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I've just shocked myself by getting a F hole bouzouki from a pile of sticks to first coat of finish in six days.

I wasn't racing or working to a deadline, and maybe I just had a lot of classes where the puplis were getting on with thier work as I supervised from the front while maybe sanding a neck.......

now, I'm first to admit, it's simple, with no rosette, purfling, or neck binding, but still, a scratch build in a week while actually DOING my day job?

my next build (another similar zouk) I'm going to actually time any "Hands on" time. glue & varnish can dry for free!





how many actual HOURS do you think it takes to make an instrument?

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This is one of those questions that I get asked, virtually every time I talk about building guitars at a party or other occasion.

I'm sure some of the old pros here have it down to a science, and are accurate, plus or minus 3 hours. For me, with olny 8 guitars under my belt, the answer is......longer than I expected.

For me it's about 160

It's not the building that's the trouble for me so much as the finishing part.....

Builds go pretty fast... Finishing takes about a year....

Thanks

I'm in the middle of my second scratch build. I'm trying to document my hours, so i'll know not only how long each process takes, but how long over all it takes to build a guitar from start to finish. I'm having a really hard time remembering to take note of what time it is before I start something, so i can get an idea how long I've worked. I get so little time sometimes to work on it that I'm so anxious to start working that I just plum forget about keeping track. I'll probably figure it out about the 5th or 6th build, lol.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Not typical, I took a year for my first scratch build, but -
On my first "build your own guitar course" 4 of us (no woodworkers amongst us) each made and finished our first guitars in 14 days, working about 8 hours a day, with use of all the instructors (amazing ) tools, machinery jigs and spray shop (silk finish, unbuffed). So including Bull puckie, questions, waiting time between spray coats (3 per day, 3 days after epoxy coat.)
- 104 hours

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

i have almost no jigs, basic tooling, and probably take over 100 hours to build. that's on a very spare, unadorned instrument. the finishing, as others have said, can be another matter altogether.

my hunch is that some of our pros might not weigh in on this one. they do work very long hours, build amazing jigs, spend lots of hours on the phone with customers, need to advertise themselves, need to buy stock, and do some beautiful inlay (and i can hardly imagine how much time that inlay takes). but if they were to ignore the phone, use their jigs, and build a guitar that looks as simple as mine, i think we'd be blown away by how quickly they could do it. having that become public knowledge might not be very good pr (and doesn't reflect all of what it takes to make a living as a builder). but i do think we'd be amazed at how fast and accurately an instrument could come together in some of their hands.

Gee, I took seven years for one.

My own builds at home take incredibly long, and are certainly hampered by the process of stopping and restarting after only one or two hour batches of work.

My one full time build (in Frank Finocchio's shop during a course) went from wood to guitar in the white in about 35-40 hours, but that was with a pre-carved neck. I hope to check out that number someday in my own basement, but you know how hobbies are.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

For me, it entirely depends on how many guitars I'm making at the same time. Like cooking,
it doesn't take all that much longer to cook for 4 than 1.

Hey! Let's have a contest and see who can build one the fastest!
No cheating,
and no liars.

LOL, that'd be like saying no photoshop on the finished pics, and show pics from ALL angles!!

I'm not saying we're a dis-honest breed by nature.........

but I think we're all guilty to SOME extent of showing the best side!!

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I've never put a clock to it, but I would guess that the actual building/finishing process adds up to about three months for me. I typically need at least another twelve months to try and fix all my mistakes, so somewhere right around a year and a half seems about right.

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George :-)

My two builds took about 100-120 each. That was all scratch but for the bridge pins, simple rosette, carved back and wood binding, from raw wood to a tuned up guit. I have a pretty complete basic shop set up, and a custom woodworking background. I think that without too much adornment, in a set up shop, about 50 hours. Maybe a schedule like this:
Monday:
Join and glue plates and neck blank, thickness and bend sides

Tuesday:
Glue endblock and linings, thickness plates, rosette, center strip on back, prep neck blank, headstock veneer, fingerboard

Wednesday:
Brace top and back, carve neck, attach fb

Thursday:
Shave braces, Close the box, finish the neck

Friday:
Binding, neck mortise

Sat:
Fit neck, finish sand, begin finish process

After finish is dry:
buff, bridge, setup

I would love to see the schedule of the build classes, but likely similar to above. This allows overnight for all glue processes, I think to build in 5 days, you would need to have some things cycle faster, like rosette and backstrip in the morning, bracing in the evening.

I do look forward to attempting a 5-7 day build some day, I love testing my ability to work efficiently.
Rob

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Heck, It takes 24hrs. just for the glue to dry! And that drives my crazy.

It's the detail work that really piles on the hours. And making the darn thing better. When you are trying to raise your own bar, stuff that you never spent much time on before suddenly takes much longer as you now realize its importance!

So, while I can build much faster than I used to, I can't seem to finish much quicker!

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Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

+1 a million times Douglas...

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The Biggest Little City, Nevada
www.hammondguitars.com
I love building guitars!