Jump to content

1st Day As A Full-time Luthier Today


Recommended Posts

Seen it happen, and seen it fixed. I guess it depends on if you are a LUTHIER, or a TECH (or, maybe a HACK). NEXT!

Perry, since you're in Australia, I can assume that you've never seen how the US civil court system works. Here's how it works:

I would like to illustrate my point with a story. Let's say Mike gets in a 1964 Gibson SG with a book value of $9500 USD that needs a setup or minor repair. In the process of doing the work, something bad and unforeseen happens: the guitar comes loose from the jig or vice, and falls on the headstock, snapping it off. While I'm sure Mike could repair the headstock, the value of the instrument has been tremendously diminished by the headstock repair, even if the functionality is returned to normal. As such, even if he repairs it, he's going to be liable to the owner for any of the diminished value, plus legal fess if he's sued, plus court costs, plus possible damages if they can prove that it was done negligently. With business insurance, his policy provider sends a lawyer and they handle either settling the case (and having a judgement against you or your business is not good for future loans and most jobs) or defending you in court. If he loses, they pay the judgement up to coverage limit of your policy, which hopefully can cover it.

Link to comment
Congrads Mike!! and best of luck to you.

I was curious as to what length of warranty are given with the repairs you perform? For instance if its a 6 month warranty and a guitar comes back within that period with a problem related to the original work, who pays? are you doin a freebie?

Reason I ask is because Im in the Automotive Repair biz and everything is put in writing. -Vinny

As far as a warranty on my repairs, the company that I am associated with stands behind our work 100% unconditionally. For the first week, tweaks are on the house. After that, it's back to the average pay-scale (unless something was grossly overlooked from the original service rendered, then it's on the house again).

We do have everything (I mean EVERYTHING) in writing for this contracted agreement as well as anything done for a customer or store. As long as I work on a guitar at a recognized location (ie: a Guitar Center or the contracting company which is a full-blown repair shop itself), I am legally covered under their insurance for the guitar.

Now, as far as being able to "make it" doing this for a living, I have a particular case which some people don't have. Being that I am contracted to work in a store on both customer guitars and store stock guitars, I don't run out of jobs to do. Everything gets a set-up that enters/leaves the store's stock. So, everything sold, hanging, or received from a shipment is work for me to do. Used or new; it doesn't matter. So, someone in this case is always able to find something to work on and get paid for. Customer guitars are only another pipeline of business. So, as long as I do as much work throughout the day as I see fit, I will survive & so would anyone else in my scenario. Most people don't have a Guitar Center full of instruments that need maintenance, thus the jump to conclusion that "this isn't a good job to make a living off of". I'm not saying it's easy or care-free. But, all in all it is a totally "do-able" job.

Link to comment
Perry, since you're in Australia, I can assume that you've never seen how the US civil court system works. Here's how it works:

I would like to illustrate my point with a story. Let's say Mike gets in a 1964 Gibson SG with a book value of $9500 USD that needs a setup or minor repair. In the process of doing the work, something bad and unforeseen happens: the guitar comes loose from the jig or vice, and falls on the headstock, snapping it off. While I'm sure Mike could repair the headstock, the value of the instrument has been tremendously diminished by the headstock repair, even if the functionality is returned to normal. As such, even if he repairs it, he's going to be liable to the owner for any of the diminished value, plus legal fess if he's sued, plus court costs, plus possible damages if they can prove that it was done negligently. With business insurance, his policy provider sends a lawyer and they handle either settling the case (and having a judgement against you or your business is not good for future loans and most jobs) or defending you in court. If he loses, they pay the judgement up to coverage limit of your policy, which hopefully can cover it.

Ah but you see the Oz Civil Court system is a bit different, first and most important is to strip and salvage the best bits of the SG and then bury the rest of the evidence (burning is acceptable)..threaten then to sue the guy who owns the SG because he contracted your services and never handed over the instrument to be worked on thereby incurring a breach of contract....then threaten to kill each other, get violence orders placed on each other, discover then that you are actually distant relations...talk guitar for three hours with each other then its down to the pub for a rum...all sorted. A tragedy has then effectively been turned into a positive by getting one more over priced Gibson off the scene and everybody ended up in the pub with rum in hand!

oops nearly forgot! B) B) :D :D :D

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...