Official Luthiers Forum!

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.

_________________
"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.

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

Having an understanding wife with a good job goes a long way. I went from being an extremely unhappy, but quite successful, bread winner to being and extremely happy, and quite unsuccessful, luthier. I hope one day to turn it around again...hopefully soon

It really depends on what your priorities are... to be honest with you I think life isn't about financial success at any cost, because whats good about living a successful life (by the world's definition) when you pretty much sold your soul in order to get there? If you can't win bread doing luthiery, there are (or should be) plenty of other trades that uses similar skillset that you may be able to win some bread with...

One doesn't have to build guitars to be happy, to be honest I get just as much satisfaction (if not more) repairing than building. Restoration is also another good option, if you have a bit of reputation already (as people may be hesitant to trust someone with no reputation with a valuable guitar).

_________________
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

There are plenty of good paying jobs in adhesives, and in the short term I plan to get one with a company who is willing to patent my concepts anx pay a reasonable royalty. Then in could be happy being retained as a simple consultant.

I've consulted with companies to design production processes manufacturing guitars... So scale up is a concept I'm very comfortable with. Will I take it that far? Perhaps.

I'm going to call up some of my contacts at PRS, Fender, and Martin tomorrow to bounce around some ideas.

By all means keep this thread going if anyone has anything to add. This thread is gold.

I have been doing repairs for 30 years. I started out at Gibson in Kalamazoo as they were picking up and moving...Great timing there, but I spent 5 years before they were fully gone from Kalamazoo. I continued with college, grad school, and post grad while becoming an engineer for Intel. I always had a small repair shop, and did the occassional parts build and scratch builds as I had time. I built my clientele and shop over a few years, left engineering and dove in head first. It comes down to your reputation, skill, diversity, and work ethic. If you are willing to put in 16-20 hours a day, and live like a "Working student" until you have steady work, you have a chance. Location and word of mouth are also important. If you live in deep rural surroundings, you may want to keep it more of a part time thing, if you are in a more populous area, you can build a clientele quite rapidly.

I've played with the idea occasionally. Then I look at the real-world implications (cost, markets) and more importantly, remember that I really do love my day job (with all its ups and downs, medicine is still very rewarding) a great deal and decide to settle on a hobby that may one day achieve cost neutrality. Maybe.

Yea, don't do this full time if you love your day job... especially if its a day job that provides good pay and satisfaction.

That's why I went full time, because I hated my day jobs (basically working at supermarkets, teaching English, or translating) and there aren't any way for me to do something I really like (anything that involves doing something with my hands) in this country because I just don't have the connections, so I ended up doing that I am best at...

_________________
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 beeb making guitars for a living for most of my working life (since '88) First worked for someone for many years (Sobell) and then set up my own shop in '04 with the aid of a local Arts Council grant and a private loan from a friend. Since then it's been fine - I worked in my spare room for the first few years and am now in a larger workshop. I've never done repairs.

I've never been married although I do have a grown up daughter who I've provided for and put through university by making guitars. I think much of this comes down to working hard and not being a big spender. Other than a very small mortgage I have no debt. I don't spend much on advertising. My old boss was extremely shrewd and cautious in many ways and instilled in me the importance not only of the quality of the design and execution of the design, but in how to deal with customers, and suppliers which has stood me in good stead.

There are now more makers than there has ever been and so it is harder for those who wish to become full time makers to fullfil their wishes - but those not dependent upon selling guitars for a living but who enjoy making them could be in a more free position than those who are. It might be a consolation to those who may feel frustrated by not being full time makers to reflect on this - that they can create in an environment free from market expectations - their only limitations then being their skills and their imagination. There are many instruments I would love to make that I can't simply because I know from experience that they take a long time to sell, or don't command a high enough price for it to be worth making. There is a limit to what I can make in a year and people are waiting so I have to think very carefully before straying away from the order book to build experiments.

No, i can imagine that as a hobby lutherie could be very fulfilling and should not necessarily viewed as a poor relation to being full time.

nigel

http://www.nkforsterguitars.com/nkforst ... _book.html

_________________
nigel

http://www.theluthierblog.com

I feel there is some very good advice here, but recognize that everyone's situation is different. From my experience, I would highly recommend that anyone get and keep a good day job, and save as much as possible. Let it be an enjoyable hobby until such time as it takes on a life of its own, enough to be not just self supporting, but actually profitable. That being said...

In my case, I had a job with good pay and great satisfaction, working as a product engineer. Over the last 20 years, I watched my profession get absorbed in the new Global Economy, until I, too, became a cost reduction. I didn't quit my day job, my day job quit me. My record is three layoffs in 6 years, the last one right before the big recession hit in '08. And oh yea, it definately helps to have a wife with a reliable income.

So, while waiting for the economy to turn around (I still shake my head whenever I hear the recession has already ended) I would like to at least help out by selling a few instruments. I got a pretty good name locally building dulcimers, but the market for those is pretty low budget. So, might as well expand my skills a bit and branch into guitars. After all, building them keeps me sane while I send out resumes.

_________________
Phil

http://www.oleninstruments.com

"Those who tilt at windmills are only considered insane by those who can't see the dragon."

I only do repairs. I find that even with guitars, at least in Taiwan its fairly low budget. No one that I know of in Taiwan will spend more than $1000 on guitars, and when you go above that price point, they would only buy Martin or Taylors. Gibson acoustics aren't common in Taiwan (it's mostly electrics) so one guy I know ordered it from the States. Plus in the music enthusiast circle, they mostly buy electrics because it seems acoustic guitars are mostly limited to students (which means low budget) or highly professional musicians which I have yet to know. I think most of the highly professional musicians play classical guitars, so my next build might be a classical so I can figure out how it works.

I get a fair amount of work doing repairs, setup, restoration, and stuff like that. It's self supporting but at least now I needed help from my family, church, or friends until business picks up. It helps that the cost is lower in Taiwan so I can get by with less work. The major work I have now is the Stella restoration, and believe me, it's actually harder to restore an old guitar than build a new one, especially when you need to fix someone else's mistake.

I don't have a day job, never had a serious one in Taiwan anyways, because the market (for a majority of the white collar Taiwanese) is dominated by tech firms like Asus, Foxconn, Acer, and many small tech/consulting firms. Unfortunately for me when I got exiled to Taiwan I was only halfway through a Geology degree at University of Texas, and I wasted about 2 years in the military before I was able to finish my education by attending University of Phoenix. I can't go to a Taiwanese university because I do not know how to write Chinese and the exams here require that (and you have to be very good at it too). So the only jobs that were available to me was student jobs, teaching English at a cram school (I had no qualification for teaching English and I am not white enough to have cram school bosses gloss over the lack of qualification), translation (did a few of that, but work dried up because there are way too many who will do it for a lot less, plus I am not qualified either), or international trades (they need English speakers to act as a liaison for Western clients, but more importantly they need someone who is good at sales). Since I am not good at nor desires to do any of those jobs, guitar repair was something that I felt I could do well.

If I were still in the US I would have gotten a day job at a machine shop, auto mechanics shop, gun shop (to assist a gunsmith), or a furniture factory. Just that none of those jobs are really open to me in Taiwan (language difficulties).

_________________
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

Thanks Nigel, those are some great points. I have been doing custom woodwork for many years, always building to other's specs, while I love the shop work and the challenges, the guitars I have built are not standard configurations and completely tickle me, perhaps in time I will make a sale-able product, but working without a customer, or being my own customer, is very enjoyable, in fact I can easily call this stint into amateur guitar building the highlight of my 44 years on this planet. At this point I need to thank my well employed wife one more time for this very fulfilling experience.
Rob

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

I just want to thank everyone in this thread again for all of your input. For the time being I'm using a sensible approach consisting of landing a normal day job, while at the same time founding a business for my guitar building and woodworking. As it stands right now I have a business partner with plenty of dedicated shop space, ready to take on projects and see how it grows from there. I am extremely lucky to be in the position of starting in this business with a professional endorsement... Although, I'm scrambling to get the business side fully operational to handle the volume of pre-orders being requested (a problem I won't complain about.) As much fun as crafting individual pieces of art is, I'm good at volume production. If it works, it's probably one of the easier ways to make a living in this business. But, for now, my rule is to work a day job until guitars do a better job paying the bills.

If volume work is what you are better at you might consider getting a job at a guitar factory, so you can learn how that works.

_________________
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

A big chunk of my background is volume production. I'm a former Martin employee and while working as a technical specialist in the adhesives industry, consulted every major manufacturer of guitars in the US. As a result, I'm particularly well suited to planning production processes... since I've been paid to do so in the past.

Initially, I plan to implement a cellular process with my co-founder. Especially while I am teaching him the skills to build them entirely on his own, this will help to maximize rate of production. I'm a big fan of mixing old fashioned skills with modern technology to get the best of both worlds. For example: making use of a CNC router for most cutting and shaping while still hand fitting the neck joint for a perfect friction fit, or laser cutting inlays. I will never sacrifice quality for speed or convenience of building. In my eyes, technology should be used to improve quality and consistency. Even when I reach a point of producing thousands per year no corners will be cut. In my experience I have seen far too many sins committed by companies who should know better and have no excuse given the prices they charge.

I've found that the secret to making a living as a luthier ... is to not have a "plan B" ... it's very motivating.

Agreed, having a plan B means you are expecting to fail.

_________________
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