Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello all...

I've been reading these forums for a while now, although this is the first time I have posted anything. I'm very much a wannabe amatuer luthier, and I am yet to build anything, although I am doing a short luthier course after the new year.

The point of my post is to ask how all of you got into guitar making. Did you start your own business straight from school? Or work as an apprentice at another workshop? And how easy was it for you to get into the business? Any problems with the banks or paying off mortgages? I loved reading through these posts and looking at the beautifull guitars that you have been making, and I really hope I can get involved in something similar in the future. I'm just interested in the route you have all taken, how difficult it was, any regrets or stand out instances that you felt improved your career.

Thanks for your time

Anth

It was a dark and stormy night and out of the clear blue sky appears a big black cloud and out of that big black cloud appears a hand and its finger pointed right at me and lighting flashed from the tip of that there finger pointing right at me and just before the lightening struck me head, me head a voice that said. "Pickup thy hammer and saw, and become a maker of luths."

Thats me story and me sticken to it.


blessings
Padma

Ps welcome to the site.

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Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


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Welcome to the forum, Anth. I see you've met Padma.

My kids wanted guitars, and I wanted them to have better than I could afford to buy, so I bought a Martin kit. I still haven't finished that one yet, but I've started building two more, and now own enough wood to build a bunch. It kinda gets under your skin.

This place rocks, by the way.

I know what you mean about it getting under your skin. I put together an electric kit last summer, and have now got the idea in to my head that I want to try and make a go of building guitars full time. Learning how to make an acoustic in January. Fingers crossed and I might be good at it.

not sure really anymore but I think of it as a devilishly foolish moment, a bit like opening Pandora's box.

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"Preoccupation with an effect gives it power and enhances the error"
from "Your Owner's Manual" by Burt Hotchkiss.

My 100 dollar fender sucked. So I thought I'd make my own..Now I think we need guitar addiction meetings..

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Jason Moe
LaCrosse WI 54601

Many years ago I wanted a guitar and I thought I'd save money be building my own.
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

There was a gap in my soul, hollowed out from decades of paperwork, with no tangible results. And an old tree in my backyard needed to be taken down. I felt the old thing needed a bit of a tribute to pay it back for the 90 years of shade it had donated to us humans scurrying about underneath. And an old Popular Science article that tickled my imagination - "hmmm, I bet I could build an acoustic guitar".

Jason, if you can find the number for Luthiers, anonymous, let me know.

Oh, and Anth - none of this is helpful for you if you're looking to understand how to make a living at it. I don't - for me it's a passion that will (hopefully) one day pay for itself. As for putting food on the table, paying the mortgage, and keeping kids clothed, my understanding is that it's a very hard life indeed. Very very few make a good living at it. On the other hand, if it's what you've simply got to do, well, I'm sure that's where Taylor, and Breedlove, and (enter your favorite successful luthier here) started.

I was dropped on the head as a baby.

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Regards,
Phillip Patton

http://www.pattonblades.com

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price has faded.

https://hoosierbladesmith.wordpress.com

HELLO , My Names James and Im A Luthaholic !!!

Well in my life I seem to gravitate to the things I CANNOT do well . For example , in highschool I played football and was fairly good. In college I played in billiard tournements and have a couple trophies . As an adult I play golf and absolutely suck at it , and have been trying now for 25 yrs.

I have been doing wood working all my life , have built a multitude of things and have sold alot of my work , Sooooooooooo I decided to try a stringed instruiment , and I suck at it !! And Well HERE I AM Stilllllllllll trying !!

I now have enough material to build a dozen Mando's , 6 to 8 guitars , and am hooked .

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The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

I won the lottery and decided to build guitars until the money ran out

HA!!!!!! That's funny Tom!
About 35 years ago, I wanted a guitar with a wider nut, so I made a Strat copy,
with a wider nut.
Working on # 14, 15, 16 right now.
Not Strats though, all kinds of different slabs and boxes.
I CAN'T STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is expensive.

Hi Anth and welcome out of lurkdom and into the light of postdom.
I am self taught by reading all the books on the subject and of course partaking in numerous forums
and tinkering on my guitars,then friends guitars,then strangers guitars.I built my first kit,and
that was all she wrote-I was Hooked. I then started building from scratch after making numerous jigs
and spending a lot of money on various tools. I'm now on my 14th acoustic guitar,and loving it !
I do a lot of repair work that I also enjoy so good luck with your plans and post pics of your 1st guitar
right here. Maybe you can be one of the few who make it BIG,who knows?

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Most of us here are amateurs. We build because we love guitars and love making stuff.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

Well.....
1. My maternal great grandfather and grandfather were both hobby violin makers and I ended up inheriting the wood and tools on the family ranch.
2. My father was a session guitarist who would play me to sleep at night when he wasn't on the road. Acoustic guitar is the soundtrack to my dreams.
3. My paternal grandfather was a choral director for his entire career.
4. My mother was a classical pianist.
5. I am a music prof and I have a deep and profound love for facilitating music in others.

Music and building are part of my DNA. It took me a very long time to realize this destiny, and an even longer time to embrace it. I was distracted by normal life issues like college, marriage, kids, war (maybe this one is not normal for everybody). I am thankful that I am now in a place in life where I can understand the forces that determine my happiness, and I can embrace the personalities that make up my family's archetype.

So...... welcome to the game my friend. The real question is, "How far down the rabbit hole are you willing to travel?"
Best regards.
Hans

Well said!!

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

That's exactly how I got started except mine was what I think was called a Bently or something like that. Cheap %150 dollar guitar but I didn't know any better. After about 6 months the thing had high action and it was awful so I took it into the store to see if they could fix it. The guy there told me that usually when they get like that you just throw them away LOL.

So I fixed it myself. Then started reading books from the library, then I got some spruce from a local repair guy who wanted to build a guitar but never had the time because he repaired so much. So I retopped that guitar and it sounded soooo much better. Then I built an electric guitar from scratch as my first build because it's easier and good way to learn.

After many years I started doing repairs. I had up to 3 stores and was really quite busy. I quit my job and made this my full time job. Funny thing was I was in the same boat as the guy who helped me on my first building experience. I was now a repair guy. Lucky to build 2 guitars a year.

Then I lost one store, then I lost another store. Then I got full time job hahaha. Oh well it was a fun run while it lasted. I try to build 2-3 a year now and earn enough from it to afford a nice vacation.

Well let me see.... got to the age of about 38... waistline expanded, hair sadly thinning and with some tactful tyips from my lovely wife realised that the road to rock and roll stardom, was now way too long, and my maps were seriously out of date!

BUt I love guitars... the day job which pays the mortgage, bills, school, beer, wine, food, clothes etc etc.. is kind of OK, but the music is always there in the background... like some evil temptress... as I think someone more famous once said 'I can learn to resist anything but temptation'... in my local rather lovely guitar shop, someone mentioned that there was a local luthier who was happy to try and teach a few simpletons like me who had not touched a chisel (apart form the criminal use in opening paint tins) since those school woodworking classes, and the infamous magazine/book/rack/firewood thing we all once built ... the sacred art of how to spend all your hard earned on pretty wood and somehow manage to convince the wife it only cost a few pennies...'afterall, have you seen how thin it is?'

So I built one... 150 odd hours over 2 years... and you get hooked, sucked in by the figure in that Cocobolo... as you are in the UK... DO NOT UNDER any circumstances visit Exotoc hardwoods or David Dykes with a credit card or cash in hand... dont even take the car, or you might end up walking home with a stack of lovely tonewood and a tricky explaning to do with the good lady!

Odds are you will bankrupt yourself collecting enough lovely wood, that would alst both Martin and Tatlor a squillion years!

But hey its a laugh!

In the beginning, I played cheap electronic keyboards.

Then I bought a slightly more expensive electronic keyboard, and made lots of good music on it.

Later, a friend of mine bought an acoustic guitar and it gave me the idea to try more instruments.

I bought an electric guitar, and fiddled around for a while, but I've never been able to get a really good tone out of it, or any sort of amplification without an annoying hum.

I bought a nylon string acoustic, because I love the sound of it and I didn't want to callus over my fingertips with a steel string. Made lots of good music on it.

Then... I wanted to play old-time fiddle music. Good violins are expensive. Sure, the style doesn't demand a great instrument, but I saw the potential for upgrades becoming expensive and never being quite satisfied, and thus my lutherie journey began. I decided I wouldn't buy a cheap violin, I'd build one. If I wanted an upgrade, I'd build another. Violins don't take much wood or a lot of tools, so building to save money actually makes some sense, in addition to the cool factor of playing your own hand-built instrument, and the fun of the building itself. By not buying even a super-cheap violin, I'd have more encouragement to finish the project.

First, to make sure I'd actually enjoy the work, I built a true 1/4 size violin Tiny little thing, not really playable, but it was indeed fun, so I bought some real wood from a luthier in town and got to work. Got the plates arched but not hollowed, scroll roughed out, ribs bent and glued to blocks, but never got the linings bent quite satisfactorily for gluing to the ribs. It was right about that point that work got majorly stressful and I wasn't sleeping enough, so I decided to put the violin on hold due to increased probability of gouging my fingers. #1 rule of building is I'm a player before builder, therefore my fingers are more important than the instruments.

The violin is still on hold.

Eventually I ditched that job and moved back to my hometown here, but never got a shop set up to finish the violin. I decided I wanted a steel string guitar, read lots of threads on AGF, resulting in buying an old Goodall, which I still love. Still lusted after other guitar tones I'd heard in recordings though, again seeing potential for great loss of money. Building one guitar may not make financial sense, but building 10, you're more likely to break even Especially when one that you want is a harp guitar, and you already have some tools for violins.

So, I shuffled things around in my tiny space to open up the 4x4 foot area of floor that I now call my shop, carefully plotted out all the wood and tools I'd need, trying to keep it from going much over $1000 (still cheaper than a good guitar, and this is only my first, and I don't have to pay for tools next time!). I debated finishing the violin first, but I was much more excited for guitars at the time, so I got to work. 10 months later it was finished, playing and sounding better than I'd even hoped... and I had a lot less money than when I started. But enough wood for probably 10 more So this is why everyone says it's so expensive. And it would be much worse if I liked power tools.

Now I have 3 guitars in various states of building and holding patterns, still wondering if I should finish that violin first instead, plus a music composition program I've been pondering on for a while and have the design nearly hashed out on, and a video game that I'll be working on with my siblings in a sort of pre-production state. Life is good, I love these between-project juggling times. Many roads open, I'll probably gravitate onto one of them and work obsessively like I usually do. But hopefully I can do one programming project and one woodworking project at the same time, since they make pretty good break times from one another.

I retired in 2005 and needed something to do to keep me entertained in the cold winter months. I had a couple decent name brand vintage guitars but was not that happy with them so I thought I should build myself a guitar. I started with a kit and was hooked from day one. I am now working on my 9th and 10th guitars and loving every minute of it.

Welcome to this sickness, there is no known cure, but building another guitar eases the symptoms.

Fred

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Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

Around 1996 one of my kids built a Martin kit when he was in grad school. I was amazed and then he gave me one and I was hooked. I later took the Charles Fox course. I still can't wait t get into the shop each day. I'm working on 41 and 42 now and the more I do the dumber I feel. It's truly a bottomless pit of knowledge.

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

There are few linear paths to getting to making guitars. I was surrounded by music in my youth with my crib confined to the same room where my mother taught violin lessons. Everyone in my family plays a minimum of two instruments, so perphaps that's where some of the madness began to take root. My fater worked in the R&D lab at Baldwin Piano and I spent quite a bit of time with him doing general woodworking and furniture making starting around age 4.

I finally got around to building my first solidbody as a special project during high school, which is what first really gave me the bug. My first year in college was spent studying Classical Guitar Performance, but due to injury as well as an excessive list of interests I moved on to a double major in Mechanical Engineering and Biochemistry.

I am currently employed in the adhesives industry as a Technical Specialist, which has amazingly enough tied most of the rest together. I have consulted with numerous big name guitar companies as well as smaller makers... and will gladly spend at least 30 minutes on the phone with anyone who wants to talk guitars! At long last I'm finding the free time to return to making instruments. A friend and I are first building a 3 axis 4'x8' CNC router and then I will start bringing my renderings from SolidWorks to life.

The common thread for me has been a love for working with my hands and making thrings. I also apply as much scientific principle to my designs as possible. Aside from guitars I also enjoy crafting handmade period furniture using traditional methods.

Hi Anth;
Welcome to the forum. And thanks for asking your question. It's interesting to get a little insight on how & why others got into this consuming craft.

Paying the mortgage is probably a long way down the road. As has been mentioned, it's a tough way to make a "real" living.
I built my first acoustic guitar in '82, when I was 30 years old. Over the next few years, I built two more guitars & a dulcimer for my lovely wife, Judi.
Kids & work, building a house, taming five acres of temperate rain forest, etc. etc. pushed guitars into the background until I was laid off from my 20+ year job in the aircraft industry. My choices were, move to the Big City or make a job for myself.
I was lucky enough to have the resources to build a nice big shop & start to equip it. Over the past ten years, I have concentrated more & more on guitar building. But... I have a contract job with a yacht charter company every summer which pays quite well.
By cutting our wants & needs to the minimum, I am now able to build, full time, for six + months a year.
Only now, after ten years of work, am I feeling ready to "put myself out there" as a luthier.
I'm just starting a new commission for number 32.
I have jigged up to the point where I can (reasonably) quickly, get the precision work done to my satisfaction. The rest is painstaking & time consuming & there's nothing else I'd rather be doing... Even though the hourly wage sucks.
Once I started to feel competent, I started taking on repairs. This can pay very well & is a good way to pay the bills while still building a few guitars a year. We live in a small, isolated community, so repair work will never be a large part of what I do.
My summer income is still subsidizing this enterprise, but I feel that I'm not far away from reversing this trend.
So... Welcome to this mild form of insanity. But keep your butt covered 'till the mortgage is paid up.
All the best of luck to you & everyone else out there, trying to make it pay.
Dan

For me, at one point in my life I started learning new things about instruments and started teaching myself to play them, starting with guitar and mandolin. Once I learned about how they were made, that was just it. I felt I HAD to do this, and still do, very much so. My first project was planned for practical reasons. I wanted a Fender Jazz bass, so I built as close a replica as I could, and I enjoyed every single moment building that thing. The more I learn, the more I love this obsession. I love instruments, and involve myself in them in as many ways I can. I play them, I build them, I read about them and study them, I listen to them, design them, just, everything. Sometimes it becomes too much however, as making something complicated like a guitar is stressful and takes a lot out of you. tip: stop building if you don't enjoy it or if you get frustrated, bad things happen. Don't work unless you are fully alert and excited about what you are doing or at least are comfortable with it. Anyway, when it becomes too much, I just do something therapeutic which is either cooking, spending some time walking outside, or do some chores. This stuff matters more than you think lol. After mastering the basic building process, I hope to take instruments as far as I can. I'm probably more "hardcore" than some retiree who builds to conquer boredom by building a guitar in his basement, but hey, I'm just crazy like that lol.

As far as finances go, don't even consider making a career out of this until you have a waiting list and you can figure up how much profit you earn from this. Oh yeah, and it helps to be single and to have a low standard of living.

Great thread going here!
Thanks, Anth.
I know all these folks a lot better now!