Hi, Im New

[smurfIE]

Hey, i'm new.

I also have a question. Currently i'm working on a MAJOR re-work of a BC Rich Warlock. Its a huge project. We're talking sustainer, GHOST pickup, EMG active pickup, new neck, new paint job, various other electronic things like a kill switch and jaguar control plate, and a custom fret guard (totally custom shape etc). Basically, i got the guitar for €200, and i'm putting about €1500 into doing it up. Just wondering though, if i go to sell it, will it actually sell? like are people willing to pay money for a heavily customised guitar?

[Mattia]

In a word....no. I'd be incredibly surprised if you got more than 70% of your initial investment back. The base guitar dictates the price, and most 'upgrades' or 'customizations' will tend to decrease rather than increase it's market value. Some folks are willing to pay top dollar for custom work, but only for custom work to their specifications.

[Supernova9]

I agree, I'll even go so far as to bet you that you wouldn't get even 1/2 of any money you put into doing the guitar up. Why? Because give someone a choice of either spending 1700 Euros on a new guitar, or 1700 Euros on an old guitar with parts put in by an unknown person (regardless of how good the parts are), and the choice is obvious. No matter what you do to it, it'll still be, at base, a Bronze series BC Rich.

Edited March 18, 2007 by Supernova9

[smurfIE]

right.... so it'd be pointless putting it on ebay and such?

[Prostheta]

Yes it would be, because you might as well keep your €1500 and invest it in something that might make you a better return! If you want to spend €1500 on your own guitar then cool - we've all done that before - but to do it with selling it in mind....just Paypal me your money instead and believe me, it'll go to a better cause and you'd get the same return ;-D

[smurfIE]

right. cos i was hoping to kinda do that as a sort of a side hobby thing with a few friends of mine. one of them is doind up a les paul, and another is doing up a peavey bass of some sort. Is there anyway of going about selling customised guitars and making any sort of a return on them?

[thegarehanman]

You'll be lucky to make a reasonable return building guitars from scratch where the profit margin is much higher.

[smurfIE]

i assume all this is talking from experience?

[thegarehanman]

Absolutely not , don't believe a word any of us say. Spend your money as you please and consider your loss a charitable donation to poor musicians.

[Reaper]

The primary reason is that if someone's going to drop that kind of scratch for a custom axe, they're going to get it customized to THEIR options.

[smurfIE]

lol! what i meant was, are you absolutely sure that if i do up a guitar and put it on ebay that it'd be more unlikely than likely that i'll sell it for a good return?

[thegarehanman]

Bottom line is you will take a loss. It's hard to say what that loss will be since who knows who will be looking on ebay at the time, or what that person's "dream guitar" will be, or even what your workmanship is like. The retail cost of parts is just too high for there to be a reasonable chance for you to assemble a guitar from premade parts to your specifications with no name recognition and then make a profit. I know this sounds pessimistic, but I'd hate to see you get your hopes up and be crushed by the results

Edited March 18, 2007 by thegarehanman

[smurfIE]

good point. anything you'd suggest then?

[thegarehanman]

Um...suggestions?...find a career with job security? Really, if there were any guitar related easy money making schemes, we'd have already exploited them around here already, we are about 4 thousand strong on this board I think. You can make money building guitars from scratch, but that's still not simple.

EDIT: If you're looking to make some cash doing something guitar related. Look into learning how to repair guitars and do setups. I mean really read up on it. Buy and read as much literature as you can, talk to as many people as possible regarding the subject. Then practice on your own instruments. On top of this you could do modifications to other people's guitars to their specifications and charge them for parts, a markup, and your labor. If you have no experience in this field, then a fair charge for your labor would be in the -|minimum wage| range. When you start practicing on your own instruments and getting the craft down, then you can stop paying your customers and work for free for a while until you could be considered a pro.

I know you don't like hearing all of this pessimism, but you'll have to understand we've seen tons of guys come through here looking to make a quick buck and screwing honest musicians out of their hard earned cash for poorly done repairs and modifications.

peace,

russ

Edited March 19, 2007 by thegarehanman

[smurfIE]

the thing about a career, is im on that track. I'm in college studying architecture (6 more years to go woo!), and this summer im working in a clothes shop. The thing is, I'm seriously into guitars, but i really don't have the time to be in a band. I've this warlock, a peavey rotor exp and a vintage spanish accoustic guitar which i cant remember the name of it for the life of me, and i'm also really into electronics, thats why i thought doing this as a sort of a side-job-hobby type thing might be a decent way to pass the time and make a few quid here and there.

edit:

just read your edit there. I intend to practice on my peavey rotor. I'm ordering a q-tuner pickup, and i'll probably get a sustainer for it too. I've plenty experience with schematics, soldering etc, but i suppose one of my problems is i haven't the first clue when it comes to cutting wood for doing things like cavaty's etc. But i know a few friends who do, and have the tools etc.

Edited March 19, 2007 by smurfIE

[thegarehanman]

Well, if you really know your stuff regarding electronics, then consider inventing new and unique effects pedals and similar devices. There's a niche market for bizarre sounding, hand built guitar pedals.

[smurfIE]

i've a few ideas for them, but they're really awkward to make, and would end up pretty big (like the size of a rackmount). I was tempted to have a go at building a pedal into a guitar? like take one apart and just wire the circuit into the guitar's body?

[aidlook]

i've a few ideas for them, but they're really awkward to make, and would end up pretty big (like the size of a rackmount). I was tempted to have a go at building a pedal into a guitar? like take one apart and just wire the circuit into the guitar's body?

I have serious doubt that that would be profitable.

The effects you spoke of does seem like the way to go for a profit margin. Have you ever looked at the price boutique effects are selling for, and the price of the components. The margin is huge!

If you built a good sounding effect the size of a rackmount you'd probably be able to sell that for quite a lot of money, if you market it right.

[Reaper]

Well, if you really know your stuff regarding electronics, then consider inventing new and unique effects pedals and similar devices. There's a niche market for bizarre sounding, hand built guitar pedals.

That's going to be only marginally easier to get started in (due to the cost of purchasing a strange pedal vs strange axe), but to even get to Keeley's level, you have to have a lot of background, and the general path would be roughly the same (speculating here, but I don't think it's unreasonable).

Keep in mind, you also have to be able to offer something new and different in that regard. If all you do is make a generic clone of a Boss pedal, a lot of folks are going to say "f*** it", and buy the Boss. You have to know what is going to modify each pedal in each direction, and how you want to shift your filters and time constants, gain stages, and matching networks to push the pedal in the right direction. You can do it, and if you make it big, you can make a fair bit of cash, but you really have to know what you're doing.

I'll agree with russ: if you're looking for a side gig to the architecture thing, working as a tech might be the way to go. I'd also recommend (if you can) get as much experience as you can doing your own work, then see if a small store might take you in (working for free, or minimum wage) working with one of their techs until you get enough experience to fly solo on that.

[rhoads56]

The effects you spoke of does seem like the way to go for a profit margin. Have you ever looked at the price boutique effects are selling for, and the price of the components. The margin is huge!

If you built a good sounding effect the size of a rackmount you'd probably be able to sell that for quite a lot of money, if you market it right.

Of course, you arent taking into consideration, a bunch of other factors that determine just how much your profit will be, AND how many you'll sell:

rent

hourly rate and time to assemble per unit

design time

marketting (adverts, websites, posters, pamphlets)

markup (retail takes 40% MINIMUM on large $$$ items, more for smaller items)

product failure

product warranty

tools for production

stock

distribution costs

time setting up distribution

business registration costs

insurance

bla bla bla

[Mattia]

Perry's got a bunch of good points, but that's from an actual 'setting up a business' perspective. If you want to make a few bucks on the side, or more realistically, have a hobby that pays for itself (which I haven't achieved yet, mind you, and I doubt I'll really recoup the investment I have in tools in a monetary sense), it might be doable. But it may take a while to get things built up, and unless you've got a good friends market to 'sell' to at a bit to double material costs (which is a good place to start). Thing is, even in the 'friends market', it takes a while to get things where they need to be; first you gotta get the experience and skills to do things well enough for a saleable product or service. And that takes a while.

Seriously, lots of folks here dream of at least getting a return on the often thousands of dollars they invest in their own isntruments, knowing full-well they're unlikely to get much of anything back if they try selling their stuff second-hand. Hell, the main reason it's more feasible for me to build stuff now is quite simply because I had enough money to invest in quite a lot of tools, and mostly a massive boaload of wood in raw timber form, which is about 60-70% cheaper (if not more) than buying prepared blanks from suppliers. I've still got significant hardware costs (I'm not a buisness, can't order hardware wholesale, so it's retail prices for me).

[GodBlessTexas]

Um...suggestions?...find a career with job security?

No such bloody thing, unfortunately. No, not even if you work for yourself.

/I worked for Enron.

//Yes, I was there when the company started to go under, and I was responsible for the project that brought all the accounting stuff to the surface in 2000/2001.

///Got my pink slip 6 years ago day and date.

Edited March 19, 2007 by GodBlessTexas

[fryovanni]

Hey, i'm new.

I also have a question. Currently i'm working on a MAJOR re-work of a BC Rich Warlock. Its a huge project. We're talking sustainer, GHOST pickup, EMG active pickup, new neck, new paint job, various other electronic things like a kill switch and jaguar control plate, and a custom fret guard (totally custom shape etc). Basically, i got the guitar for €200, and i'm putting about €1500 into doing it up. Just wondering though, if i go to sell it, will it actually sell? like are people willing to pay money for a heavily customised guitar?

You are going to have a heck of a time even coming close to breaking even. However..... Here is a trick if you want to try to just make money. Go to Ebay or other places where fellas like yourself had the idea of bolting on expensive parts and buy the guitars cheap(trust me you will find them). Then you can dismantel the guitars and sell the parts to other fellas with the bright idea of making "customs". You should be able to turn a profit if you buy and sell right. You are definately not the first, only or most definately last young fella to have the idea( like they say there is one born every minute). Parts are usually worth more than the whole, unless there is a name associated with the guitar(and that means "original" is desirable).

Look for the old peavey with the retail Duncans, Nice Sperzel locking tuners, Hipshot Bridge, and brand new shiny harware . Lipstick on a pig, does not raise the value of the ham

Peace,Rich

[smurfIE]

thanks for the various help all. I suppose it would be a good idea to start small. I'm going to practice by putting a fernandes sustainer and q-tuner pickups in my peavey. I also just found out that there's a shop in town where people can sell their old (often done up, and of course with T's and C's) up for sale there. My friend was in there today and saw a strat with a strange neck on it. It looked like a vintage one.

also, does anyone know if there's any money in buying vintage guitars, restoring them, then selling them on?

[aidlook]

The effects you spoke of does seem like the way to go for a profit margin. Have you ever looked at the price boutique effects are selling for, and the price of the components. The margin is huge!

If you built a good sounding effect the size of a rackmount you'd probably be able to sell that for quite a lot of money, if you market it right.

Of course, you arent taking into consideration, a bunch of other factors that determine just how much your profit will be, AND how many you'll sell:

rent

hourly rate and time to assemble per unit

design time

marketting (adverts, websites, posters, pamphlets)

markup (retail takes 40% MINIMUM on large $$$ items, more for smaller items)

product failure

product warranty

tools for production

stock

distribution costs

time setting up distribution

business registration costs

insurance

bla bla bla

true if you wanted to start up a business on a bigger scale. If you want to make effect pedals and sell them one by one as a side thing a lot of the factors are rationalized

rent - I don't see why no-one couldn't solder at home.

hourly rate and time to assemble per unit - this wasn't intended to make a living off. But yeah, you probably have to realize that you might not have the greatest houryly salary.

design time - He did say he already had some designs.

marketting (adverts, websites, posters, pamphlets). Selling on-line would probably be the way to go.

markup (retail takes 40% MINIMUM on large $$$ items, more for smaller items) - Doesn't seem like he wanted to sell his stuff through a retailer though...

product failure - good point, gotta make shure that everything you send out the door is good enough not to come back.

product warranty - good point

tools for production - Assuming since he's an electronics geek he'd have most of the required stuff.

stock - small scale would probably be smarter to sell them as they're finished.

distribution costs - Customer pays for shipping??

time setting up distribution - not a major factor on such a small scale.

business registration costs- different due to what country you live in. On a very small scale this could probably be overlooked.

insurance - not a big worry on a very small scale either.

bla bla bla

I'd say don't spend large amounts of your money at once and be desperate to sell it.

And also reading your last post made it seem like you were still going with the "putting expensive parts in cheap guitars"-idea. Honestly it is a very bad idea, why would someone pay someone else, with no experience, to put extra stuff that they don't get to choose themselves , into a guitar that they don't get to choose.

The probability of you finding a customer who wants that exact combination of hardware and guitar, and who is willing to pay more than the guitar+parts for you to install them, is very slim.

I still say go with the effects pedals.