building instruments professionally

[Jon Ludwig]

Hello, I am considering getting into building stringed instruments as a full time profession and I was hoping some of the luthiers here might have some advice they'd be willing to impart on someone considering the profession. I guess I am mostly interested to hear how people approach the selling part of the job. It seems that you can either sell your instruments through a local guitar shop or sell them directly online (or some combination of the two). How much of your total time is spent doing repair jobs vs. custom constructions. Are people willing to buy pre-made designs or are they looking for custom? I am coming from a very different profession with a totally different education (MS in computer science), what type of education is typical for those who are in this field? Any advice is appreciated, thanks!

-Jon

[John Coloccia]

Funny...I have an MS in Software Engineering. Two luthiers I respect greatly are from an industrial engineering/arts background. Pretty much, this is where we all end up when we're sick of working with idiots all day long. As for advice, marry someone with a good job.

(I'm only 25% kidding on that last part)

[Bryan Morgan]

I also work in computers and networks and am considering ditching it all to build guitars and other things out of wood.... funny stuff. Its completely opposite from the stressful nonsense of the computer world and all the ignorant people that inhabit it.

[Ryan Baker]

I have found that many people who get into guitar building (or want to) are coming from a computer science or engineering background. There must be some sort of connection there.

I'd say John is right on about having another good source of income, because you can count on struggling for a long time. You have to build up a name for yourself before you are going to be selling a lot of your own designs. I'd say that when you are starting up, you should count on doing a heavy mix of repair/setup work to pay the bills while you work on your new builds as almost a side job. You can slowly bring in a bigger percentage of new builds over time as things grow. There is plenty of market out there for custom work, and customizing existing instruments. Custom finishes is especially big if you have the facilities and skills to fill that market. You have to keep your prices low and your quality up while slowly building your reputation before people will consider your product over the big names.

Be sure to not accept more work than you can handle and always get work out on a reasonable schedule. I have seen many small builders fail, all falling into the same trap. They start out with a good product, addressing the large market for custom work. Before long, the orders are rolling in faster than the builder can keep up. Wait times become months, then years. Customers are furious, trash reputations on Internet forums, and take legal action while the business spirals down. Running a business is hard work, with a lot more involved than the building. If you can get someone to help you run the business side, you will be much better off.

Good luck.

[Chris Fournier]

John's marriage advice is about the best advice that you'll get. Worked for me. While you may think that building guitars will be a welcome relief from actually making a living wage in the computer business I would encourage you to re-think this dusty eutopia.

First go look at guitars in music stores. Wow, they're inexpensive these days; even the high quality instruments. And the off shore stuff is really looking good for the $$$. Now ask yourself what price your guitars will have to sell at to compete, then work your way back to wholesale pricing. Gulp - that ain't much money for your efforts, so you'll realise that you have to build in batches to grab all the production efficiencies that you can. Well production requires equipment and that costs more money... Retail is tough. The retailers really are better off selling as many factory units as they can to get their volumes up so that they can hit buying/booking discounts. You don't offer these discounts.

A web-site is another route. I can assure you that a web-site is pretty much just today's glorified business card in most instances. Don't count on sustaining your life with web sales unless you are an established name. Also remember that there is only so much room for established names in this business and they have spent their entire lives up until now getting there, you are bottom of the pile.

To cap it all off, most of the instrument buying public are not really after custom, they want a guitar that looks like X, sounds like X and costs X or less (because you have no name). Very few potential customers know enough to know what they want and that you can build it for them. You need these customers to make money.

I would strongly suggest that you build up your chops and shop while you actually make computer dollars. Once you are a builder you will struggle to have money to buy materials!

I am not from the engineering field, but I did quit a bull spit corporate job to build guitars full time. I don't regret this decision but I also knew that I was merely trading one aggravation and challenge for another. If you can understand the implications of all of this then by all means build guitars. If you think that you are going to maintain your current lifestyle, lose the hassles of working in a a crap industry and look forward to your new idyllic vocation everyday they I'd collect my thoughts about a career change for a while longer. I truly think that a serious guitar building hobby is best for most people.

I'm not trying to poo poo your idea, simply trying to inject a bit of reality into the scenario. Granted it's reality as I see it so take it for what its worth and best of luck!

[Jim Ritter]

How do you make a small fortune as a luthier? (answer at the end)

All good advise so far. I'm a boat builder that dabbles in instrument making and deal with many of the same issues. If you are good at repairs and can do them in a timely fashion you might have a shot at it. That is one way of getting known and introducing your product. All of my boat builds came from people who saw my repair work. At least where I live about 95% of my income is from repairs. Good luck.

Answer: Start with a large fortune! That goes for boatbuilding also.

[Jared McMahon]

I just switched employers so that I could have more time and income for woodworking (increasingly focused on instruments). I'm in IT, by the way (middleware engineering), and love being able to go home and do something tangible after a day of completely virtual challenges.

If you are a dev, can you do contract gigs? Maybe take one or two death march contracts, then a few months of uninterrupted guitar work? I haven't heard anyone on any of these forums say anything positive about the financial side of woodworking, it really does seem like a great way to starve to death unless you have something really special you bring to the table. Maybe if you built renaissance instruments, or made guitars with the same obsessive quality that Holtey makes infill planes.

If my wife did get a ridiculous job, I'd consider doing this full time. Until then I'll be plenty happy if my hobby brings in enough to take the edge off of its cost.

[george wilson]

I have been building since 1954. Making guitars is FRAUGHT with ALL kinds of problems. You deal with making a THIN wood instrument that can crack. You deal with all kinds of superstitions that players think are gospel. You deal with unscrupulous people who will damage a guitar foolishly,and expect you to fix it for free.

For example,I had a steady customer bring back a NEW guitar with the lacquer on the neck bubbled. I knew good and well that he had leaned it up against a stove,but didn't want to lose him,so was forced to refinish the neck for free.

I had an idiot tell me that the gold plating on an old Gibson banjo's tone ring made it sound better!!(How thick was the plating? 3 molecules? Gold instrument plating is never much more than flash plating)

I can't even remember all of the superstitious nonsense that I have been told.A lot of it made new instruments come out on the short end of the stick. The violin world wants OLD instruments,especially,and it is very hard to make and sell a new one for what you can buy a good old one for. There are a lot of old ones out there.

I'm lucky that I got a salaried job in a museum,where the time it took to make an instrument didn't matter,since we were demonstrating the trade primarily.

Stick to your PAYING job,get some stuff together,and see how long you have to spend making a guitar,and all of the costs. Get GOOD at it,and don't delude yourself about how good you really are. Then,be prepared to pay a dealer half the retail. Until you get VERY well known,you WILL have to use dealers to move enough instruments to get by.

[Rob Robinson]

Then there's the story about the guitar maker who won $30 million in the state lottery. When asked what he was going to do now that he was wealthy? Answered, "I guess I'll keep making guitars till the money runs out".

[Tai Fu]

I do repair work and even that struggle to pay bills, let alone have money to buy equipments and materials. I do translation work on the side to supplement my income but so far I have not been able to get any major work, even refinishing/refret work comes once every 6 months.

Perhaps could do something else related to woodworking, not sure what that might be though.

[george wilson]

Tired of working with computer idiots? Try working with musician idiots!!! The most money is in repair work.

[Peter Quinn]

I don't make instruments, I've been playing a guitar for....several decades or more. I went looking for a new one last summer after not really looking for a considerable period. Never been a gear junkie, I'm pretty basic in that regard. Wow, there are some pretty decent instruments out there for short money. Good finish, decent electronics, well done necks, decent balance. When you said stringed instruments, which instruments did you mean? I left a reasonable well paying job a decade ago to per sue wood working as a career, again, not instrument building. I was given a reference to apprentice with a soon to retire instrument builder, I looked into it, decided I'd be crazy to get into that line of work. Well, making things out of wood is a difficult way to make a living in any event, so better you have some considerable reserves and retain an alternative income source short term. John's marriage advice is seriously very good. One old timer told me "Buy a van" I asked "Why, good to move things in, keep my tools dry?" He said "No, you can live in it when you're broke dummy!" He was not joking. I own a van.

So build some instruments. Figure out how long it takes. Maybe build a few, subtract the time it take to make jigs that will be used repeatedly. Work out the kinks. Let musicians play them. Listen to them, accept their criticism. Don't crumble from it, but listen. I've met a few half ass luthiers that made crappy guitars, they weren't great players either, but they were pretty in love with their own work. Don't be that guy. I'd guess you have to have some proficiency on an instrument to build one successfully? Never lose sight of the fact that its a tool you are making, a tool to make music, and the workmen have to enjoy using it to keep you employed. So work out your product first. I'd guess its hard to sell even a good instrument given the competition at a price you can afford to live on. You won't start out as a Benedetto. Make some instruments, get them in the hands of musicians. See what grows. Keep your day job.

[John Coloccia]

Tired of working with computer idiots? Try working with musician idiots!!! The most money is in repair work.

Amen. At least business idiots aren't constantly broke.

[Tai Fu]

One thing I constantly run into is people wanting to repair cheap instruments and of course the cost ends up higher than its original value. Then there's the fact that musicians are constantly broke.

[James Sellards]

Similar story here, for the past several years I set out to slowly transition from the civil engineering world to luthiery. I began by switching to a 32 hour work week and dedicated the extra day plus several weekend hours towards the end goal of building/repairing for a living. Since I began my expectations have changed, but here’s what I learned along the way.

The money is in repairs and I found the best way to establish a consistent amount of repairs flowing into the shop was to team with a local music store(s) that don’t have tech’s or room for a repair shop in their store. The customers would bring the repairs to the store, and you repair them in your shop and the store marks up the repair bill a bit. Be prepared to learn how to repair anything made of wood with strings though (Harps, Violin’s, Cello’s, Uke’s etc.) The best scenario is to find a store that offers rental instruments to students (that’s a full time job right there repairing rental instruments).

As far as doing custom builds, my experience has been that a majority of clients won’t be interested in a unique design but rather some sort of adaptation of a popular instrument or a really detailed re-creation of a vintage instrument. I’ve made several Tele-Paul-Les-Caster guitars with lots of configurations; Jaguar shaped strats, 5-string Jazz Bass with set neck and angled headstocks, Jaguar shaped P-Bass builds etc.. I’ve also done very detailed 59’ Les Paul recreations and 50’s Telecaster recreations. Customers looking for custom built guitars seem more comfortable ordering a classic design with minor tweaks to the design or an all out recreation of a vintage instrument than a unique design.

In the end I realized I wasn’t going to put my kids through college doing this work and it would not sustain the lifestyle I was accustomed to, maybe 20+ years time building an incredible reputation would offer those things. What I had to come to terms with was that building and repairing is more of a labor of love for me than a profession. Nowadays I am excited to do repairs or custom builds so I can reinvest what little income there is back into new tools and equipment. I have 3 Bass builds going right now which I’m hoping pays for a new Grizzly edge sander with fretboard radius attachment. Now my hope is that one day when I retire I will have a well equipped shop and years of experience and will be able to enjoy focusing on building without the money being a constant worry.

Of course none of this is meant to be a discouragement to anybody wanting to start a luthiery business, I just wanted to add my experience to the already great posts.