Making a career out of Custom Guitars, pickups, pedals and woodworking?

[FuzzFace]

I was looking at Kiesel and the plant tour and I was wondering to myself, how long do small time guitar builders rely on hand tools and the eyes before they invest in CNC machines?

I mean how do you shape the curves etc on a guitar body to be perfectly the same every time, Id have thought impossible?

I live in a small country, biggest city is about 1.7mill people, 5mill total. So there is not a lot of demand for custom guitars, so Id imagine it is something to combine with other skills, like Luthier work, which I think wouldnt be too bad in the bigger city.

I dont know how I ended up in an office career, well, nobody t school told me the things I wish I knew now, not complex things, but what life is like if you choose XYZ career.

I was terrible, I only went to play sports. And nobody told me there were careers in those either. Had somebody told me their a reasonable paying careers in Engineering and Woodworking classes, Id have made a bigger effort. Surprisingly the one class I excelled at was Design Technology (CAD/Industrial design) and yet nobody told me there was a career in industrial design, which i really regret not studying, but it took me a long time to realise what they do and how cool that is.

So I like working with my hands and fixing things. People know I worked in IT so I fix PCs, Macs and even Cellphones. 

Im starting to wonder with some more Luthier experience, I could mix Luthier work with some fixing of technical devices and maybe a bit of custom build to order guitars (need a lot more experience first). Im also interested in Guitar Pickups and Pedals, but not sure there is much money in Pedals and Pickups?. I also considered learning carpentry so I have the skills to build custom made furniture, doing some Tertiary training for that one. Im not sure what else I could do to make a decent living.....?

I have a Diploma in Small Business Management (1 year) and I have another degree in Commerce (running big companies). So I have all the business skills, ie marketing, accounting etc

Edited August 23, 2022 by FuzzFace

[Bizman62]

1 hour ago, FuzzFace said:

I mean how do you shape the curves etc on a guitar body to be perfectly the same every time, Id have thought impossible?

Good craftmanship. Guarneri and Stratovari didn't have CNC... Or lutes that have a bowl back made of dozens of beveled stripes!

Building guitars may not be enough for making a living, a hand made guitar takes months to build and finish but there's very few people who'd like to pay by the hour! Musicians that would like a bespoke guitar are usually poor, the wealthy ones most likely would go and buy something that already has an established reputation. Building pickups and pedals can help. Even with those you may find out that there's not enough hours in a day or that your body just can't do it.

I know Veijo who is a trained master luthier. He once told that a Canadian music shop wanted to place a small order for his pickups to test how they would sell over there. The first batch would have been 300 pieces. Well, the winding machine does some 500 rpm, more or less and a pickup has some 5000+ windings. You might think that you'd wind like four pickups in an hour at that speed, including changing the bobbins in between. Doing 8 hour days 5 days a week that'd be two weeks, piece of cake! Umm, no... Think about the length of the wire, there's about half a mile of wire in every pickup and when doing hand wiring you control the tension by pinching the wire between your fingers. Plus you do some wiggling to scatter wind plus you may cut the wire and continue with another gauge to get the character your pickups are known for.

It's not a gold mine... But as my brother-in-law tends to say, if you're the best in your branch you'll succeed.

[FuzzFace]

4 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

It's not a gold mine... But as my brother-in-law tends to say, if you're the best in your branch you'll succeed.

Well I guess there goes my idea of escaping an office haha. People just dont want to pay for craftmanship is what I hear. And I think to a degree Im the same. But we do buy local art and native fauna artistry. They seem to have no problem selling their prints for $200 a piece. Shame I cant draw to save myself haha.

[nakedzen]

Not directly related, but some good info on entrepreneurship. Fist you need a product/idea that's better than the competition. Custom strats and teles don't bring the money, unless you're aiming for small builder/local customers.