I got to play it a bit more tonight and noticed the bridge pin tilted forward:
http://imgur.com/a/IqCpl
Is this normal? What causes that tilt?
NO that's not normal and first suspicion is that hole was not routed at the correct angle.
Also, I see what looks like a blank space on the bridge where it's not flush (or it's missing glue, I can't tell):
http://imgur.com/a/gqjEL
What do you make of that space?
Same thing you do, either not completely glued to top or not properly profiled to match the top radius, leaving that edge a little bit high.
After trying to reassure you about Cordoba, I have to say this is just getting really depressing.
In fact it's even starting to p--s me off.
These kinds of flaws are like what I've been seeing on Gibson acoustics over the last few years. Unacceptable, especially for a hand-made American guitar. I'm surprised that guitars with such obvious defects got passed on down the line by everyone including the dealer.
It's part of what's p--ssing me off.
Quality's getting shoddier and shoddier in
everything and young folks just coming into the market have nothing to compare it to, so they just think that's the way it is and always has been, so the makers just keep laughing all the way to the bank.
Even more irritating is the lack of choice in so many segments, you
can't buy good quality even if you
wanted to pay more for it.
If they left the factory like this then we have big problems.
And having come from a Manufacturing Quality background, I would like to remind everyone that you can't inspect quality into the product.
Makes no sense to build 'em up all the way then sort 'em out after they're built, you've got to get the manufacturing process nailed down so you're producing high quality stuff repeatably.
I remember reading somewhere that in Westerly each station reviewed the work of the preceding station and sent stuff back for rework if needed.
They were small and intimate enough to be able to do that, but the "Big Guys" couldn't.
It's one of those intangibles that made the guitars feel like they actually had a soul instead of having been turned on a lathe with a million other table legs.
I've said before that for the first couple of months I used to just eyeball my D25 for a few minutes after practice, at first looking for flaws, and pretty quickly just to drink in the sheer quality of workmanship: Perfectly joined seams
everywhere, perfectly beveled fret-ends, not even a drop of glue squeeze from the kerfing
inside the guitar.
When you see such care taken even
inside the guitar you know it was built by true craftsmen.
And now they ship out guitars with
crooked bridge pins?
SHAME ON YOU, CORDOBA!!!!!