lmi guitare kit good or bad

Costs are rising and times are tough.
Please consider a donation to keep this
place going.

Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.

This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.

We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.

You are logged in as Guest

Users viewing this topic: none

Printable Version

All Forums >>Discussions >>Lutherie >>

Page: [1]

Message

<< Newer Topic Older Topic >>

Heartfeltflamenco

Posts: 57
Joined: Jul. 13 2012

lmi guitare kit good or bad

is the kit of lmi is good or not the have the professional kit for 525. any opinions thanks

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jul. 31 2012 16:39:38

jlneng

Posts: 118
Joined: Jun. 28 2009

RE: lmi guitare kit good or bad (in reply to Heartfeltflamenco)

Hello
I have made a few guitars from LMI kits. If you stick to the plan and execute it properly, you will have a good guitar. The quality of the woods has always been great. You do need tools, and experience using them. I would read afew books to find out more before you jump in. I spent far more in tools than I did on the kit. No regrets though. Starting with the kit gave me a good understanding and enables me to build from scratch now.
JN

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 2 2012 21:06:37

RTC

Posts: 667
Joined: Aug. 20 2008
From: DFW Area, Texas

RE: lmi guitare kit good or bad (in reply to Heartfeltflamenco)

I am eager to read more replies, sounds like and interesting way to learn

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 3 2012 0:01:26

Jim Kirby

Posts: 149
Joined: Jul. 14 2011
From: Newark, DE, USA

RE: lmi guitare kit good or bad (in reply to RTC)

If you don't have a stash of wood building up due to WAS, then the kit is a good way to get all the pieces in a single box, and you get a discounted price. Parts quality is good, and you can adjust there to your tastes using the kit wizard.

As for serviced vs. unserviced kits, my comments are based on my first building venture which was a kit for an OM from Martin, rather than an LMI kit. It certainly relieves you of some of the more exacting initial construction steps (plate joining, rosette inlaying, side bending) but I would think there are several downsides to this. First, all sides spring back a little, and you often need to put together a bending pipe in order to tweak the sides back to desired shape. If you have to build a pipe anyway, why not just bend the sides.

Secondly, there are design considerations such as choice of back strip that won't be adjustable after the servicing - it's sometimes nice to make those choices after you have the wood at hand. Doing the plate joining itself requires a good plane and plane skills, but if you have access to a plane, then it's a skill worth learning.

Plate thicknessing has to be done somehow - the serviced kit saves you effort here but it is still possible that you'd want to be able to make adjustments to the thicknessed top. This then becomes like side bending - if you have to be able to do part of the job, may as well do it all.

Rosette inlaying requires good circle cutting abilities, but google for hand made rosette inlaying tools and soundhole cutters - there are a raft of nice examples on the web that are easily built if you don't have a drill press and don't want to pay LMI for a pre-made one.

Finally, what if you are hankering to build according to a plan that they don't provide servicing for?

So, I'd vote for going with an unserviced kit, and suggest spending the difference on a good book or Robbie O'Brien's video course. Your skill level will be much higher when all is said and done.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 3 2012 11:11:27

Heartfeltflamenco

Posts: 57
Joined: Jul. 13 2012

RE: lmi guitare kit good or bad (in reply to Jim Kirby)

thanks for the info is something i been waning to do for a long time.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 3 2012 15:43:43

Janne H

Posts: 51
Joined: Sep. 19 2010
From: Sweden

RE: lmi guitare kit good or bad (in reply to Heartfeltflamenco)

Hi,

I made my first classical guitar from a Lmi kit (I´m on my second now, also from a Lmi kit), you can check my blog if you like:

http://janneheiskanen.blogspot.se/

Scroll down for my first build.

Janne

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 3 2012 20:54:46

jlneng

Posts: 118
Joined: Jun. 28 2009

RE: lmi guitare kit good or bad (in reply to Heartfeltflamenco)

After my fair review of LMI guitar kits, I wanted to relate a recent experience in dealing with them. With my last kit, I ordered special grade ziricote with the standard narrow binding strip used in a flamenco. I gave them explicit instructions to join the back using the part number for a plain EIR binding strip. What I received was a back joined with maple-EIR-maple backstrip. Which was not what I ordered. I ordered the special grade ziricote thinking I would receive a matched back and side set. The ziricote I received looked like the back came from a different tree than the sides. The sides were beautiful with good ink lines and mostly striped. Very desirable! The back had little or no striping, depending on which side you looked at. I called LMI last night to speak to customer service about the backstrip and a poorly matched set. The gentleman I spoke with stated with "ziricote, you have to take what you can get as their supply was erratic". I asked him why it was sold as special grade and was met with silence. Then I brought up the backstrip issue. The CSR then proceeded to pretty much argue with me. When I directed him to read the specific instructions that I entered into the LMI order form, he replied oh yeah, you are right. In the end, I received a RMA to send the back to LMI and get the proper backstrip installed. No mention was made of my dissatisfaction with the set. I paid over 320$ for the ziricote special back and side set that is mismatched and unreturnable, have to go through the hassle of returning a back, after I went out of my way to specify it on the order form, and suffered with a rude customer service representative. As I have literally spent thousands on LMI products in the past, I expected better from them. Let the buyer beware.
John N

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 15 2012 22:21:43

RTC

Posts: 667
Joined: Aug. 20 2008
From: DFW Area, Texas

RE: lmi guitare kit good or bad (in reply to Janne H)

Janne:
Could not read your blog but enjoyed the pictures. Nice guitars.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 16 2012 1:43:55

Austris

Posts: 4
Joined: Aug. 17 2012

RE: lmi guitare kit good or bad (in reply to Heartfeltflamenco)

I think picking out the wood and doing everything yourself is much more fun, but kit is a sure thing you have everything you need :)

When I made my first - I just bought the spruce top and rosewood bridge.
I resawed the rest by hand with a small japanese saw from mahogany boards I had lying around. That was a lot of very hard work, and the result was less than satisfactory, but now I appreciate the pre-cut wood i buy much more... Anyway, I drifted too far from the topic

My point is, you can probably make a good guitar from the kit. For your first, the wood is not going to be the weakest link.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 17 2012 8:35:14