped.

I warmly suggest everyone of you Ran owners take your instrument and sit down for about 5 minutes as you play through all frets with all strings and see how long each note sustains. Shouldn't take too long. Really, just do it!

Same goes for Mayones owners (see my previous post about my Regius).
Administered the same test for 12 other Mayones guitars and all of them had same problems. Fun.

Sounds like you got a dud, or just got bad luck.

Sounds more like he's got really bad fingers ;-)

[DoomBuggi]

Reviving a dead thread because I recently acquired some experience with Ran Guitars:

In short: several dead spots and weird uncontrollable harmonics. Model was the Crusher 6 string.
Yes, tried with three different string gauges, brands and tunings, adjusted the truss rod and intonation. Nothing helped.

I warmly suggest everyone of you Ran owners take your instrument and sit down for about 5 minutes as you play through all frets with all strings and see how long each note sustains. Shouldn't take too long. Really, just do it!

Same goes for Mayones owners (see my previous post about my Regius).
Administered the same test for 12 other Mayones guitars and all of them had same problems. Fun.

Sounds like you got a dud, or just got bad luck.

Sounds more like he's got really bad fingers ;-)

 :crazy2:

Alex,

 If you like Ran, check out these (though you are probably aware of them already);

http://www.daemonessguitars.co.uk/

I'm really into what he does with the wood block art.

[jayveekay]

de·ni·al/diˈnīəl/
Noun:   
The action of declaring something to be untrue: "she shook her head in denial".
The refusal of something requested or desired.

I think I do have pretty bad fingers but I never had issues with any of my guitars... Except with the Mayones and this Ran.

The guy who's Ran it actually is has a serious case of awesome-tone-fingers but it didn't make a difference.. still doesn't sustain.

But I guess if you don't mind sustainless instruments it's all good. ;)

Just do yourselves a favor and check your instruments thoroughly (noodling doesn't count ;)), it could just be a QA issue after all.

[Philly Q]

A lot of guitars seem to have the odd dead spot, usually somewhere around the 9th to 12th frets in my experience.  I always thought it was just a risk you run using a building material as inconsistent as wood.

But if these Ran and Mayones guitars have multiple dead spots and weird harmonics/overtones, I think there's something more seriously wrong with the construction - badly seated frets, maybe?

[FELINEGUITARS]

Reviving a dead thread because I recently acquired some experience with Ran Guitars:

In short: several dead spots and weird uncontrollable harmonics. Model was the Crusher 6 string.
Yes, tried with three different string gauges, brands and tunings, adjusted the truss rod and intonation. Nothing helped.

I warmly suggest everyone of you Ran owners take your instrument and sit down for about 5 minutes as you play through all frets with all strings and see how long each note sustains. Shouldn't take too long. Really, just do it!

Same goes for Mayones owners (see my previous post about my Regius).
Administered the same test for 12 other Mayones guitars and all of them had same problems. Fun.

Some dead spots/lack of sustain can be caused if the builder doesn't glue in the frets but relies on the barbs on the tangs to hold them in.
You can get a bad junction between fret and board and energy is lost when you hold down the string.

It can often be cured quite simply:–

You will want to put some paste wax on the wood along the side of the fret you are about to glue in to stop the glue sticking where you don't want it to -  I use beeswax/furniture wax and a Q Tip to smear it on
Then use low viscosity/runny superglue and run a little down the edge of the fret and it should "wick" under the fret if there is no glue there and solidify the fret in place. The wax should prevent the glue sticking to the board.
Wipe it clean and let it set .
Not that we often clamp the fret down with a fret press when we do this to ensure it solidifies in place snug to the board.

I have had a few guitars that came back to life after this treatment.

[jayveekay]

Good points about the frets.

The Mayones with the multiple dead spots did a round trip to a luthier and also back to the Mayones factory, but nothing helped. Mayones refused to give my local retailer or myself any information about what they tried to do to my guitar... in the end it came back seemingly untouched.

Is properly attaching the frets with glue such a difficult or expensive process that it's worth skipping and just hope that it'll do to the customer?
Both companies are also very eager to sell and reply to quotes within hours but if you have a complaint it takes weeks for them to answer if ever. I guess selling is the name of the game.

Thank you for your insight.

[Eyes Wide Shut]

The Ran Guitars look awesome. i can't believe I've never come across them The guitar below is just sheer beautiful and bad ass ;p

[Attica!]

The Ran Guitars look awesome. i can't believe I've never come across them The guitar below is just sheer beautiful and bad ass ;p

That's the exact one I'm looking at making. I was going to go with Ran, except I would really prefer a luthier from the UK, so I can go in to discuss neck dimensions, etc.

[Madsakre]

Anyone who knows the price of a Thor? Like its on the sheet?

[DoomBuggi]

That's the exact one I'm looking at making. I was going to go with Ran, except I would really prefer a luthier from the UK, so I can go in to discuss neck dimensions, etc.

Daemoness guitars;

http://www.daemonessguitars.co.uk/

They are in the UK