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Helldunkel

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Everything posted by Helldunkel

  1. Yes I understand that, BUT if you want to create several templates for different pickup sizes this is a great idea. I'm sure that you can find a local company who has a laser OR maybe water jet cutter, probably even online... And yeah you will have to pay a certain price for the first template but serioussly when you think about it, how many thin acrylic templates do you screw up? Having one original template cut out to maxi tolerance and then use it to build different size templates is a great idea, I'm also using this technique for the neck pocket templates BTW... Over here they charged me 150 of your $ for cutting out the template (they also created the programm included in that price), the price of a pickup, so? Its worth all the money For a laser / water jet company its very easy, its only a 2D application
  2. Just a way of replicating an original template which in my case was made out from stainless steel onto some plywood which is much safer to use... This way you can build as much templates as you wish and you always have the original template as a reference. I made this video today for fun, enjoy and sorry for my bad english Building your guitar pickup routing templates another great application of this technique is when you build 7 and 8 string pickup routing templates, by using this method you can be using the 6 string template and shift it to create new templates for bigger pickups
  3. Oh yes but that should be commun knowledge for anybody wanting to start a business really... But your 100% correct, most guys think that building guitars is sooooo coooolllll and then only realise how tough it is when they actually have the guts to really enter the real world...
  4. Yes exactly, I agree. See, my basic model starts at 2'700$ I call it the H6E (shipping coast included as for all of my guitars) I dont make any profit out of it and this is the reason why I ask for a full non returnable deposit to get started because it covers the building costs and working hours, that's it..... And like I said it depends a lots in which countries you all live and which cost living expenses you must face. For the small builder, producing cheaper instruments is a double blade situation, if you dont do it well you might get a conotation of cheap builder and people will not see your finer builds as top of the range anymore... And if you cant face up with customer services and start to show weakness then you are screwed. Humans have a tendency to have a symdrom which the scientifics call the opinion's based first impression...
  5. Here is a very well written and very informative article which was written by mister Darren Wilson. The link to the article where you can also find part 2 http://decibelguitars.com/why-guitars-cost-what-they-do-part-i/
  6. This is exactly what I am talking about... Its not realistic to build two $2,000 guitars a month and I will explain why. I take you as an example, as you are from the United States so its easier for me to explain. The basic costs to actually build your instrument if, like me, you live in Switzerland, will come up to about $800. You don't have to pay import tax and international shipping charges within the USA. I do, to get some of my components. If you sell a custom guitar for $1'200, this would imply that my working hours would be worth $400. Just so you know, one of the good ways of measuring the cost of living is to compare what a Big Mac costs. In the USA, it's $---. Here, it's ---Swiss francs. Over here it would be impossible for you to make a living unless you actually sold 4 of your guitars per month. You would also probably need to offer repair jobs - to keep going at all. Which part of this money will you be using when a tool breaks and needs replacing? Which part of this money will you be using to market yourself and pay for promotion of your work? Talking about working hours... I once calculated that in order to make zero profit from a guitar, I'd need to sell it for exactly $2'700. Anything less, and I'd loose money. So, knowing that I must eat and need a roof, you can just see how much personal benefit I make when I selling a guitar at $3'500. If you are a luthier who is living in an inexpensive country, such as Poland, Belarus, Romania etc., then you would be living like a king on the same amount. In Belarus, the average salary is €750. In Switzerland it's close to $3,500. You can live close to 4 months in Belarus for the same price as you can for one in Switzerland. When people compare the prices of various luthiers on the net, - 'Hey, this guy offers more options for the same price! wow! OMG!' - they are not taking the cost of living into account. The same people also expect a lifetime warranty from you! In fact, in Switzerland, you wont find any luthier who would build a simple superstrat oil-finished instrument under $5'500. I'm an exception because I try and make my instruments 'affordable' for customers who don't understand this and live overseas. Many of my collegues over here tell me to raise my prices. Sounds crazy eh? Over here, my instruments are actually $2,000 cheaper then a Gibson Les Paul custom.... The price of an instrument will also reflect your name, experience, investment in design, your craft, the players who play on your instruments and so on... If you can afford an Ervin Somogyi guitar, you know that you will need to pay a minimum of $35,000 for it. It's also unfounded when people say that my prices or the prices of a Blackmachine are expensive, what a joke!!!!
  7. I love the ribbon figurine which you get on sapelli, in some very rare cases I did find some bees wings figurine, that was epic! These are for some 6 strings cheers
  8. This thread is interesting because it really does reflect the difference between guys who are doing this as a hobby and professionals who are making their livelihood from this profession. I know of very few 'luthiers' who actually make a living strictly building guitars. Most of them have 'bread-earning' work to keep on track and make a living. In fact, most of them have another job. I am very fortunate myself in being able to say that I only build. I make a living building guitars BUT this also represents a huge investment. Initially, I went to study overseas in the US and that didn't come cheap. I have also clocked up over 15 years of work and sacrifice, which I would never advocate to anyone. It's that tough. How can you possibly make a living selling a guitar for less then $3000 - 3,500? Its just not realistic. In order to make a livelihood (and a modest one at that) and pay monthly bills, I must find enough orders to be able to build at least 12 guitars per year. Should orders dip beneath this, I need to live on my meagre savings. There is this blindness about people who compare prices of guitar makers without thinking about the difference in the cost of living in the countries where they live and work. I've read somewhere on this thread that a Gibson is $4,000? Over here, they sell for $5,700 for a normal Les Paul custom... A Petrucci Sig 7 string signature does not sell for $2'800 here, but $8'900. I'm not joking, these are the prices in Switzerland. There are actually similar problems in France too and people are starting to get very frustrated. Another point about forums and the internet. There will always be the haters, jealous people, trolls etc. that's just how horrible humans can be - as negative as they can be positive. You will also encouter romance scammers who will try and ripp you off. Believe me, the majority tries to do just that whenever possible. BUT, I am the living proof that the negative can actually bring you customers. Just recently one such person, who is a forum moderator, started to put me down yet again. He's been doing that for the past 2 years and won't even let me talk to him to try and clarify a few points of which he is unaware. The whole fuss generated 3 orders. It's impossible to find a better endorser really... If you start a business as a full time guitar maker, I would suggest that you take a marketing communication training course. This will give you the tools you'll need to get started. I have a background in luxury industry marketing, so I know how important communication is. Many luthiers whom I know never bother to reply to emails. I reply as quickly as I can and invariably customers thank me, adding that luthiers never bother to reply ***? It's obvious it's much better to be aware. Horror stories happen, even to guys who have a good reputation. Take the time to deal with them in the best way possible to make your customer happy. In the end this shows how professional you are. There are guitar builders out there who run away and don't reply to the customer, hiding behind the 'spam' excuse.... If you don't want to make a business strictly building guitars and have a guitar which you built and want to sell, make sure that you cover your costs. Don't loose out on the sale. If the instrument has some imperfections BE SURE to point them out to the customer and have him sign a paper acknowledging his awareness. Keep the history of the email exchange in an archive (something which I always do). That way he can't start to badmouth you for not having been up front with him should there be any imperfection. Most important, whatever you do, don't fall for hype. It's only there for a while but never lasts. I avoid it as much as I can. Just my 2cents, of course. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Just a comment on, 'luthiers never communicate'. Here are some statistics from last year to give you an idea whether or not this argument is founded: In 2010 I received: -987 contact forms from my website requesting prices and info... -250 endorsement requests -300 messages such as 'Hey, Hufschmid, how do you do this - how do you do that?" Of these, only 25 people bothered to reply to the detailed and informative emails I sent them in good faith and there were 13 serious new customers from them all. Yeah, luthiers are really bad at communication!
  9. Perfectly normal, Gibson uses a single way truss rod, you can only adjust it clockwise... You can not adjust the rod counter clockwise I'm afraid...
  10. Indeed, read the posts and you will find the reply to your question.... easy, 4 posts above yours.... You guys are really starting to get funny sweet, I do exactly the same when gluying a flat fingerboard but unlike you, I spread the clamps more evenly, in your case your are really missing pressure on the sides...
  11. The price of a pickup can be determined by several factors, the first one would be how big is your company, how many pickups do you sell, how much have you invested to build them, in which country do you live etc... (basic marketing etc), coast of materials, the infrastructure you are using to produce them etc.. to much variants to compare the small and the big companies really... In my case I recently decided to stop selling my exclusive pickups to the general public because it was not worth it. I was selling my pickups 460 CHF = 480 USD + shipping for the set of humbuckers which was actually a very good price for what you get considering that they are also handmade by mister Armstrong himself and that on my side I had spent thousands on the various master templates design to create the moulds. But the price I was selling them for was not enough to make a single cents profit out of a sale... I was actually loosing money So I decided to stop and only keep the exclusivity for my guitars which is ok for me because I never really made a business selling my pickups, I was only selling them occasionally upon request...
  12. right on, I edited the first post with that google link you provided, thanks
  13. I like sharing wood Of course dude, he ships his wood everywhere You can even buy pre made laminations for making necks... I dont speak german so I'm having trouble navigating on the website but you get the general wood feeling dont you? I made this funny poster a couple months ago:
  14. There is a new wood dealer from germany who is pretty much doing an epic job at finding some stunning woods! The following pictures may contain information which will give you serious wood! haha For any non-German speaking people: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.holz-faszination.de/home/node/2&prev=_t more crazy stuff here! http://www.holz-faszination.de/home/node/7 hmmmm this is the most crazy piece of quilt sapelli I have ever seen in my life!
  15. Both sides are of course totally trued up and perfectly flat. And I dont understand why somebody would not perfectly true up his work before starting working on it, makes no sens to me. But since the very first OP I been repeating countless times that I work on perfectly flat surfaces Everyone his own techniques and his reasons...
  16. Where did I mention that the fingerboard is flat? The radius has been pre cut before I glue the board you can clearly see on the pictures that the fingerboard surface has a radius... The neck however must be flat on both surfaces since its down to final dimention... I've never heard of anybody who leaves one side not flat and who carves the excess wood away when building a bolt-on neck, this is new information which is in no books about guitar construction... Unless I misunderstood your comment? You probably have good reasons for the techniques you are using and I have also found ''the ideal'' solution for my building ways... I wonder if there is so much going on when somebody posts pictures using a go bar deck to glue bracing on an acoustic guitar top because I am actually using the same principle, myself being a formely trained acoustic guitar builder first...
  17. Same here, its just pointless arguying really... (not saying its bad or anything, the reasons of the above comment are perfectly valid but I dont adhere to them at all - scientifics can also contradict themselfes ) But having built over 50 guitars using this technique (funny, I never post something without full hands of experience on it), I can definitively say that this is a very good technique which is giving me better and cleaner results then with the previous 230 guitars I have built using various other techniques... And I just wanted to share it... PS: My work is also famous for poor jointery which shows glue lines...
  18. It really depends of how much spalt the maple has... If its becomming brittle, then my advice would be like Our Souls inc. pointed out, that would be to laminate it on something else to stabilise it and make it stiffer. If the spalt is not trully exagerated and as long as the fungus is dead then the top is just as tough as a regular maple board and you can use it as a top itself without any problem... One of the ways to kill the fungus is to steam the board but you must then leave it clamped flat for several days and make sure that its perfectly dry (8%) in order to use it... Because I use oil finishes, I've already steamed a board, here is an exemple of a spalt maple top guitar I have built last year. The guitar is not hallow but I could have used it as a top on a hallow body without any problem, it was very tough:
  19. Sorry but from a purely mechanical standpoint and if everything is dead flat which is the case in this exemple, then you are actually getting perfectly even pressure across the entire board... BTW there is no glue in the center of the board, you must never glue your truss rod and the glue must be spread out of the rod aera... Never put glue in the slot it will hinder the function of the truss rod. ... And I was using titebond on this exemple... Also over clamping produces stresses in the wood that can work against the joint staying together. Too much pressure compresses the joint where glued, and when the glue cures and the wood relaxes, you have a joint that may have different properties of adhesion. In the exemple of a guitar neck this can contribute to add some upbow or backbow to the neck
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