The story starts when I decide to purchase a new gun. I was recommended to speargunbuilder.com from Jacksonville, Fl by a friend who had purchased a gun and was very happy with the outcome, so I made an order for one tuna gun and three 62” guns, one for each of my brothers and one for my cousin.
The order was placed sometime in December and the first down payment covered the first gun completely and left something for the other 3 guns.
The largest gun was to be made in a hurry as I had to pick it up by the end of Jan and I had a trip planed for the middle of Feb, but since I live in Mexico, I had to make a trip just to go and pick the first gun up.
The tuna gun arrived just in time with minor cosmetic problems due to the lack of time given to Tom to make the gun, and I was very happy with the product. Some other minor problems came up with the first use of the gun, but was easily fixed.
When I got back from my spearing trip I sent the rest of the payment for the last guns, including shipping. That was March 2005.
During the following 6 months I sent numerous emails, phone calls and even talked to people from Jacksonville to me help get the guns as Tom was nowhere to be found. He did not return calls or emails and every time I got a delivery date and arranged for a trip to go and pick up the guns, I got to the US only to find a lame excuse from Tom why he didn’t send the guns, but always said that he was sending them next Monday.
Several months after I had paid in full for the guns I got a mail from Tom telling me he had gotten into some problems and that his business had been closed down by the Marshall and that he couldn’t work, not on his boat business nor my guns. I told him to refund the money or send the guns as he had them, but the money was gone and the guns never came. He would not answer my calls, even when I was calling almost daily and leaving messages both at his office and mobile.
To make the delivery story short, I got the 3 guns just after I threaten to call the police, on the first week of September, and just when I thought the nightmare was over a new set of problems showed up.
When I received the guns, 10 months after I had ordered them, all 3 looked fine, although one was not packed right and the pin that holds the line on the tip of the gun had been nailed into the gun and there is no way of getting it out. No big deal, I could put something else to fix that.
I proceeded to put bands on the guns and then install shafts, and to my surprise, the shafts would not lock on any gun. I started by disassembling the trigger mechanism to find out how it worked and found that the mechanism was fine, and if taken out, the shaft locked in perfectly. After some time I found that the line holding mechanism Tom installed into the gun was poorly made and the side metal piece was too long, so would get into the trigger mechanism and prevent the locking of the shaft. The piece was installed right out of the bandsaw with all the cut marks still in the piece.
Once I trimmed and sanded the piece to the correct size, the first gun was ready to be used.
I then took the second gun and found it in a worse condition. The first thing I saw was that Tom had made the holes for the trigger pins too small on one side and when he tried to push these pins from the side of the gun, he tore out the wood and then did a terrible job at gluing the broken pieces back into the gun.
On this gun the shaft would not go into the trigger mechanism because it was set too low, and the shaft hit the upper part of the mechanism. Fixing this problem is a little trickier as the mechanism is held in place by two pins and there is no way of re-positioning the pins so the trigger sits at the right height, so every shaft used on this gun will have to be hand filed or sent to a shop to be fixed so it fits into the mechanism.
The line release mechanism was also faulty, on this gun, Tom cut the piece too short so even when the shaft was locked, the piece would go back and forth, not holding the line. Too bad I found this after I had already trimmed the first piece. Tom probably just installed all the pieces on the wrong speargun.
This gun I still haven’t been able to fix; first because I have to file the shaft 1mm (heat treated 17-4PH SS) and need to have someone make a new tab for the side line holding mechanism.
Gun 3 has the same problems as gun 2, but the trigger mechanism sits even lower and the line holding tab is also too short and will not hold the line.
I just can’t believe that after waiting over 10 months for the delivery of 3 guns I got three non-working guns. And that after I sent an email telling Tom about the guns problems, he didn’t even bother to reply to my email.
If the guns took 10 months to complete and were sent in a non-working condition, what would happen if I sent the guns back to Tom for repairs, or for him to make the guns operational, just imagine when I would get the guns back, if making them took 10 months, and shipping was only done because I threaten to call the police accusing him for fraud. I guess I rather learn how to fix guns than go through Tom again.
Also, if it wasn’t for Roberto Reyes who also called Tom again and again to force him into sending me my POS guns, I doubt I would have ever gotten them.
My two cents: there are reputable manufacturers that honor their workmanship and warranty, BUY GUNS FROM THEM and avoid a really bad experience like the one I have gone trough with Mitzlf at http://speargunbuilder.com/
The order was placed sometime in December and the first down payment covered the first gun completely and left something for the other 3 guns.
The largest gun was to be made in a hurry as I had to pick it up by the end of Jan and I had a trip planed for the middle of Feb, but since I live in Mexico, I had to make a trip just to go and pick the first gun up.
The tuna gun arrived just in time with minor cosmetic problems due to the lack of time given to Tom to make the gun, and I was very happy with the product. Some other minor problems came up with the first use of the gun, but was easily fixed.
When I got back from my spearing trip I sent the rest of the payment for the last guns, including shipping. That was March 2005.
During the following 6 months I sent numerous emails, phone calls and even talked to people from Jacksonville to me help get the guns as Tom was nowhere to be found. He did not return calls or emails and every time I got a delivery date and arranged for a trip to go and pick up the guns, I got to the US only to find a lame excuse from Tom why he didn’t send the guns, but always said that he was sending them next Monday.
Several months after I had paid in full for the guns I got a mail from Tom telling me he had gotten into some problems and that his business had been closed down by the Marshall and that he couldn’t work, not on his boat business nor my guns. I told him to refund the money or send the guns as he had them, but the money was gone and the guns never came. He would not answer my calls, even when I was calling almost daily and leaving messages both at his office and mobile.
To make the delivery story short, I got the 3 guns just after I threaten to call the police, on the first week of September, and just when I thought the nightmare was over a new set of problems showed up.
When I received the guns, 10 months after I had ordered them, all 3 looked fine, although one was not packed right and the pin that holds the line on the tip of the gun had been nailed into the gun and there is no way of getting it out. No big deal, I could put something else to fix that.
I proceeded to put bands on the guns and then install shafts, and to my surprise, the shafts would not lock on any gun. I started by disassembling the trigger mechanism to find out how it worked and found that the mechanism was fine, and if taken out, the shaft locked in perfectly. After some time I found that the line holding mechanism Tom installed into the gun was poorly made and the side metal piece was too long, so would get into the trigger mechanism and prevent the locking of the shaft. The piece was installed right out of the bandsaw with all the cut marks still in the piece.
Once I trimmed and sanded the piece to the correct size, the first gun was ready to be used.
I then took the second gun and found it in a worse condition. The first thing I saw was that Tom had made the holes for the trigger pins too small on one side and when he tried to push these pins from the side of the gun, he tore out the wood and then did a terrible job at gluing the broken pieces back into the gun.
On this gun the shaft would not go into the trigger mechanism because it was set too low, and the shaft hit the upper part of the mechanism. Fixing this problem is a little trickier as the mechanism is held in place by two pins and there is no way of re-positioning the pins so the trigger sits at the right height, so every shaft used on this gun will have to be hand filed or sent to a shop to be fixed so it fits into the mechanism.
The line release mechanism was also faulty, on this gun, Tom cut the piece too short so even when the shaft was locked, the piece would go back and forth, not holding the line. Too bad I found this after I had already trimmed the first piece. Tom probably just installed all the pieces on the wrong speargun.
This gun I still haven’t been able to fix; first because I have to file the shaft 1mm (heat treated 17-4PH SS) and need to have someone make a new tab for the side line holding mechanism.
Gun 3 has the same problems as gun 2, but the trigger mechanism sits even lower and the line holding tab is also too short and will not hold the line.
I just can’t believe that after waiting over 10 months for the delivery of 3 guns I got three non-working guns. And that after I sent an email telling Tom about the guns problems, he didn’t even bother to reply to my email.
If the guns took 10 months to complete and were sent in a non-working condition, what would happen if I sent the guns back to Tom for repairs, or for him to make the guns operational, just imagine when I would get the guns back, if making them took 10 months, and shipping was only done because I threaten to call the police accusing him for fraud. I guess I rather learn how to fix guns than go through Tom again.
Also, if it wasn’t for Roberto Reyes who also called Tom again and again to force him into sending me my POS guns, I doubt I would have ever gotten them.
My two cents: there are reputable manufacturers that honor their workmanship and warranty, BUY GUNS FROM THEM and avoid a really bad experience like the one I have gone trough with Mitzlf at http://speargunbuilder.com/
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