The Amp Garage

Well, it's sad when you get forced into doing what I'm doing, but you can't control everything. A situation came up on my shop/demo room. I had a contractor hired last August to replace the roof on my house and garage, plus the adjoining carport, storage shed, etc.

Well, I caught them trying to charge me for $2500 worth of materials they didn't bring to the job, or planned to install. Due to this, I had to call their head office and work was stopped, the project manager got his butt chewed out, etc.

I'm not sure if he lost his job, but I'm pretty sure he did call the LA County Planning Dept on my property, and we found out the seller of our house did some illegal things we have to take care of.

One was the 3 car carport, illegal, no permit, and shouldn't have been built in the first place. How it got through escrow, I have no idea, but we'll let the title company sort that out and sue the appropriate people.

The down side of it is that I have to dismantle/demolish my carport, storage shed and return the 3 car garage to a garage, meaning my sound proof walls have to come down and the garage door has to function again, or we face a stiff fine.

Since I'm not going to have a completely soundproof room anymore, I'm not going to need all of the demo gear I have, since demos will be limited to only daytime hours, and not whenever a player can show up or if I feel like jamming in the middle of the night to test gear out. It sucks, but it is what it is.

I'm going to be getting a list of all of the gear I'm putting up for sale, which will include lots of speakers, some of my demo guitars, a few amps, and some cabs.

I'll be moving all of it around to make room for the general contractor to get started on Thursday, so I'll have a list ready on Friday afternoon.

Email me if you would like to get a private email with the list of gear I will be letting go of. Put "List of demo gear" in the subject line, please.

The list is at the bottom of this thread (4/18/16). Please do not PM me, I hate that little window. Shoot me an email instead, thanks!

sales@scumbackspeakers.com

Thanks,

Jim

Great gravy. #insert favorite swears here#

xtian wrote:Great gravy. #insert favorite swears here#

I've done that and some more...trust me.

I have to wonder if the project manager was just following orders when he tried to extort $2,500 from you. Perhaps the entire company is corrupt from the top down. If I were you, I'd make sure the BBB knows what happened to you, at the very least. You might also want to think about including the construction company on your list of defendants.

Would it not be possible to leave the existing garage as-is, and just build a new garage for parking cars on the property?

You can't have more than a 3 car garage on a lot in LA County without having a larger lot than we already have (6250 SF, 50 x 125). That's why there was a carport I'm guessing.

I'm going to wait till the inspections are done on this, then file a Contractor State License Board complaint against HD. I already won the credit card charge back dispute four months ago. It just sucks to lose my soundproof room for playing, especially since I didn't do anything wrong.

Thanks for your thoughts, the BBB is another avenue I'll consider!

Jim,
This is sad to hear and I'm so sorry for your trouble. Remember to be on guard against emotion clouding your judgement. Also, though I'm sure you are on it, talk to a lawyer.
Hoping for the best for you.
Phil

Southbay Ampworks wrote:You can't have more than a 3 car garage on a lot in LA County

Okay, but you presently don't have a garage..

JazzGuitarGimp wrote:

Southbay Ampworks wrote:You can't have more than a 3 car garage on a lot in LA County

Okay, but you presently don't have a garage..

Yes and no. The 3 car garage is still there, plus the 3 car carport (coming down today). The garage I just walled off inside to be soundproof. All I have to do is take out a 2 foot thick double wall with R30 insulation and four layers of drywall with green glue soundproofing goop in it. Then reinstall the 2 car garage door to be functional.

So I have a garage, just wasn't used as such since I had a carport.

Next house I'll build the jam room in the walkout basement, no conflicts with LA County since I'll be in Nevada.

Still hate tearing it apart and disposing of and moving my gear, though.

Sorry to hear about this Jim. Yeah, I've seen a few things that weren't code slip by escrow over the years. I have never understood the liability issue when this happens, but up here in Oregon things just get passed along, 'grandfathered in' as they say.. Hopefully things turn out well for you.

Hello to everyone who emailed me about the “list of demo gear”

I’m working through this rather immense pile of gear, and only gotten part way. I expect to be done with the speaker list later today, guitars, amps and cabs tomorrow.

Rather than post a partial list, I’m going to post it when it’s done.

Sorry to be late, but the contractors were here far later than I thought yesterday, and I’d already had dinner plans with my wife I couldn’t put off for listing gear.

I’ll post it as soon as I finish it, sorry for the delay.


In reply to the warrant questions, there was no warrant needed, I didn't have anything on the property to hide. My guess is the asshat who called the LA County Planning inferred I may have a drug/meth lab or some such illegal activity at my place just to be an ass. I readily showed my entire place to the inspector and the two police man. They were impressed with the 14 stacks of Marshalls & Scumback cabs I had in the demo room, and realized the "tip" was done by someone who had an axe to grind (or a paycheck to lose).

No lawyers needed, we'll leave that to the title company to get resolved. I didn't contract for any illegal work or buildings. That was done by the previous owners of the property.

Ok, enough explaining, I've got about 40 speakers to identify, date codes, cone codes, type/model, etc. Then there will be guitars, amps, and cabs.

I have to say, some of this is making me a little ill that I have to let this go, but if you don't have secure climate controlled storage for the gear, and only 1/10th of it fits (or is welcome!) in your house, you put the rest up for sale.

Bear with me, this is more time consuming than I thought, and mentally depressing, too.

Have a good Saturday evening.

Jim

In your situation I would still contact a lawyer experienced in commercial litigation, as Phil says. Title companies use lawyers but they're maybe not usually experienced in litigation I think.

Remember you live in the most litigious country in the world! A few $$ to CYA wouldn't hurt. Whoever gave false witness on you sure broke the law.

In any event I hope you get this all resolved and soon.

The title company lawyers will sue to recover what the title company has to pay and no more -- well, the attorney's fees, too. If you have other damages, they won't take care of that. IMHO, you have suffered and should be compensated for that. Of course, the call is all yours. I hope this all works out OK for you. It will never be the way it was.

Scumback Demo Speakers and Vintage Speakers For Sale

All prices per speaker plus shipping costs to your location, and packing costs of $2.50 per speaker

Original Celestion Greenback & Creamback Speakers

Speakers with original cones and date codes
3 Creamback T1281 G12H30 55hz 16 ohm 30w original cone CD8 date code $250 each
2 Greenback T1217 G12H30 75hz 16 ohm 30w original 003 cone $250 (Jan 73) AF22
1 Greenback T1234 G12H30 75hz 8 ohm 003 cone FH3 $250 each
2 Greenback T1460 G12H30 55hz 8 ohm 102 014 cone $300 each (1973/74) AF30/KE23 (sold as a pair $600, individually $350 each)
1 Greenback G12H30 T1862 75hz 8 ohm 003 cone $250 (1971/DD20)
1 Greenback Reissue G12M 16 ohm 25w 53H1777 cone $75 SOLD
2 G12H30 Heritage 75 hz 8 ohm 30w $75 each
1 G12M Heritage 20w 8 ohm $75
2 G12-65 silver frame speakers w/original 1777 cones $150 each


Speakers reconed to Scumback or Celestion specs as noted

2 Greenback G12H30 16 ohm 75hz 6402 cones (Celestion 90's era) $125 each
2 Greenback T1281 -> Scumback H55-16-65w recones (DD6 & CD8 date codes March/Apr 71) $75 each
1 G12H30 Heritage 8 ohm 60w Orange County Speaker recone $75
2 G12M 16 ohm 60w Orange County Speaker recone (Greenback 1971 date codes) $100 each
1 BM75-16-65w (silver G12-65 frame) reconed to SSC specs $100
1 G12M T1511 25w 55hz reconed to 55hz 444 cone Celestion / OCSR spec $100

Speakers with Weber Recones
2 Blackback G12H30 16 ohm 16 ohm Weber recones $75 each
1 BlackBack G12H30 T1217 Weber recone 30w $75
3 H55-16-30w Scumbag Weber Prototype $100 each
2 H75-16-30w Scumbag Weber Prototype $100 each
1 H75-8-30w Scumbag Weber Prototype $100
1 M75-16-25w Scumbag Weber Prototype $100
1 Greenback G12H30 T1281 (1971) H55-16 ohm 30w Weber recone $75
1 Greenback G12H30 T1234 (1971) H75-8 ohm 30w Weber recone $75
2 Celestion P44 Alnico (light magnets) Weber recones 8 ohm 30w $125 each
1 Greenback G12H30 T1217 Weber H75 16 ohm 30w recone $75
1 Reinhardt Weber H75 55 hz 16 ohm speaker 30w $75

1 EVM 12L SRO "coffee can" 8 ohm $250


Guitars

2012 Gibson SG Special white Pete Townsend, WCR G90 pickups, PT case, plus original P90's

Peavey Wolfgang amber quilt, maple neck, D-tuna, upgraded pickups/2 vol, 1 tone, HSC

Orville LP Standard CSB, Gibson case, Motor City Black Belt #2 pickups, Grover tuners

Burny LP Standard CSB, Gibson case, Florance Voodoo pickups, Grover tuners

Gibson Melody Maker Reissue, blonde, gig bag

1953 Les Paul GT Wraptail, original case, two replaced pots, original P90's, re-fretted, new Mojo Axe compensated bridge, plus original bridge, replaced Kluson tuners

Orville by Gibson Explorer, WCR Darkburst pickups, upgraded pots, caps, Gibson Explorer case, and soft shell Gibson gig bag

Amps

Germino Headroom 100 all NOS caps, tubes, Marshall black levant tolexed case

D'Lite 22/33w amp, red case, footswitch included (built by Jim Seavall)

Metro / Marshall JTM 50 clone (tube rectified), worked on by Dave Friedman SOLD

Metro / Marshall 100w, Steve Henning mods (depth/headroom/4th preamp tube, fx loop) fusionbear serviced

Metro / Marshall 12000 spec 100w, Metro fx loop, fusionbear serviced

1971 JMP 50w (1973 head cab), A/NOS glass, lay down power tranny (replaced blown PT)
fusionbear serviced

1971 Marshall Super Lead, replaced PT (1970 PT) installed and serviced by Dave Friedman

Komet K60 clone, hardwood cab, tube rectified fusionbear serviced

TrainWreck Express clone, A/NOS glass, hardwood cab fusionbear serviced

TrainWreck Liverpool clone, highly figured Tiger Rosewood case fusionbear serviced

Komet Koncorde clone, Larry Mann flamed maple cab, A/NOS glass, fast/gradual footswitch mod installed by Dave FriedmanSOLD

Hi Jim,

Sorry this is going on for you. Your soundproof room sounds like a monster - I hope you can reproduce it soon.

Russ

Geeze wrote:Hi Jim,

Sorry this is going on for you. Your soundproof room sounds like a monster - I hope you can reproduce it soon.

Russ

Yeah, thanks. The contractor has some ideas for me on movable / folding walls to help out. We'll see if that works. Mostly I'll miss the soundproof room with the really thick insulation.

It's 90 degrees here in So Cal today. The A/C is on in the house. I just checked on speakers in the FBI box to turn them off and test them. The A/C hasn't been on yet this year out there. It feels cooler than the 75 degrees it is in the house right now.

Trying to figure out what I'll do with the R30 insulation, it's already in the rafters out there. I guess I could put it in my house.