Fuzzy has a new steel available - the Robostar!

[Mitch Ellis]

Steve Sanford is now the go to guy for Excel matters. He helped me a lot with m recent ExStar purchase and is a standup guy.

Yes he is. I've known Steve for about thirty years. I have played many gigs with him over the years and he is a top-shelf steel player and musician. He can certainly be trusted.

Mitch

[J D Sauser]

Has anyone else received one of these? Interested in hearing your opinions! Mine is due in 6 weeks.

Hey Greg,

I received my Robostar on Friday, October 6th. The base cost was $2980, the 5th knee lever (vertical) was $200, and a 1/2 stop for RKR was $50 bringing the total to $3230. Shipping was $384, and the import duty that DHL collected was $310.

Total price shipped to Ohio, $3924.

The guitar arrived in a nice lightweight case, packed in a cardboard box, with no packaging. It arrived unscathed, and I was happy for that.





















I unpacked her and set the steel up, and was quite pleased with the initial appearance, very nice machining, every thing one would expect from a top rated
builder.



I did notice lots of aluminum milling debris in the cabinet which seemed very uncharacteristic for a product coming from a highly rated company...






I hooked it up to my Telonics amp, thru a Hilton volume pedal and immediately noticed the pickup made an unhappy sound when touched...

I went about attempting to tune it to my base tuning, a SH9 preset on my Peterson Stroboplus HDC. While I was tuning, the 3rd string broke and I went about restringing another .011 and it also broke.

After breaking about 6 or 7 replacement strings in different locations on the strings , (not just at changer, more random) I gave up for the day.

Day 2

Yesterday, as reluctant as I was to have to fix the pickup issue on a brand new guitar, I pulled all the strings off, and checked the wiring.

To be honest, sadly the solder connections on the output jack were poorly soldered, so I redid those, no problem. One was so weak, it broke as I removed the jack from the guitar so as to be able to solder it, as it is quite tight where it is located..

Next, I unscrewed the pickup and found the source of the problem. The pickup's ground wire was completely disconnected from it's solder joint on the bottom of the pickup. it was causing the intermittent problem .






I resoldered the wire and this solved the pickup issue.


I was able to restring the guitar and had more success initially bringing the the 3rd string to pitch, and was able to tune the guitar and play for about 10-15 minutes before it broke again.

This continued over and over again until I decided that I was falling victim to the old adage that "Craziness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results".

The 1st string also broke and it basically ripped the ball end loose from the strings factory windings... This happened a few times with the 3rd string as well, sometimes when no pedal was being pressed, they would just basically self combust for no rhyme or reason.

Seems to be quite high tension on these strings.

The strings I used were SIT and some Just Strings bulk pack .011s.

I have never had any trouble with the SIT strings previously.

I also noticed that he used a different keyless tuner on my guitar than he used on the earlier one he built for Stew Crookes, in France.


Stews -






My keyless unit -






I emailed Mitsuo and he asked me to have faith that he will make it right and I trust him. This is not intended to speak poorly about the RoboStar, it's just an honest evaluation from a customers standpoint.

I spoke with another customer waiting on his Robostar to arrive, and he encouraged me to post this, as I had some trepidation regarding this matter.

Mike D

This looks sadly concerning.

I own two Excel Superbs which both honor their name in quality, looks, playability and looks.

What above poster is showing, clearly is a Fuzzy guitar but I've never seen that lack of luster (the polishing looks worn) and attention to finish (machining residue and all around number of complaints) on any of Mr. Fuji's creations, ever!

These are known to be unique but world class professional quality guitars.

I would expect a public answer from Fuzzy, JP and their "representative" here in the US. And a quick and full resolution. Excluding any "well, why did you have to go public?".

It IS important that builders and resellers understand that when they do not meet reasonable expectations, things don't get buried outside of Vegas.

I must say, I was thinking of having a new custom Excel built for travels, and right now... I'd like to first see the explanation of what happened and how this buyer is made whole.


... J-D.

[Greg Cutshaw]

It's just one guitar out of many. I've had worse horror stories happen with two top USA builders that are still in business and those two guitars were the exceptions to those builder's normal great quality. I've got my 3rd Excel on order. The Excel lead time, low weight, advanced changer, compact size, low case weight, smooth mechanics, great price and super tone are hard to beat!

[Mike DiAlesandro]

Well Mitsuo stood behind his product 100% and refunded my purchase, shipping and import tariff.



.

[James Quackenbush]

This post saddens me….Of all the pedal steel companies out there, Excel would be the LAST company that I would have thought let this steel slip through the cracks like it did….I had an Excel Superb Universal, and foolishly sold it….I sent measurements to Mitsuo through Scotty years back, and got exactly what I ordered…Mitsuo without a doubt is one of the best steel builders out there and has so many creative ideas and puts them to good use….I also had no doubts about him making this deal right….I have to believe Greg when he basically said that this is a problem with just one pedal steel…. I wouldn’t hesitate to do business with Mitsuo in the future….Jim

[Bill McCloskey]

I have to believe Greg when he basically said that this is a problem with just one pedal steel

Two pedal steels that I'm aware of. The other one is also a recent build.

[memphislim]

Two out of thousands? That's a great track record. Even if it's two of the hundreds he will build and sell this year alone that's commendable. Remember, this is a brand new model, bound to have some birthing issues. Until you've owned one you have no right to comment.

[Greg Cutshaw]

Mitsuo is not perfect? We all make mistakes and if Mitsuo makes a mistake it will be fixed or your money refunded. I expressed my Robostar concerns to Mitsuo and he responded by agreeing to mount my Robostar changer on top of the deck like the ones at the top of this post.

[Larry Allen]

I have rebuilt 4 Excels, emailed Mitsuo and got the parts I needed within 2 weeks, Traded him Salmon for them when I lived in Alaska!, I also bought 2 new ones from him..Never an issue…he has several people working for him, not just him..