Helldunkel

Great, but what about those among us that don't have access to a laser stainless steel cutting CNC?

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

edit

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

@Huf - Excellent input. I had no idea that guitars cost so much in Switz...

One thing you forgot to mention (if you did sorry I missed it) is the Insurance, Personal Employment Tax, Taxes and other costs of running a business in the real world. My real job covers those things but if I were to only build guitars I have no way to pay those things without a store front (and doing repairs).

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...

I agree with that, but it also depends on your business setup. We're about to start a less expensive line that will likely make up most of the business. We're going to start selling them at just over $2000, then go from there. I had to go through a lot of people, but parts and wood will run about $400 and I've come up with a good way to make them quickly. If they start selling, it'll turn a decent profit (decent for me... at least for now). We'll raise the price later, but it'll be cheap for a while as an intro price to get people playing them.

While I'm doing that, I'll be making two customs at a time which will take longer, but cost much more. I currently have four either ongoing or about to start, ranging from $3000 to $6000 (my prices have rising steadily. The $3000 one is the oldest and the $6000 is the newest).

I have a couple agents who I pay a commission to if they sell one and my shops rent is only $400, soon to be $330 (I split it with some sculptors).

Things have been picking up and, if it works out like we think it will, this new line should sell well.

My point is, even though they're going to be near $2000, it's enough to make business, if it's planned properly. If you're making them one by one and by hand, then $2000 won't cut it. I know some builders who can do that, but they all make strat copies and things like that. I don't actually know how much business they do, though.

Thin

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...

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/

A while back, i posted a couple of brief pieces on sevenstring.org that looked at the high-level economics of running a small guitar business. I still get occasional requests for a link back to the original posts, so i thought i’d extract it, update it and post it here, so there’s a more permanent (and easily-found) record of it. This is the first of two parts.

Why guitars cost what they do.

I’ve noticed in the last few years that there has been increasing demand for “custom shop” instruments. It’s one of those things that ebbs and flows over time, and the current economic situation notwithstanding, we seem to be on one of those upward swings where guitarists reach a certain level in their playing, and they’re no longer satisfied with “off-the-shelf” instruments, and start looking for something unique, something different, or something that just suits them better.

Along with this trend, i’ve also noticed (in general terms) that the average age and pocketbook depth of people seeking boutique or custom-shop instruments seems to be inversely proportional to the demand. I can’t count the number of threads on guitar discussion forums i’ve seen where a young player thinks he or she can get a guitar built to their spec for $1000 or less. A worrying trend is that there have actually been a few luthiers who will take them up on it.

Yet when you stop and look at what the true costs of building guitars as a small independent builder, you get a very different picture. No matter how you frame it, penny-pinching, perpetually broke musicians often don’t seem to understand why their dream custom guitar from a small builder should actually cost much, much more than the $1000 they’re willing to shell out. They can’t comprehend why the price list at a big-name custom shop like Jackson starts at around $3500. Click past the break to read more…

Lots of luthiers command premium prices… and they should.

It’s really hard to make a living at building guitars full-time. Unless a luthier is charging premium prices for their product, (or they’re cranking stuff out in volume) in order to have a profitable business that’s going to grow – and pay themselves a decent wage so they can have a house, a car, a family and a life – they need to charge what the guitars are actually worth, and not be afraid to actually make a profit on every instrument sold.

For example, take a look at the range of pricing on David Myka‘s site. He’s a small builder whose work i admire a lot, and he’s been gradually building a stellar reputation for the last few years. His cheapest guitar starts at $2750, and they go up from there. Way up. Just taking a wild guess, but i wouldn’t be surprised (knowing his work and the kind of players he’s likely attracting) if his average selling price – once the guitars are optioned-up with killer woods and top-notch hardware and pickups – is pushing $4k.

Simple economics.

Say you’re a luthier just getting started. How much do you need to make in a year to have a comfortable life? How much money does your business need for a shop (plus heat and light), tools, raw materials, consumables (blades, drill bits, router bits, paint, glue, etc.) and enough cash flow so you can buy and stockpile wood, hardware and other parts? Add those two numbers together, and that’s your minimum profit you have to make every year.

Let’s just say you want to bring home a modest income of $50k per year. Assuming a cost of about $500 per instrument for the raw wood, hardware, electronics (all at wholesale prices – not retail) and a fairly modest final selling price of $2500, let’s assume half of that profit goes to the business and half goes to pay yourself a fair wage… you would have to build 50 instruments a year at that price to pay yourself that $50k.

That leaves only $50k for the business, for rent, utilities, tools, materials, etc. And that doesn’t even take into account things like a marketing plan to help grow the business, or potentially having to pay a bookkeeper to help run the numbers, or eventually maybe having an extra set of hands to answer phones, take orders, help pack and ship instruments, maintain a Web site, etc. This also doesn’t include the cost of building prototypes, getting tooling, templates and jigs made, the time spent doing research and development, legal fees, taxes and so on. That’s actually a pretty slim profit.

Drop the selling price by 30% and the volume has to increase considerably to maintain a comfortable profit, because your costs are fixed and dropping the selling price has just eaten up your margin. Drop the selling price too far, and the business isn’t profitable (at best) or you can’t make ends meet, can’t even pay yourself, and the business folds (at worst).

Of course, working out of a home workshop will save some of those costs, but it’s still hard to make it a profitable business if you want it to flourish and grow. And some people are actually embarrassed about making a healthy profit. If you’re one of those people, you really need to get over that. Businesses are not sustainable without profit. Period.

The seduction of production… doing it in volume (or die trying)

I think a lot of luthiers chronically under-charge for their work, especially when they’re starting out. Many of them get seduced by the idea of keeping their prices artificially low to spark demand, and then trying to meet their revenue and profit targets by trying to build stuff in volume. They end up keeping the business afloat for a short while on all the deposit money that comes in with the customer orders – robbing Peter to pay Paul, so to speak – and before they know it, they’re in over their heads and staring down a three-year backlog of orders and they’re STILL just barely squeaking by.

These backlogs of work result in lengthy wait times, which inevitably leads to unhappy customers, and real potential for the business to collapse under its own weight. They’re also not likely paying themselves a decent wage while doing this, because they’re working with slim-to-nonexistent profit margins to begin with. And slim profit margins means there’s no money to hire extra hands to try and process the work more quickly. Even if they could build more quickly, if their margins are too slim to begin with, building twice as many instruments won’t make them more profitable… the economies of scale only really start to take effect when you get into larger-scale manufacturing. For the small builder, either you profit or you die. I’ve seen this happen numerous times, when talent, skill and ambition meet terrible business sense.

Based on the numbers above, you’re looking at producing about an instrument a week, on average. With no vacation time or sick days. I think it would be quite a challenge for a one-person shop to deliver an instrument a week. Stretch that timeline out to an instrument every two weeks, and you’d have to double your selling price to $5000 to make sure the cashflow stays in positive territory and you pay yourself a living wage.

As you can see from this very basic introduction to the economics of building guitars, it really is not unreasonable for boutique or custom-shop instruments from small independent luthiers to cost $3500 to $5000 or more.

Now, some people are doing it as a hobby or a part-time pursuit, and aren’t expecting to make a living from it… but guitarists should not make that assumption and pressure prices unrealistically downward.

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!!!!

Huff posted a wicked wood store that was in German the other day... can't remember what thread. But if they were anywhere within driving distance it would be cool to check them out.

Holz Fazination

Goddamn Patrick!!!!!!!!!!!! brutha you are one lucky man having some lumber like that on tap Sapelli is a very nice wood to work with and I do use them on some of my builds. Those tops are gonna make some serious guitars brutha 7 strings ?

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

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!

edit

I have a pretty low action, and was getting some fret buzz in a new Les Paul. i measured neck relif at 6th fret and it was non existant.

I adjusted the truss counter clockwise until i had about 0.010 inches of relief at fret 6. I would like a little more relif, but the truss nut is now lose enough that i can turn it with my finger, without the need for a wrench, as if its fully losened.

is that normal? have i reached the end of the amount of adjustment i can do?

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...

Sorry I didn't read anything past the first post. If the table was perfectly flat why didn't you just flip the neck and clamp the thing up 180 deg with the FB facing the stone?

Indeed, read the posts and you will find the reply to your question.... easy, 4 posts above yours....

If you cant afford more clamps buy a bigger wood block that cannot flex under clamping pressure.. this is one of the most important glue ups on a guitar dont wing it.

sorry to be a downer

You guys are really starting to get funny

This is what I do:

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...

I would never pay more than 200 for a pickup!

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...

Thanks for the link. That guy's got some serious wood!

For any non-German speaking people, this should help you find your way around the site a bit easier: 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

right on, I edited the first post with that google link you provided, thanks

Patrick brutha many thanks for that link and that guy has given us some serious wood!!!!!!!!!! damn that is some seriously nice stuff and does he ship to the UK ?thanks for sharing

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:

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!

edit

Do you true up both sides? If so, this technique would work, otherwise, you should clamp fretboard facing the flat surface.

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...

One thing that comes to mind with this technique.

When you place the flat reference surface UNDER the neck, you're assuming that both sides of the neck are jointed and perfectly flat. I always joint the fretboard gluing surface only and that is my reference. There's no point in jointing both surfaces since the other side will be carved out anyways. Ideally, you'd want to glue the fretboard with the fretboard facing your reference surface, not the other way around, unless you joint both surfaces.

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...

edit

I think you may all be overthinking this just a bit...if it isn't sufficient,it will show up in the glue line..if it doesn't show in the glue line,it was sufficient...

Theoretical discussions based on "vectors" and "dissipation" bum me out

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...

I'm sure you folks can answer a lot of my questions regarding this, but can anyone direct me where I can read up on it? Curious about stabilizing, gluing, finishing, etc. Things like putting the top over a semi hollow? Thanks.

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:

For epoxy (which doesn't need much clamping power) this would work fine, but from a purely mechanical standpoint you're not getting even pressure across the entire board - the clamp's force is only applied in a roughly 90 degree 'pie slice' shape downwards, so you'd need a clamp every 10 cm or so (4") with the setup you've got there, give or take. You can 'cheat' and get more pressure by putting bits of veneer under the slats and between the clamps, which will tension the cauls and apply additional pressure.

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

Started trying - trying - to carve the back of the neck.

Somebody could've told me this stuff is hard as diamonds.

My rasp was laughed at. My saws hate me. The neck is turning out great, but WHEW!!! this stuff doesn't shape too easily !

For a neck it could work great, however be carefull its very dens and heavy.... (about as dense as the harder rosewoods such as Honduran and Brazilian)