Chis P.

Their attention to detail seems to be declining more and more each year, while the price goes up and up. If you buy a new Gibson, whether it be a low end model or high end model, be prepared to spend more money having the fretwork done and set up b/c they dont play very good at all straight from the factory. The look good, and have good hardware, but the attention to detail just isnt there. You can buy alot nicer guitars for less money.

I was in the market for a custom relic'd Telecaster and started looking around for who I was going to have do it. I stumbled across Sims Custom Shop's website and subsequently their Instagram page and was very impressed by what I saw. I was having a hard time finding someone who could do exactly what I wanted (a custom paint job then have that relic'd (navy blue with vintage white stars & stripes). All the other guys that were doing relic's online were just doing mainly solid colors and were not interested in doing a custom paint scheme, so I contacted Sims with my ideas and after discussing my vision for this guitar I decided to have him do it.

I sent him my MINT 1998 Fender Telecaster to do a custom relic'd paint job on as well as age the hardware and install some Lindy Fralin pickups in it. I was in no hurry to get it back as I was more concerned with the quality of he job than a fast turnaround (I ended up getting the guitar back in about 10 weeks). I would email him every few weeks to get a status update and he was always was prompt to get back to me (sometimes within the hour, sometimes the next day) and sent progress photos anytime I asked.

I got the guitar back right after Christmas and I was blown away by the attention to detail on the paint work, it was really "realistic" looking and didn't look like someone had just done this to it. You would think by looking at this guitar that it was 65 years old. It was exactly what I had envisioned. He also put in new pots, switch, wired in the Lindy Fralin pickups and set it up. It did not need any additional tweaking when I plugged it in, I literally took it that very night to play a gig.

I read some of the reviews posted on this site even prior to sending the guitar, but I decided to take them with a grain of salt and make my own judgement and let me say I'm glad I did. I would not hesitate having him do another one for me.

They typically have a great selection in both new & used instruments, and a friendly staff, however the staff I have found is generally not very knowledgeable at all about specific questions about a particular guitar or piece of gear. They seem to just have "general" knowledge. Not bad, but not great either. I guess if they paid more they could probably afford to have a more knowledgeable staff.