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Let's see it...

who here uses absolutely NO power tool, I mean not even a hand held electric drill, just hand cranked drills, braces, hand saws, etc. If so, do you actually make a living without power tools?

Can you say if there are any advantage to not using any power tools, or at least have a minimum of power tools (like a drill press, hand held drill, router) for major stock removal?

I for one love carving neck by hand... but find it difficult to imagine doing it all without power tools, especially sawing.

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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

check out Boaz Elkayem. I really want to stop using power tools, but I've decided to just use them when absolutely necessary.

Where do you draw the line? Does a truck transporting some of the wood you're using count as having used a power tool? Or a chain saw to down the tree? Or a supplier rough sawing soundboards and such?

I mostly use pre-cut blanks from luthier suppliers for fingerboards, bridges, necks, plates, etc. From there, hand plane/scrape to thickness, saw shapes and whatnot with hand tools. Thanks to my new reamer that makes 10mm holes for tuners and barrel bolts, the drill press has left the equation. I still use a Dremel router for truss rod and saddle slots and inlay pockets. Tempting to get some tiny chisels for those tasks just for the sake of purity

Advantages to me are noise (how will you know how good your guitar sounds if your ears are bad?), safety (can't play guitar as well if you're missing fingers), pride (ok, this one's pretty pointless), space (rent/property tax + climate control = recurring money drain), and powered by food, rather than coal (eco friendly and cheaper!). I also do a lot of unique stuff for each guitar, and power tools are at their best when using jigs to create identical things.

But really, if you pay attention and wear your safety equipment, money is the only big drawback. And the more guitars you can build, the more money you make, so power tool people win in the end.

This guy built a lute using only tools of the period. I have moved away from most power tools as I live in an apartment now. And there was that nasty argument between the table saw and two of my fingers.

http://www.lutesociety.org/pages/building-lute-original-methods

All hand tool use in early musical instrument making is fairly common. In fact I might go as far as to say that it's the majority practice or at least it is so in Europe. Most will have a Bandsaw and perhaps a Lathe for peg making. Routers and Thickness sanders are rare.
It is quite possible to make a living using this approach. You just have to charge (and get) a price commensurate with the time taken. That isn't an easy task. Neither is using a lot of power tools and producing 50 instruments per year. Just because you can make that 50 per year and price them at $1200 isn't going to guarantee you sales. Your competition then tends to become the higher end factory instruments and you become known for cheap instruments. It doesn't matter how good they sound, very, very few people will ever compare them to a Hauser or their equivalent.

I´ve just bought a small bosch router, but i´m yet to use it. on my first effort (i´m starting my 2nd) i´ve only used hand tools. it was a good experience, but for my future work i hope i can incorporate a few "power tools" (small bandsaw, maybe a drill press and the aforementioned router) - but nothing that will make too much noise or dust.
the guy i´m learning (and working with) only uses hand tools (except for a lathe for making wooden pegs, as Michael said and a bending iron - does that count?) and makes a living, albeit a modest one, of instrument building. He builds more lutes and vihulas than guitars, though, and builds replicas for museums too.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I guess it is mostly psychological, if you price them too low people will see them as cheap even if its quality is good.

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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 would like to use hand tools only, but could not support a wife and 2 kids that way. If you are in a stage of life where you can get bye and make a living with hand tools only, go for it. Most folks compromise, and use the tools they feel comfortable with. Unfortunately most of the advertisements in popular woodworking magazines are directed at selling you the latest power tool gizmo, which may or may not help you improve your work.

Hey Brian, didn't you recently post some pics of your (Dad's) shop that had many of us drooling all over our keyboards??
Talk about an ingrate!!!
pvg

lol, even though my dad has all those tools and lets me use them it doesn't mean I actually use them often or even at all. I've never used the radial arm saw and rarely use the table saw and probably won't use the bandsaw often. I'm slightly (very) scared of using a tool with a fast spinning blade.

Wow.

I'm only 3.5 instruments in, but I have yet to use a power tool. I'm very much looking forward to getting a bandsaw, router, drill press and belt sander.

I could use only hand tools, but I choose not to. If I ever find myself without electricity, I am safe in the knowledge that I could carry on, albeit slower.

Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

I don't use many power tools at all.... but I don't feel so bad about using a few power tools after reading Krenov's Cabinetmaker's Notebook....

His point was a really interesting and practical one.... When you use up all your effort to do something that's physically demanding and it wears you out - you feel sapped.... you may loose creativity you need to complete the interesting/special parts of the job....

That's kinda how I feel when I am planing down a plate to thickness.... There's no real Zen for me there... I'm just plowing away until it's about the right thickness.... I think it takes me 3-4 hours to do a plate... In the end, the drum sander takes roughly the same time for the the whole shebang as the plane does for 1 plate... but I really do it because I don't feel worn out when I get there...

The irony is that I cut stuff like head blocks and tail blocks and neck tenons out by hand.... It takes longer to set up a power saw than it does to just knock out the cuts with my hand saw and chisels.... I suppose the difference is that it doesn't wear me out...

Thanks

Like Dave Fifield, I think it's a good idea to be able to do it all by hand, even if you don't on a daily basis. Every once in a while it will hapen, for whatever reason, that you need to get something done, and can't use the power tool, so you're going to have to do it by hand. It's nice being able to proceed confidently knowing that you won't get stuck if the router dies.

As has been said, power tools can be (though they may not always be) faster, and certainly take less effort. They can, of course, make the wrong cut just as fast. They also have no morals; they don't care what they eat. I've never heard of anybody taking off their arm with a 5/8" chisel, no matter how sharp.

Power tools can be jigged up to make very accurate parts, but so can hand tools.

In the end we all try to strike a balance between speed, safety, and the amount of work we put in. Nobody can tell you what the right balance is for you.

I never built a guitar purely with hand tools but pretty darn close. I think I used a drill only for my first 5 or so guitars. That just for peg holes and bridge pin holes.But also, I didn't resaw my own back/side/top sets either though I did use planes to thickness them. So point being, I know I can do it (even if I have to resaw but that's a hell of a job) but I love my power tools They are quick, efficient, reliable and allow me to focus on more important things. All the guitars I sell are to people who like the idea that one luthier in his little personal shop took great care and oversaw every part of the construction process. There is a romantic notion to the whole thing. But I don't know that their is a market out there of people who would demand strict old world building.

As far as quality, construction etc... it's not better or worse if done by hand or with power. And most certainly there is no advantage in NOT using power tools, IMHO it's quite the opposite. Anyone with some experience can plane a top to thickness but it's what you do after that makes the difference and so just getting rough objects to the proper shape and thickness has no bearing on the final product. Power just gets foundation built sooner. My two cents.