trivium91 -> RE: Concert Guitar vs Student Guitar (Sep. 1 2022 22:44:49)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ernandez R I wrote the following a few days ago over to the Delcamp: Ive been thinking about this thread and what the OP is asking and also what they had not asked. I’m a beginning luthier but I don’t make traditional Spanish guitars or use traditional woods so I’m out of the running as it were. But…. anyone in todays market asking for a hand made guitar for $2000-3000 USD, well its posable those days are done. I figure about 200-250 hours to build one of my guitars, most of my woods start with a , tree, log, or billet. Takes time to processes this wood, I’m not just buying tops or pre carved necks from LMI and in fact the only parts I do not make from something are the frets and the strings. Ok you got me, I don’t scrape the bug **** off the trees to make my shellac buttons or distill the alcohol to thin it with, I don’t even know what a linseed look like, and the envrimentslst in me just looks the other way when I’m squeezing the two components out of the epoxy tubes…. Ok, say I rock one out at 200 hours and agree for you to pay $2000, thats $10.00 an hour and we haven’t even payed for the shop rental electricity and heating oil, we suffer up here in Alaska without air conditioning cause, well cause we can. Now, this 200 hour guitar is going to be a standard shape and scale, oh you want/need a shorter scale? Oh my, now all me pre cut pieces of wood don’t fit, my molds and bending jigs and binding strips, my fret slotting set ups, wow, that custom scale and neck etc just added another 20-50 hours. Rosette? Custom? Ha ha haha hai haaaaa I’m going to the mad house cause I can’t afford to go to the poor house. Ill tell you secret, I built my vary first guitar in fourteen days, twelve to sixteen hour days cause I’m like that, a little OCD, a little on the spectrum, a little bit country and a little bit rock-n-roll. Shhhhh, Today I could whip out a guitar in about sixty hours, probably forty, but you wouldn’t want it and I wouldn’t sign my name to it. Why do you think the cheap versions most of the luthiers who post here sell come unsigned? My latest guitar just went to the gallery at $5,600, I’ve probably have better then three hundred hours in her but who’s counting, the gallery takes their cut, at that rate we are talking about $15 an hour, I would make more washing dishes at my partners restaurant, get tips, and a free shift meal… I see you are on the east coast- cull pepper, Northern New York , Andy Culpepper, this is the luthier you want, think a little more about your needs, woods and details, and yes even that ‘shorter scale’ then give him a ring. He is not new and up and coming but he is fresh and just might bend that little bit you need to meet somewhere in the middle of your playing needs and his empty luthier wallet. And don’t get me wrong, If you were in the northwest or Alaska I would sell you one of my guitars like selling ice cubes to Eskimos… HR ps. I wrote this partially tongue in cheek ;) please don't take offense. Makes perfect sense, so really the time estimate I had was not far off. The asking prices are fully justified especially considering the cost of living these days. Making a guitar is like artwork. My father builds hot rods and it’s the same thing with time, he also puts his blood sweat and tears into the project. It kind of reminds me a Paco though, as talented as he was and has intense his practice his net worth was still only 1.5 million, yet Taylor swift is 400 million, go figure. At any rate, im sure down the road i will buying another guitar somehow and it will have to be a luthier built one from one of you fine gentlemen on here.
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