Neil Clague LDC = BAD Experience
This happened a while back, but I never had a chance to share the bad experience. My Dad had me contact Neil to order a LDC for his 25 Cricket. I emailed him regarding it, sent him the dimensions from the gun he requested, and shortly after that Paypaled him the payment to get it scheduled to be built. He told me via email that the wait time was “about 4 weeks”. After waiting 4 weeks I had not heard anything from him so I emailed him to see if there were any updates.
My email: “I was just wondering if you could update me on the status of this order and how soon you think it will ship out.”
Neil’s response: “I do not answer questions on progress and when I expect them to be made. I give customers an approximate wait time when they place their order, it is on schedule, Neil.”
Next fast forward to after the LDC was received. The LDC was made with an aluminum piece on the end of the LDC that slid onto the barrel and then we tighten with a set screw to hold the LDC in place. When the LDC was installed it fit very tightly, when my Dad attempted to remove it the aluminum piece broke loose from the carbon fiber shroud and the set screw ripped through the carbon fiber on the shroud. The aluminum piece was stuck on the barrel and had to be cut off in order to be removed. Once the shroud came apart we noticed the low quality workmanship inside and the holes in the shroud were not drilled straight.
This was my email to Neil: “Over the weekend my dad was removing the shroud from his gun and one of the aluminum pieces stuck on the barrel and the set screw cracked through the carbon fiber. Also, we were disappointed to see the holes inside the shroud were not drilled uniformly. We would either like to have the main shroud rebuilt or a refund. Please let me what you would like to do.”
Neil’s response: “send it back to me so I can fix it, I do not have a cnc machine and have to drill everything by hand, it does not matter where the holes are drilled, they are behind the muzzle and only vent air to the back of the shroud, they have nothing to do with the performance or accuracy of the gun. I will reimburse you the cost of shipping the shroud back to me so I can fix it. It looks like I need to groove the end pieces so they have a better grip on the carbon fiber, I will modify the end cap and make sure it is firmly in place, Neil.”
We mailed the LDC back to Niel and this was his email response after he got it: “the shroud arrived today and I was surprised to see you had vandalized the end cap, what purpose was there in doing that? In future any deliberate damage done to parts will incur a charge, please do not do it. When I say a part will be replaced it will be replaced and damaging a component to make sure it is not used again is petty and something that I do not appreciate. The repaired shroud will be sent out tomorrow, Neil.”
Obviously there was no intentional damage done to the the LDC. If it had been made correctly to begin with we would have never had any issues.
I sent Neil one final email expressing my disappointment with him and his product and this was his response:
“I am sorry but I have very little faith in what you say to me, if the part was a tight fit you could have quite easily removed a little material with a file or sand paper or even returned it to me to have a little extra material removed. . Without having the actual gun there is never any guarantee of a perfect fit and your attitude about the hole spacing is nothing less than anal. The holes are just to vent the air to the rear of the shroud and do not effect the performance in any way and are hidden 8 inches inside the shroud. I do not believe the shroud was cracked I believe that was an intentional act because you wanted me to make a complete new shroud because of the hole spacing. Not once did you mention to me that the shroud was split or that it was a tight fit, all you seemed to care about was the hole spacing, that seemed more important to you than the end cap coming lose! Please do not contact me again, the shroud has been repaired for you and I have nothing more to say to you, Neil.”
Here is a picture of Neils embarrassing holes inside the LDC.
Here is a picture of where the aluminum piece from inside the LDC was made too small and got stuck on the barrel. Notice how it also rubbed the finish off of the barrel because it was made too small.
And this is where the set screw ripped through the carbon fiber shroud.
Neil did repair the LDC, sent it back, and covered the shipping. The repaired LDC fit correctly but it still had the crooked drilled holes in the middle piece inside the shroud. I did not like the horrible attitude he had in all of his emails when it was his fault for making a poor quality product to begin with. I would not recommend for anyone to do business with him.
All Replies
Romeo it is no wonder I have an attitude, first of all you had no dealings with me, your father did, let him come and speak up, this is none of your damned business and you come on here and spout off about me. You are a stupid kid who has no idea what the hell you are talking about. I get tired of attacks from people who have little knowledge about air guns, let alone LDC’s and shrouds, if they are so easy to build go build one. You have most likely never used a lathe or precision machine in your life, so get some experience and knowledge before you start attacking people who do it for a living. I have 99% great feedback from thousands of customers and the 1% are the people like you and your father who have very little knowledge about how to make anything, you attack honest makers and try and hurt their reputation for no good reason, your father had his shroud fixed and returned to him at my expense, even though he screwed it up because of his lack of knowledge, so why do you feel the need to stick your damned nose in and try and hurt my good name, it is nothing but malicious and uncalled for. I have no time for idiots who think they know more than they do and attack good people just to try and make some kind of name for themselves, get a life and leave good honest hard working people alone or you will get called out every time, don’t like it, then don’t post such crap about people.
Here you are telling people they should not buy from me, you did NOT buy from me, this is just a childish attempt to hurt my name because you decided to stick your nose in your fathers business, he has a good working shroud, fixed at my expense not his, or yours, so what is your problem? You can not accept that it did not fit because of the fact that your fathers calipers and mine do not show identical readings and that was my fault, get over it kid and quit being so damned malicious!
Your’s isn’t better, spilling oil in fire, unless – of course you’re 100% sure to be 100% error free which doesn’t seem to be the case.
No one of us is, that’s why we need a little tolerance, and this bilateral.
My parents always said: “Think twice before throwing stones while sitting in a glass house.”
I should take this one as signature :biggrinn:
C’mon guys, smile :smilen:
Just look at Neil’s attitude in his responses in this thread. He proves my point of why you shouldn’t purchase from him.
Frank you have to understand who I am dealing with, most of the people I deal with do NOT even own calipers let alone micrometers and even if they do a lot of them are not skilled in using them. So if they use micrometers I am going to encounter the same problems, using too much pressure to take a measurement, and there are micrometers and micrometers just as there are calipers. The only real way to deal with it and not have any problems is to have the barrel in hand and make the part to my own measurements, taken from the barrel with my own calipers or micrometers. The calipers I use are calibrated and checked regularly with gauge blocks and give me the same measurements as the micrometers I have. When you deal with members of the public and make things to their measurements you are always going to encounter problems no matter how skilled you are or think you are, there is never any way to know how skilled the person is that is giving you the measurements, all the best, Neil.
Just a very similar experience yesterday which brought to mind this thread both, as a warning and as instruction:
Ordered a FSB barrel set for my trusty HW100. Took out the standard barrel and wanted to fit the FSB barrel and what the h…, it wouldn’t slide in the receiver.
:angrymob:
Used my Mitutoyo (non calibrated) caliper and the measures were the same between both barrel’s muzzle ends, within the tolerances of the measurement tool.
Know that I have an engineering background and have learned in machine workshops what it means to work and measure to 1/100mm and even 1/1000mm (perfectly maintained machines, experienced workers and good, calibrated measurement devices necessary, we youngsters, after weeks and months of practice only started to come closer to what the masters did on the same equipment).
Back to the barrel, I applied a little force and wiggling on the second try, as well as a good coat of Ballistol, no way to get that in. :sadn:
Well, even without engineering background the following seems logic: you force it-you scratch it, something I wouldn’t like to do to the blueing of my barrel or the receiver.
Solution was very simple: while turning the barrel constantly (using a simple drilling machine, but also possible by hand), I sanded down the muzzle end of the barrel with high grit paper (800), just a tad until the blueing was finally off (trying the fit frequently in between, which includes cleaning and lubing every time) and added a slight chamfer to help slide in. Cleaned, lubed and it slid in without any lateral movement. Got it out, polished, blued, lubed again and mounted without any harm done.
By the way, the caliper still showed the same value…
Anyway, thank you for this post and all explanations from Neill, was a good reminder not to go too fast, rather to use a little logic and no force.
Thanks
And Exactly Why “I NEVER/EVER” use a “caliper” for fine, final, measurements (whenever possible).
That’s’ what God Made Micrometers for! 😉
Knife
Papa I am always open to suggestions on how to fix problems, as long as it comes from someone who has the appropriate knowledge. The problem I have is that I trust that anyone who buys an air gun has a certain understanding of them and their use before they buy one, just as I would not expect someone who knows nothing about fire arms and their use, to buy a fire arm. I had tried on a few occasions to give a few simple instructions to customers and got a few snide comments, like ‘ I am not an idiot don’t treat me like one” So no matter what approach you take it would appear you are going to upset some of your customers. But maybe you are correct and this should be done in another way, with a small written instruction to accompany them, that way there would be no reason for any snide comments, they could either read the instructions or ignore them at their own expense. PM me and we can discuss what you have in mind, all the best, Neil.
I understand the difficulty and am convinced you’re trying to do the best to make your customers happy.
From what I read, there’s a lot of emotion going on, that’s for me the sign of passionate people. Passion is good, warrants the quality of products, which is good for customers and the sport. Passion can by times get in the way of communication though. And I think that was the issue here.
You are perfectly right with what you say concerning common sense – but – and this is a big BUT, unfortunately this works when you’re talking to a small group of passionates themselves. Some years ago when airgunning was reserved to a few, those were the guys who knew a lot of stuff, just because there was not much help out there. They had this common sense, whichever way they acquired it.
The sport has – and I would say fortunately – grown a lot and reaches out to new customers, those who don’t have all this experience. Now there’s two (or even more) types I see, those who do like the “old” (let’s calk them 1st generation) and read, listen and learn, become passionates by themselves not only for shooting, but also for the stuff that goes along with it. Then there’s the consumer who expects everything is perfect at once and needs to work. Well that’s not wrong, they invest their hard earned dollars, but these people need some instruction from the 1st generation. After they listen or don’t, well … That’s the guy who focuses on shooting, and you might have noticed, I make a difference between customer and consumer.
As you said, Neil, these people need maybe some simple paper with some indications, e.g. “Due to measurement tool differences, the product might in rare cases be too tight, don’t force if it doesn’t fit, call me, I’ll guide you or make it fit (of course with your number or email)…”
“Attention, when using undue force, you risk to damage the product and your rifle.”
“Always put some grease or other (whatever you recommend for your products) for installation.”
And so on. Can be a simple copied sheet of paper, nothing fancy, just the “common sense” and your knowledge on top!
In the present case there was even more emotion to it, as it was for his father’s gun (if I remember right).
Well all that said, things definitively went wrong in a sense or the other. It’s all about communication. I’d say everyone’s right in his way, but no one completely, either in what was communicated or in how it was communicated – or not.
I don’t think though that your reputation is at risk, I wouldn’t mind, explanations are logic all along. I might even have an idea to resolve the issue technically, but not sure whether it would work, you’re the specialist and might have already thought about it. I’d take this exchange on PM level, if you agree.
All the best
Thanks for that post Papa there are just too many people out there who know everything and yet have little knowledge , this just proves what I try and explain to customers. I make these to their measurements but that does not mean it will be a perfect fit, calipers are known to give out not so accurate readings and even when they do give out accurate readings different operators can and do get different readings, so I cringe when a customer tells me they gave me the exact size and I made it wrong. I try and build in a small allowance for this but it has to be a very small allowance otherwise I will get problems with them being way too loose. So far based on the number of these I have made I have been extremely lucky but when you are dealing with measurements taken by other people there are going to be the occasional problems. These problems are always blamed on the maker and the customers have little understanding of why a custom made part does not fit when they gave you the exact measurement, the only way for a custom maker to make sure a part will fit perfectly is to have the actual part in hand, when I have had the gun in hand I have not had one fitting problem, the only problem with doing this is that it will increase the cost substantially for the customer, that is why I do my best to make these by customer measurements, so a little tolerance (no pun intended) from my customers would be appreciated, instead of getting upset and irate at the maker think about the difficulties of making these very close tolerance parts from customers measurements, it is NOT easy, many thank Neil.
Hi Metalman, all,
Just a very similar experience yesterday which brought to mind this thread both, as a warning and as instruction:
Ordered a FSB barrel set for my trusty HW100. Took out the standard barrel and wanted to fit the FSB barrel and what the h…, it wouldn’t slide in the receiver.
:angrymob:
Used my Mitutoyo (non calibrated) caliper and the measures were the same between both barrel’s muzzle ends, within the tolerances of the measurement tool.
Know that I have an engineering background and have learned in machine workshops what it means to work and measure to 1/100mm and even 1/1000mm (perfectly maintained machines, experienced workers and good, calibrated measurement devices necessary, we youngsters, after weeks and months of practice only started to come closer to what the masters did on the same equipment).
Back to the barrel, I applied a little force and wiggling on the second try, as well as a good coat of Ballistol, no way to get that in. :sadn:
Well, even without engineering background the following seems logic: you force it-you scratch it, something I wouldn’t like to do to the blueing of my barrel or the receiver.
Solution was very simple: while turning the barrel constantly (using a simple drilling machine, but also possible by hand), I sanded down the muzzle end of the barrel with high grit paper (800), just a tad until the blueing was finally off (trying the fit frequently in between, which includes cleaning and lubing every time) and added a slight chamfer to help slide in. Cleaned, lubed and it slid in without any lateral movement. Got it out, polished, blued, lubed again and mounted without any harm done.
By the way, the caliper still showed the same value…
Anyway, thank you for this post and all explanations from Neill, was a good reminder not to go too fast, rather to use a little logic and no force.
Thanks
[quote=”RomeoAlfa”]When the shroud was remade to the correct size it fit okay without needing any anti-seize or lubrication.
Your ignorance of the facts is beyond belief, you think the second piece was made to the correct size, the size that was given to me, it shows your total lack of knowledge and understanding, the new piece had the size adjusted to make it fit, it was not made to the size that was given to me, it was altered from the original size to compensate for the original being tight, making dumb ass statements like this just shows how ignorant you are of the facts, the facts that you are so keen on stating!
You are a total idiot, you obviously have no idea about calipers and measurements, you say exact measurements were given, there is no such thing as an exact measurement, calipers vary for one set to another, they only claim to be within 1000th inch in almost all available unless you are able to afford precision sets costing many hundreds of dollars and even then good luck finding some more accurate. my calipers are calibrated are yours? Then there is the user, different people will get different measurements when they use calipers, because they will apply different pressure to them, so please do not try and tell me you gave me exact measurements, you have probably never made anything in your life that requires close tolerances. The fact is the customer is responsible for letting me know if the shroud is a bit tight before he forces it onto his gun, if you force a car part onto your car and damage it good luck getting any help from the store you bought it from. I repaired the shroud that was screwed up because of the customers total lack of knowledge and as for all of these customers complaining. I have had maybe 3 or 4 problems in the past 6 years so where are all of these unhappy customers. You need to make sure when you make a complaint it has foundation, you or whoever this was made for was lucky that you got it repaired at all after the way you forced it on and off the gun and split the tube. I can not believe you have the nerve to even post this, you are obviously one of those consumers who thinks that they are always right and the maker or seller is always wrong, well I have news for you, the customer is NOT always right, good day sir, Neil.
You obviously don’t know the whole situation. The exact measurements were provided from the gun the shroud was being installed on when the order was placed. Since the measurements varied slightly on the OD of the barrel, the largest OD measurement was provided to Neil. You don’t seem to have any facts to back up most of your statements. I do agree that anti-seize isn’t a bad idea when installing this LDC on the gun, but it wasn’t the cause of the problem in this situation.
Air Force frames are NOT made to a standard. You can measure 10 and get 10 different inside measurements!
No way in hell Neil or anyone else can get an exact fit without exact measurements, or having the frame in hand. And you have already demonstrated the lack of skills, so I doubt Nell could in any way be at fault for any of this.
You Stated, ” I didn’t make the product incorrectly, Neil did”,
Sir Neil didn’t Fuck the product, You Did! :sadn:
And you should ALWAYS use anti seize if it is a good tight fit. If your fit is loose enough to not need it, it is too loose. But that is required for you, as you simply have NO Mechanical Common Sense! You Seized the LDC in place with poor installation techniques. Period! Grrrrr
There is a way to tighten it, but I fear it is beyond your comprehension. No way in hell I would even consider telling you how to do it!
So if it clips, especially in the future, you have no one to blame but yourself!!! And will probably blame Neil for that as well. :angrymob:
You Sir, are not only inexperienced, but too damn know it all to learn anything. We’ve tried to be nice to you,. We’ve tried to help you. But being a newbie is one thing, but being a dumb fuck along with being a stubborn Dumb Fuck, who refuses to listen, and blame any one else for your lack of knowledge, and causing problems is just well, plain fucking dumb!
Now go blame others for your F’n stupidity! Classic! :rofl:
Sincerely;
Knife
Knife
When the shroud was remade to the correct size it fit okay without needing any anti-seize or lubrication. I know I am not the only one to receive bad service and poor quality products from Neil. I have had others message me stating they had similar bad experiences. Instead of blaming me for the product being made incorrectly and poorly, Neil should accept fault instead of blaming the customer. I didn’t make the product incorrectly, Neil did.
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I needed a muzzle cap for my 30 cal mrod conversion and Neil made me one that fit perfect and barely charged me enough to cover postage, so I am a fan and I do not care if he tells it like it is. I do too. Go Neil.