Official Luthiers Forum!

I don't mean to sound......gruff, but I'd recommend finding another job, then working on a plan if you want to start out in the guitar building business. Like any small business it takes alot of planning, alot of hard work, and usually alot of money. Using someone elses shop and tools just isn't a very good plan. Start building during night and weekends in whatever space you can come up with and build up a client base. Save as much money as possible.
I'd consider Mario and Simon to be a very successful builders. Mario had a 2 year wait list when he decided to go full time. I suspect Simon had a wait list before going full time also. I've got a 17 guitar wait list and a small, but well equipped shop, but I don't plan on quitting my day job.

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I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said.
http://www.brackettinstruments.com/

I have been thinking about this for a while. Most old timers that I know will tell you to keep it as a hobby and keep your stead pay check of a day job. Ignoring all that, I still would like to do it full time eventually.

With the idea of making a livable income each year, I have done some math:

I figure I can build about 12 guitars/year if I was at it full time. With my eventual base price being $5000. That would put my yearly sales at a minimum of $60k. With each guitar representing ABOUT %80 profit, that takes you down to $48k. Monthly (utility) type expenses here in my neck of the woods (Missouri) amount to about $100 (that being my electricity and propane) or $1200/year. We are now to $46,800/year. Each month, I expect to pay about $100 in upkeep of tools and equipment, and other misc. supplies= another $1200/year. Now down to $45,600/year. Naturally to drive in business you will need to advertise. I figure a budget of a minimum of $12k/year might get me enough customers. We are now down to $33,600/year. That is an entry level salary around here and that is without benefits. That is maybe doable for me since I do have a working wife who carries benefits with her job that can be applied to me as well. Realize though that this formula does not allow for any sort of major expenses such as immediate need of large tool replacement, sudden surgery needs, air system failure, etc.There is also little to no wiggle room in this equation for a slip in business. I would probably work freelance as a TV Technical Director (my current job) at nights to help supplement my income.

Hope this is helpful.

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ELEVATE || Next Level Lutherie
http://elevatelutherie.com
&
http://ensorguitars.com

Nobody has mentioned the inevitable wear and tear on the always aging body that goes along with a profession where repetitive motions are the norm .

What happens when one day ,you can't hold a chisel or a plane anymore.

It happens more than you think.

I have been plagued by shoulder and hand problems my whole working life.

When I got to be around 35 years old (I am 53 now)I made the decision to stop making my living with my body.

I still love making guitars, but I am able to support my wife and seven kids on a single income as a building Inspector with Medical benefits and a pension eventually.

So I make about half a dozen guitars a year and sell them and have earned a reputation over the years-It works for me.

Brad

Perhaps I should qualify my situation. Add a nice bandsaw and planer and I would have a very complete shop that would make most jealous. I have a couple of generations of my family to thank for that. However, I am perhaps too obsessed with temperature and humidity control.

Is it considered generally acceptable to open your garage door when people come in for a set up? (no offense) I'm in a unique position in that after my first commission from a good friend who has succeeded in the music business I anticipate a large influx of orders potentially.

It could be that this thread isn't completely relevant since everyone finds their own path. I promise to let everyone know how my crazy plans pan out.

For the wear and tear part, I don't really want to work as a "consultant" because I don't do well in an office environment where I have to "sell" things. Besides with the way things are people may have to do labor type jobs well into his 70's.

I chose luthiery because it's what I do best, and there isn't anything else in Taiwan that I can do well, when the only jobs available are teaching English, writing/translating/editing, or sales, none of which I do well.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I'm afraid the 'wear and tear' aspect applies to literally hundreds of different jobs, not just Luthiers. If you have chronic Back pain, even an office job might prove to be difficult. I worked in the construction industry for a number of years and being a Luthier is much less hazardous than that particular occupation.
There's little doubt that repair work can be a life saver as far as the business goes. There are a very small number of makers who do pretty well from making alone. Long waiting lists, very high prices but of course they have big reputations. Precious few achieve that though.

the guy i´m working with earns his living from building alone. surprisingly, i think that living in a small country has helped - the market is small, but there isn´t much competition. he focused mainly on reproductions/replicas of ancient instruments and traditional portuguese folk instruments, and he has a lot of commissions from museums and music schools. living near a music academy has also helped too, as he gets some orders from the teachers and students.
he did start up has a repair guy, though.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Weird... I always thought living in a small country means smaller market, meaning the demand for the stuff isn't there. Taiwan is kinda like that, the market is small and there are very few luthiers here.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

cheers, Tai!
well, it´s the same here - but if you work well, are reliable and not too expensive you can easily earn a reputation (at least that´s what happened). i suppose in the US there should be hundreds of good, competent and reliable luthiers still waiting for their break-through.

just my experience, though.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

How is too expensive defined? One of the things I had trouble with was deciding how much is appropriate when it comes to cost of certain services. Unfortunately I only have US prices to use as a guideline, and since there's a lack of competent luthiers in Taiwan, there aren't much to go on. Plus there are a few incompetent "luthiers" who generally take work from large music stores, and those are often a "jack of all trade, master of none" where they would do just about anything, from fixing guitars to being a general handyman, or even selling noodles on the street. They often charge very little (or at least gets very little) for the work and the work shows.

I do charge about 20% more than one luthier I have seen, but there are differences in the way he does things than mine, and I felt my prices are justified. Plus he's swamped with work so I figure he might have to do something to limit the amount of work he gets such as waiting list or raising prices.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

no hard rules, i´m afraid - it shure depends on the market. a good price is one that would make the customer happily return, i guess. as an example, a refret goes around 100 euros, IIRC; there´s a shop in Lisbon doing them for 150 euros - but he´s been focusing on building, so tends to do these only for good customers.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I charge around $200 US dollars for a refret, honestly 100 euros seem cheap.

Every other competent luthiers in Taiwan (which means about 2) charges the same amount. I am thinking of raising it by another $30 USD because I want to switch to using EVO fretwires exclusively, as other luthiers don't use them.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

It seems that most of the replies in this thread focus on the assumption that I'm interested only in building completely hand made custom instruments. While I want to have that as an aspect of my business, It seems more feasible to actually produce replacement necks and bodies or faithful reproductions of other instruments... Blasphemy, I know! But there;s room for improvement in that industry. For example: Most do not offer set neck designs. Bolt on necks are never actually fitted to the body, just assumed to be close enough. I'm even perfectly comfortable with steaming out a Les Paul neck to craft a proper body for it... For that matter I would even remove the headstock veneer and build the rest from scratch to avoid copyright/trademark issues.

My approach to this business concept is to focus on what features/services aren't out there. I may need a day job, but the goal is happiness and true job satisfaction. With respect to the question regarding how much fun it will be to work with angry customers... I used to manage a pharmacy, so it's not even close to a big deal.

This topic always makes for an interesting read, kinda like buying a lottery ticket, for a dollar you get to dream of a different life for a few minutes. I would like for lutherie to become a growing source of income in my life. Little by little putting the pieces in place. It is getting closer, I have the proper working wife, cheap place to live and work, been working on the education and experience, building, some repairs, reading and the Charles Fox class I took last year.
One thing Charles did during the class was some career guidance for those of us with the notion in our minds to work in this field. That was a big help for me. I have very little interest in building custom guitars or being a local guitar tech. I do believe there are niches in this field. Gibson's design is an open door, Ed Roman worked it. John Hall seems to do well with a diverse approach.
A business approach is relevant, Hugh, you seem to get that. Chris, I like your math, but you need to figure in returns or mistakes, what happens when a guitar is destroyed in shipping, customer hates it, whatever. One of your first deductions from gross receipts should be returns, that list of expenses grows fast.
My personal path will be education. Not a lutherie school, not even remotely qualified for that, but basic workshops that are an experience resulting in a guitar. The primary target being parent child groups building a basic electric.
Plenty of competition with kits, but less competition with small instrument kits for kids, so I will be working on those as well, www.kalimbakit.com is getting started.
I do want to build and sell guitars though, my personal preference will be to make something with modern features but basic in appearance. One acoustic one electric, very few options, but I want to be set up to make one of these within a reasonable time frame, 40 hours or less for the acoustic and perhaps 10 for the electric. Very small and efficient production shop.
Warning spiritual content below:
I do believe we are wired from creation to make music and instruments to make music, which is why many of us are more then motivated, but driven to make instruments. It is fulfilling to assist in filling the world with music. My best wishes to all who are on the various paths to this goal.
Rob

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http://shastaguitar.com/
http://www.kalimbakit.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/comfyfootgr ... ature=mhee
http://www.facebook.com/robert.renick.7

I am lucky in that I love my day job. I wouldn't consider myself ready to make the jump even if I wanted to but I have other factors weighing against me as well. I live in one of the most expensive cities (I think at least) around and love being here, I am not in a hurry to leave the metro area for an "affordable" situation. I also have always rented space and never had a long term lease situation, I could lose my space more or less at any time (as is kind of happening now). Both of those things weigh against a smooth transition for me to full time guitarering.

I also see there being a real divide between what is available in custom guitar price ranges. For me to feel confident charging what I would need to to live on building 12 or so guitars a year I think I would need to have a few more years of making, maintaining, and improving on the guitars I am currently making before I could do it. It is not to say I couldn't and maybe be successful but for my own feeling of security I would want to be 100% confident. I think that a guitar purchased in the $4000+ range (base price) should be excellent in absolutely every way. In my own work I feel like I am there but I need to really know I am there before I would consider going all in. For that to happen I will need another year or so of maintaining that level. This is my personal approach, of course. and I am sharing just as another viewpoint. I don't mean to discount anyone else's experience. If the builder and customer are both happy it is a great thing.

I also love experimenting and building with new ideas. I don't want to give that up and I think I would feel pressure to if I was dependant on each guitar absolutely selling. Someday that may be fine but currently I can afford to make a few that may not appeal to someone quickly, if ever.

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

Hugh-

I'm in a pretty similar situation. My job is not 'gone' per say, but things at my current company/in my industry have been on the decline for a while. For the better part of a decade my wife and I have done well enough on my income alone while she was a student working on her second bachelors and masters, but now she has a great job that is only getting better. I'm working my way into the transition as well. I've been an amateur repair/builder/tinkerer for about 10 years now (I also build/repair amplifiers too), but I'm heading to Luthiery school to refine my skills and learn the "correct" way to do things. I'm planning on the fact that I will most likely have to make Luthiery my second job for quite a while, but hopefully I will be able to make a living doing luthiery alone eventually.


I made my wife promise 1000 times that she is completely 100% ok with me being an absolute failure as a professional luthier, and having to go back to being a geologist, or survey analyst, or environmental consultant, or chef, or any number the other professional hats I've worn in my 33 years on the planet.

The goal is to have a career I never want to retire from.

All you can do is try like hell.


Edit: Interesting, just tpying in the word "pizza" makes that little eating guy appear

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Mike Hoenerhoff
Elderly Instruments

Yea, my situation is basically that there are no jobs in Taiwan that provides any satisfaction whatsoever, that I can do or that I know of. Most of the jobs available that I know of that are available are sales, teaching English, editing/translation/writing. Doing anything other than luthiery (which was a risk for me to do something unique in a culture that seeks to preserve the status quo) only results in drudgery while at the same time living paycheck to paycheck. It isn't the life that I want and I am sure it's not the life God wants for me either.

I don't mind living paycheck to paycheck as long as I get to do what I love, what makes it suck is doing jobs that just sucks the life out of me in addition to living like that.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I've been at it almost forty years, and am now riding out my third or forth recession. I attribute this to a good marriage, stupidity, and persistence. You might call me a success: I have a decent reputation, own my house and my car, and raised three kids through college. OTOH I have not had any health insurance: one bad day and it's all gone...

I have to say it was a LOT easier to get into this game thirty-five years ago. For one thing, thanks to organizations like the GAL and ASIA (and the Catgut Society, now, sadly, defunct), and the internet, there's a lot more information out now, and standards have consequently gone 'way up. The luthier's schools (another thing that hardly existed then) are turning out kids who can make really nice looking stuff when they've only been at it for a couple of years. And, of course, _everybody_ is thinking like you, and so many other folks on this list: lutherie is a great retirement job. So, look at the competition: you've got a lot of folks out there who are doing great work, many of whom don't necessarily have to pay the rent from it. Can you compete?

As Judy Threet pointed out in a talk about the 'Second Golden Age', this is a great time for the guitar, but it mostly benefits the players, who can get really wonderful instruments at 'reasonable' (from their point of view) prices. Most luthiers I know work for something like minimum wage, when you add it up.

Another thing that has changed is that we used to be pretty much under the radar from a legal point of view. CITES changed that, and more recently, the extension of the Lacey Act has thrown in a level of uncertainty that is unsettling. It's no worse than most industries face, I suppose, but, as one historian pointed out in connection with the effect of the Seven Year's War on American/British relations, it's amazing how quickly neglect becomes a privilege.

In my career to date, diversity has been a big help. I make almost forty different types and models of stringed instruments, although it's been a while since I put together a hurdy-gurdy or lap harp. I used to do a lot of repair (which is one of the best _learning_ experiences you can find), and I teach, both of which can pay the bills. Regarding the latter: a friend of mine said of his stint as an instructor at MIT that you can only teach about 1/3 of what you know, so don't be too quick to hang out the 'school' sign. ( I had one student who did that before he'd even finished his guitar. He still asks the most basic questions when I see him, and I keep wondering how long he's going to be able to fool his students...)

I'm not really trying to discourage you; just set out some of the realities as I see them. You sold one to a friend who plays professionally, and that's a good start. To sell some to players who are not your friends you're going to have to back that one up. It's going to take skill, organization, effort, and the sort of stupidity that doesn't know when to quit. It's really great when you hand a musician one of your instruments, and they get 'that smile', but that's hard to take to the bank...

You get a CNC, of course!

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

My first serious attempt at luthiery was in 75,It is now 2012 .Luthiery is basically a very long learning curve for me.I did not know a chisel/plane etc.I got the luthiery bug 40 yrs ago, and am totally amazed and delighted, at what is happening these days .It truly is the golden age of luthiery.I would like to add something perhaps the others left out .I took a course at a community college on the art of salesmanship from a pro.It was a non credit 1 semester course.I found it very helpful.Another skill set is accounting , and business experience, dealing with wholesalers, suppliers, lumber mills , etc.Accounting was my achilles heel one yr , when I goofed up by trying to do my own taxes, and paid for it dearly. Sometimes it/s what you don/t know that comes to bite you back in the pocketbook.

I think Alan has given some particularly sage advice. Seems like he always does.

Patrick

Very good, Don!

That really made me smile.

Well I didn't build myself a CNC just because I was bored you know.
Okay, well actually I did...

But it does and will save a lot on the old joints of mine.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

+1

Caveat - not a full - timer (not close) just one who looks on with a bit of a lustful gaze from time to time.

I've just wasted another perfectly good hour (to quote click and clack, the tappet brothers), reading a really great thread. For me, what makes it particularly captivating is that it balances and juxtaposes a principle that I hold dearly, "pursue your passion" with the very real need to put food on the table in very uncertain times. We've all got to find the right balance. For me, it's a hobby, and one at which I am diligently working at improving my skills.

My advice would be to get really serious about honing your chops while concurrently finding another bill-paying career, which pays, reeaally well, (easier said than done, but not impossible if you're willing to research, study and work at it) and has health insurance. You can get to the level of building really good guitars with patience, curiosity, willingness to listen and the help of folks like these ones.

just sayin'. I wouldn't want to raise my three kids without health insurance or a reg'lar paycheck. maybe you don't have to choose between a "safer" career and building great guitars. I may be reading between the lines, but sounds like you're young, without mortgage, kids, etc., etc. Something brought you to the adhesives industry - why not deepen those (or similar skills) in a way that is intellectually stimulating, but pays more than minimum wage? (unless you scale up pretty fast - and have a pretty deep wait list, hard to sell guitars at a wage that's richer than that for a long time).

Sorry for that - feels like a wet blanket to me, too. My two cents.

Good post Alan, you too Mario.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.