Author: coguy5280
Date: 2008-07-08 02:06
So, here it is one year after I originally posted that I was having work done on my two Jeanne English horn gouging machines, and I'm re-posting to give the results of those efforts.
I just had both of them worked on yet again, and, while one is reportedly up and running with what will hopefully yield cane that is (finally) gouging evenly, the other one is being demoted to a pregouger (at the suggestion of my repairer) because (surprise, surprise) the machining on it is flawed. This is now the second competent gouger repair-person who has said the machine can't be fixed adequately because of the way it was machined. Specifically, the bed isn't straight within itself, so no amount of shimming or aligning will apparently fix it completely. My repairer, who has set-up gouges for oboists and/or English hornists in the full-time professional orchestras of Los Angeles, Boston, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Toronto, and Dallas (just to name a few), suggested not trying to re-sell it because, while it now gouges perfectly straight and level for most of the cane, the last bit on one side can't be made right due to the inaccurate machining of the bed (he used the term "run-out" to describe the machining problem within the bed).
Frankly, I'd love to call Valarie Anderson and demand my money back (but then I'd have to talk to her, so forget it). It's only been three years since I bought the stupid thing and I haven't made one reed off it that works well; surely I'll still get a refund (which I called and asked her for after a mere one month of not being able to make useable reeds; she told me I could send it back, but I'd have to pay her a "restocking fee," which, when I pressed her for more information about that, is really a fee to cover her costs, plus a very sizeable markup according to my math, to the credit card company: the company fee was about $13, but she was going to charge me a percentage totaling $80; this is the time to re-read the part about how the gouge didn't work to begin with).
I'll settle for giving her glowing PR, instead; after all, I'm now getting a Jeanne pregouger for the price of tens of hundreds of dollars. Sounds like a fair deal to me.
Bottom line: last year when I posted on here I was trying to be sweet and nice and tactful about all the problems I've had with Madame Jeanne's blessed machines because I didn't want to offend anyone who might actually have a Jeanne machine that works (predictably, I've recently talked to yet another friend, who holds a Principal chair in an ICSOM orchestra and who bought a gouge from her in the past: the machine made nothing but flat and stiff reeds; he refers to it as his "gouger paperweight"). Now, however, after hundreds of dollars of repair work/shipping costs/airline tickets, not to mention countless hours of aggravation and frustration, I can, and will as frequently as possible, utter the following mantra with no hesitation or guilt whatsoever:
STAY AWAY FROM JEANNE
P.S. If Madame Jeanne reads this and wants to (laughably) sue me for slander or some other bogus reason, then I'll just turn around and sue her for taking $900 of my money and giving me a piece of junk because I now have bonified evidence from a respected and qualified gouging person (see aforementioned orchestra list) that one of my gougers was machined inaccurately (so much for your arrogant insinuations that I don't know how to make reeds, eh, Valarie?)
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