Official Luthiers Forum!

The government just released a report on "durable" goods.
The definition of these goods is that they are designed to last at least THREE years.

Just brings into focus how far out of the loop we luthiers are in that we're building instruments that we want to last at least a hundred (if not two hundred) years.

Yeah silly us....

Didn't the definition (for economics) of durable goods used to be 5 years? If so stuff is getting junkier.....

I just had to replace a furnace & AC system at home, and the one it replaced was 13 years old. When I got that one, the one it replaced was 30 years old. The warranty on the new one is 10 years. I'm guessing they have that figured out pretty well!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I'm guessing you're right.

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Mike

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

You should look up "The story of stuff". They basically said these things are planned. They make things that will only last as long as they design it for, but without the consumer losing confidence in the brand. I heard about things made in the old days that last practically forever and today, things will break if you look at it weird. You will not find an electric shaver today that lasts more than 5 years, when in the old days its not unusual for those things to last decades.

Basically, if a company makes something and it never breaks, how are they going to make money by introducing new products with new features? Besides with computers things go obsolete so fast that there's no point making anything durable anymore! You can bet these are all planned. It's not good for the environment too because where will all these broken junk go, in the landfill!

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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

Without rehashing the recent "Abalone" thread, it's useful I think to at least have a perspective on how the rest of the manufacturing world considers the resources that they use and how long the products they make from them are intended to last.
Certainly, if longevity has any bearing on the "value" of an object to society in general, that needs to be weighed against whatever impact the making of that object has.

Sorry, but I don't believe any of what's been said so far. By any real measure, we enjoy a quality of life beyond any of those that have come before us. The cars we drive, the food we eat, the computers we type on - whatever you want to say - they are all of higher quality and at a relatively lower cost than in the past. You want things that will last 50 years? They are out there if you are willing to pay a premium that may approach what you would have paid for the same item in days gone by. I also feel it's somewhat hypocritical to bash eastern made products since most of us on this forum probably benefit from the sweat of those that have to work for less. Even if you only buy North American, the price you paid was probably influenced by lower cost imported items. Technological advances and a free market work.

Pat

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There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

I think this shows the greatness of a well made musical instrument. Guitar Makers and other instrument makers should be proud they make something will great lasting value. Not to mention the pleasure these instruments give to the players.

I love my guitars, but can't say the same for my refrigerator or dishwasher. Maybe if they worked for 25 years, I might become more attached.

Ken

Lots of interesting points here...
It's all very nice to 'pat ourselves on the back' about the guitars we make lasting for 'hundreds of years' (I'm sure I don't want some of mine around that long, but that's another story.)
However, I'm willing to bet that the $59 Made-in-China 'Acoustic guitar' sold at the local discount place will stand more abuse and last longer (plywood construction, epoxy glue, automotive finish) than anything 'luthier-made'.
So durability is only one factor to consider.
Also, 'durability' is not directly related to the quality of the manufactured item, but to the willingness of people to repair the item. I lived in India for a couple of years in the late 1960s and owned an Indian-made bicycle -heavy and poorly made- the crank axle was mild steel for example. Similar bikes 40 yrs old were in regular use everywhere, creaking their way along, from one roadside repairman to the next. Nowadays in Canada, 'ordinary' quality bikes are dumped when they need even quite simple repairs. Most people can't 'fix their own' and the economics of paying 'first world' wages to fix something don't make sense.
I also suspect that there is a deliberate corporate policy of making 'parts' so over-priced that repairs don't make sense in many cases.

Cheers
John

I don't believe that for a minute. Many chinese made items are broken/non-working when you take them out of the box. Now the fact that it would last longer than a luthier's guitar in a wall bashing contest does not seem relevant to its intended purpose.

I read recently that neck resets should be considered 'normal' every 10-15 years -this from an experienced builder/repair-person. How does this fit with the 'durable' definition?
The reason that most expensive hand-made things 'last longer' is that they tend to be treasured and treated/maintained with more care, not that they are necessarily more ruggedly/better built. We all bemoan over-braced factory guitars, but that's how they are made to avoid warranty returns from 'abusive' owners.

Cheers
John

I would call that "maintenance", and if the instrument is valuable, the need for a neck reset doesn't mean that the guitar should be trashed and another one purchased.
Violin family instruments are constantly repaired, taken apart, put back together, modified etc. It doesn't seem to affect their value much, and even less their utility.
It seems the string tension on steel string guitars warranties a shorter life, although some guitars from the beginning of the century seem to be doing well. Nothing is eternal in any case.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

I know this isn't a world vs Asia thread, but don't forget, China make many, many quality products to as does the rest of East Asia. It isn't a coincidence that most cheap things we buy are from China, but not many people mention the more expensive items made in China, maybe because people forget they make many good products too.

Good stuff in this thread.

New products are often better than the old stuff, better designed and of higher quality. Myself, I want to further qualify what quality means. To me a large part of it is the design of the product and how well it works and we clearly have access to superior products these days.

But where I think we've lost quality is in the materials used in many consumer goods. They're made with a life-span in mind, but aren't made to be repaired, at least not in a practical way. Labor has gotten too expensive. The manufacturers in most cases don't care about providing affordable repair parts because there's no money to be made in stocking and distributing them. Modern products are often so complex as to be unfixable by us mortals. I've done some camera repair in the past, on old Hasselblads and Nikons from the 60s. They were made with very good materials, repair parts were readily available, as were instructions on how to do it. I took apart a non-working Nikon digital recently, just to look inside. What a nightmare. I couldn't even figure out how to get it apart once I got the casing off. Another issue working against repairability is that new stuff is made for ease of manufacturing. It's tough to make them easy to build and easy to repair, especially compact electronic stuff.

I had a 63 Austin Healey and later a 62 Volvo. The Healey, being old and British, ALWAYS needed to be worked on, but it was made in such a way that one could do that easily. Same with the Volvo, except a repair or rebuild on that car only had to be done once and it was reliable. I sold that car in fine running condition with 300K on it, having rebuilt everything but the engine.

So I guess my point is that to me, quality can mean durability as well as being of good design with good materials, not something to be thrown away when the new version is announced.

Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

200 years? A guitar? With strings?