Refinish Regret

My woes with MJT Guitar Finishes

I have been a long time MJT fan. I've bought many bodies over the years (first order in 2012). While I've sold a number of the guitars, my strat and tele (seen above) are keepers. Because of these guitars, I reached out to MJT in mid-2022 to refinish two Gibsons. The first was a great sounding / playing 2020 Les Paul Standard. The second was a 2002 Flying V. Both guitars had significant mistakes. I am only documenting / sharing my experience as I found the whole thing uncharacteristic of my previous experiences. It was bad and I will not work with MJT again.

I don't expect perfection nor am I expecting an exact color as I know wood is organic. It takes stain differently. I'm also not being super nit-picky here. There are other smaller issues with both guitars I'm not bothering to list here. However, between the color, finish, QA and communication issues I felt it appropriate to share my experiences with others thinking about getting their guitars refinished.

At a high level,

Their workmanship has decreased dramatically
Their QA is really bad
The communication with them is terrible, I literally had to follow up every 14 days to try to work through the issues
I eventually gave up and just got my guitars back

Maybe MJT is good if you buy an already finished body but I would strongly recommend staying away from them if you're getting something refinished.

The "Unburst" Les Paul

The core issue is that this was supposed to be Gibson's Unburst. It's a color where the red has faded. They refinished it as cherry sunburst. They sent a picture twice during the process. Both times I said it was very red looking and was assured that the red would be sanded back and wouldn't be red. It was inaccurate.

The Flying V

The core issue on the Flying V is that they painted the stinger on off-center and didn't finish the edging. See the pictures.

This looks like a cherry sunburst vs. an 'unburst' faded burst.

I paid an extra $75 to get a stinger painted on and they put it on 3/16 off center. Initially I thought it was just a visual effect or lighting however I measured it.

Original Color taken by MJT

First pic MJT sent me. I immediately asked about how red it was and they said the red would be sanded out.

This is how it came to me. VERY much a Faded Cherry Sunburst.

In addition to refinishing the guitar the wrong color, the guitar came back with tooling marks in various areas.

Another angle of the tooling marks.

Additional V Issue

On the V, they didn't finish the top of the headstock stinger. Just left a line where you can see the original finish.

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