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Lower cost guitar
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constructordeguitarras
Posts: 1672
Joined: Jan. 29 2012
From: Seattle, Washington, USA
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 Lower cost guitar
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For some time I have been trying to figure out how to make a lower-cost guitar--one that I could feel is worth making. Although friends have suggested to me that I make a "student model," I am more inclined to call this a "professional model," since musicians are rarely paid well and I intend for this model to function every bit as well as my more expensive model.
After thinking about it for a while, I concluded that if I didn't use any purfling, that would simplify the construction process a bit, and if I could spray on the finish, that would reduce the work considerably. I tried spraying on shellac, and the results were very poor, because it raised the grain and followed all the valleys instead of filling them in the way french polishing does. So on this first attempt, I sanded back the sprayed on shellac and french polished over it. I know that some makers spray on lacquer first and then french polish over that, and I think that may be a good idea: using lacquer as a sealer which doesn't raise the grain. As far as not using purfling goes, it seems to yield a serious looking guitar and is hardly noticeable if you are not mostly concerned about the guitar's looks. Another obvious place to save would be by purchasing a ready-made rosette, but I haven't been able to stoop to that yet.
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Ethan Deutsch
www.edluthier.com
www.facebook.com/ethandeutschguitars
www.youtube.com/marioamayaflamenco
I always have flamenco guitars available for sale.
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Date May 28 2016 1:21:55
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constructordeguitarras
Posts: 1672
Joined: Jan. 29 2012
From: Seattle, Washington, USA
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RE: Lower cost guitar (in reply to Anders Eliasson)
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Thanks for your comments, everyone. It is good to get all these different viewpoints.
Anders, as a former chemist, I would caution against saying that shellac cross links in French polishing. Anything cross linked would be insoluble, and I am pretty sure that shellac doesn't crosslink (without added chemicals) and is still soluble after French polishing. I think what you mean to say is that it all fuses together into one layer.
By the way, the back and sides on this guitar are made from Port Orford cedar that I resawed from a huge construction-grade plank--it was twelve feet long, a foot wide, and four inches thick. I resawed it into 4" wide pieces because of the grain direction. The back of the guitar is four-piece. Very light wood. The guitar weighs 1170 g (2.6 pounds). So the back and sides were practically free (ha, ha, except for all my labor), and this wood has produced some of my best guitars. I have a lot of this wood lying around....
_____________________________
Ethan Deutsch
www.edluthier.com
www.facebook.com/ethandeutschguitars
www.youtube.com/marioamayaflamenco
I always have flamenco guitars available for sale.
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Date May 28 2016 14:17:19
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HemeolaMan
Posts: 1514
Joined: Jul. 13 2007
From: Chicago
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RE: Lower cost guitar (in reply to jshelton5040)
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John Shelton,
This is basically the FP method I've developed around a lacquer finishing schedule used on the old gibsons. I like it because nitro can mess a fella up and shellac will not, unless you drink denat.
FP with grain alcohol, spray with Denatured, better results and there's zero moisture that gets into the equation when spraying.
The reason Shellac is such a bear to spray is because the stuff is thin and cures fast. Take away the thin part and the problem of curing remains; your nozzle will gunk up because the thick stuff is hardening as it leaves. So the only solution is to add retarder so you eliminate that problem and can adjust the flow and viscosity.
The flash coat is a straight up theft from old gibson textbook methods. Those guys didn't have the micro mesh etc and had to make guitars in all weird curvy shapes so block sanding wasn't consistent enough. Flash coat to the rescue!
Curiously, and few know this, you will ALWAYS get orange peel with an HVLP. Doesn't matter if you are a robot in a car factory with perfectly controlled environment or a mojo in a garage. HOWEVER if you spray conventional you will get better more even coverage; at the expense of sh!itting out a lot of material.
People spray HVLP because it's cheaper and you buy less lacquer etc. But, if you are using shellac it's dirt cheap so wasting the stuff really isn't a huge deal. It's not harmful to the environment, biodegrades naturally, is cheap and renewable, and you can mix up a half gallon and spray a couple guitars no sweat. Conventional sprayers man, tip of the hat.
You would be surprised about Solarez. The stuff is harder than most marine epoxy. It's like someone took a sheet of high density acrylic and conformed it to the guitar. Clear, colorless, bulletproof, and probably more inert than the commercial polyester gloss finishes on import guitars.
You can spray this magic beauty too. Just warm it up to about 100 degrees or so first so it runs real nice. Then shoot it, let it flow for 30 in a darkened room, take it outside in the sun and rotate it pointing the edges directly at the sun. Some people do a partial cure at 5 mins of flowing just to make sure the edges are nice. I think if you spray it won't be necessary.
Total time from spray to cured hard as balls is 35 mins. Then you can immediately level sand, apply the second coat, cure, and finish sand and buff. It's conceivable to finish an entire guitar in 2-3 hours with this stuff. So... I say this is pretty hot sh!t!
Andy Culpeppaaaaahh
Tru oil =/= oil. Which Immediately displeases me because a thing should contain the thing after which it is named... I digress. True oil is way overpriced and underperforming in my opinion. You could easily pick up a can of danish oil, teak oil, (name) oil and get the same results.
Raw tung oil is pretty cool but it won't deliver on economy or turn around time. Gotta thin it with spirits and then it is a natural oil so it will take weeks to cure. Not groovy.
If you really want an oiled look you can do it yourself. Just make sure you fill it first and seal it with shellac because a lot of the oil finishes like to pull filler out like ron jeremy at a photoshoot.
Oil recipe from a ye olde cabinet maker I once knew: equal parts mineral spirits, boiled linseed and your choice (tung, any other oil that won't go rancid). slather that on like an irishman does with sunscreen at the beach, let it do its mellow jazz, clear it off. definitely 0000 steel wool in-between every coat because oil finishes have a LONG OPEN TIME which means almost everything in the air is attracted to them and gets stuck in the finish.
The cool thing about oil finishes is that they are great for people who don't have a spray booth and no skill with rattle cans. That's really about it. They're inferior in moisture protection, ability to be cleaned, and hardness. You also have to spend vastly more time prepping the surface until it is smoother than feasible for a person who makes guitars for a living. It's just not economical to do oil finishes as a guitar builder in the flamenco world.
The amount of prep, coats, smoothing in-between, and overall effort nets you about the same amount of work as a well done french polish job. Except one is way cool and the other is an oil finish which will be dented each time you look at it directly lol.
In general low cost guitars
I don't see a lot of marketing which overtly addresses the actual usage of guitars.
Case in point, a lot of people will offer a concert or primera, a 2a, or student model.
I never met a student who could afford a student model made by anyone but a machine. I haven't met any pros who could do so either! lol.
So what's that pitch about? My 2 cents for marketing in this area is to make a concert line as usual, and then make a line for gigging. A working man's line basically, but name it as such.
I have my swanky studio guitars that stay at home, and my rough and tumblers for the road. Guess which I have more of? lol. It's understood that a mexican fender serves dual purpose as a gigging strat or one that works for a beginner/intermediate player. No one really calls out this obvious point though.
If you take flamenco, a category in which the general interest is statistically declining, and consider that most of the terminology and classifications of the tools are at least 100 years old and in spanish, you can see that you've got a mismatch of message and audience.
Make the naming conventions more overt and purposeful and I think you'd see sales of a less expensive line increase. People will also intrinsically understand the difference between a gigging guitar and a stay at home one and adjust their expectations accordingly.
-K
P.s. here's an electric body that I dyed, and Sprayed shellac/French polished for reference.
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Date Jun. 3 2016 23:18:12
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Andy Culpepper
Posts: 3023
Joined: Mar. 30 2009
From: NY, USA
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RE: Lower cost guitar (in reply to HemeolaMan)
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quote:
Andy Culpeppaaaaahh
Tru oil =/= oil. Which Immediately displeases me because a thing should contain the thing after which it is named... I digress. True oil is way overpriced and underperforming in my opinion. You could easily pick up a can of danish oil, teak oil, (name) oil and get the same results.
Raw tung oil is pretty cool but it won't deliver on economy or turn around time. Gotta thin it with spirits and then it is a natural oil so it will take weeks to cure. Not groovy.
If you really want an oiled look you can do it yourself. Just make sure you fill it first and seal it with shellac because a lot of the oil finishes like to pull filler out like ron jeremy at a photoshoot.
Oil recipe from a ye olde cabinet maker I once knew: equal parts mineral spirits, boiled linseed and your choice (tung, any other oil that won't go rancid). slather that on like an irishman does with sunscreen at the beach, let it do its mellow jazz, clear it off. definitely 0000 steel wool in-between every coat because oil finishes have a LONG OPEN TIME which means almost everything in the air is attracted to them and gets stuck in the finish.
The cool thing about oil finishes is that they are great for people who don't have a spray booth and no skill with rattle cans. That's really about it. They're inferior in moisture protection, ability to be cleaned, and hardness. You also have to spend vastly more time prepping the surface until it is smoother than feasible for a person who makes guitars for a living. It's just not economical to do oil finishes as a guitar builder in the flamenco world.
The amount of prep, coats, smoothing in-between, and overall effort nets you about the same amount of work as a well done french polish job. Except one is way cool and the other is an oil finish which will be dented each time you look at it directly lol.
Thanks. I've never tried anything but FP but some customers ask for a tougher finish for the back and sides. Spraying lacquer sounds sort of terrifying and takes a lot of setup.
_____________________________
Andy Culpepper, luthier
http://www.andyculpepper.com
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Date Jun. 4 2016 0:08:30
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) but both decided that there are so many pre-made rosettes available that look great and cost very little that it just wasn't worth the effort. Why not cut the labor and give the customer a better price? 
