Official Luthiers Forum!

So I meet luthiers in Taiwan that only buys from Allied, Stewmac, LMI, etc. because they really believe in the stuff. I said the same material is available in Taiwan at significantly lower prices (not to mention no tariffs) if you were willing to do some processing. They think stuff from elsewhere is not as stable and seem to make a big deal about documentation (such as certificate of origin). It's problematic because stuff like honduran mahogany and indian rosewood is now unobtainable because of CITES but both are available from Taiwanese suppliers and Aliexpress at not only lower prices, but it's often the only way to obtain them because of CITES.

So the question is, is it really worth it to pay sometimes double for "luthier" grade wood? when the same material can be bought elsewhere for much lower prices?

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Tai Fu wrote:
"So the question is, is it really worth it to pay sometimes double for "luthier" grade wood? when the same material can be bought elsewhere for much lower prices?"

No, as long as you can find and evaluate the quality of the material you are getting. The principal advantage of luthier supplier materials is that they have done that for you.

I buy tops almost exclusively from luthier supply houses but the far majority of the guitars I have built have been made from wood I sourced from various other places including local cabinet shops, hard wood dealers, tree cutters, barn finds, and so on...

So yeah, I tend to agree with what you are thinking.

I have never bought my lumber from a "luthier supply" and always process my own. OTOH I have... er had ... access to industrial woodworking equipment. To me it is an issue of equipment, not quality of wood. If you can take 8/4 raw lumber and process it into guitar wood you are always going to have better options for less money. But that generally takes large, high quality equipment and the know how to use it. I would trust LMI or Allied to do it for me, but not some random eBay'er who thinks its a quick way to get 10x price per board foot.

Plus if you want high quality guitar wood you better be able to read the lumber that you buy to process.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I buy all my wood and other supplies from several of the luthier oriented supply houses - some of which advertise here. My argument is very simple - I want the best materials possible and I'm willing to pay more to get them. I've never been disappointed.

Luthier wood is a joke . Just ask all the top companies e.g. gibson . taylor , breedlove, Martin. etc who are their wood suppliers ????. They get huge discounts from volume dealers . Money talks and BS walks. Just sayin .My favorite places are small independent sawmills that I have established relationships with . Who will custom saw to my specs. Still way less $$ than so called luthier woods

+1, I don't look on ebay very often but when I have, I've seen a lot of poor cut's (may be pretty) being sold for high dollar. I do see some good stuff too.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

I try to save when I can get away with it, for several good reasons:

- People aren't beating down my door to offer me commissions, because I'm not big name and in Taiwan, people care more about name than quality mostly because they don't really play the guitar but hope they can resell it at a later date. So Why invest huge dollars into something that most likely won't pay off in the near term?
- Going on that issue, by saving money on all the various bits (when you have to pay 4 dollars for purfling, and you need several, it adds up very quick), you can pass that savings to potential customers making it more likely for someone to actually give you a commission. If you could offer a commission for less than 2000 dollars, and ready made in stock guitars for 1000, it becomes more attractive to buyers. That could be a way for new builders to break into an already saturated market (but then again what market isn't saturated?? We all have to do something). If I bought everything (based on LMI unserviced kit pricing) from luthier suppliers, the cost in material alone plus shipping/tariff is enough to buy a midrange guitar, whereas if I used "everyone else" that cost goes down at least 50%.
- Using materials from "everyone else" teaches me to be a better luthier and work with wood that may not be as ideal as "luthier" stuff. This skill could save you as some woods are only available in less than ideal cuts at any price.

Sure, if I'm getting a commission for 3000 dollars, I'd buy everything from LMI but it's hard to tell me to spend 500 dollars after tax and shipping on enough materials to make a guitar and turn around and sell it for barely what I paid for the material. At least if I used materials from "everyone else" and wanted to turn around and sell my build for around 500-1000 dollars (which seems to be at the range of what people are willing to pay for a no name custom built guitars without a commission), I'd at least get something for my time. Not a lot, but enough to at least pay rent...

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

For some things it makes sense to buy from tonewood dealers. Soundboards are a bargain in the mid and lower cosmetic grades, and if you buy in quantity you can get a price break to boot. That is what the factories are doing. They aren't buying the cosmetically top 1% soundboards.
Domestic locally available woods can also yield some savings if you can pick through the stacks and find the few boards that are suitable for resawing into high quality back and side sets. If you live near a dealer in exotic species you may also find a few boards that can be resawn, but with limitations on imported species I think this is less and less probable.
If you are careful and watch your costs you can still build a guitar for under $100 in materials+the cost of tuners.

Really?
At some point, every person you identify as a big name, was not one.
Are you implying your quality exceeds most of those Taiwanese big names?
Sounds like you've done some pretty deterministic market research to determine this is what those buyers do. I'm curious how you've actually determined this, since (I infer from your comment, "people aren't beating down my door") that you likely interact with a negligible part of the actual market to which you've determined their behavior.
I would agree. When you contrive a defeatist story as above, it is likely impossible to become one of those big names.

I agree - use the least expensive materials that will let you deliver instruments superior to the big names. Given your perspective, it is likely the best approach.

Have you considered entering a ‘Win Instant Success as a Luthier!’ lottery? I’m not sure how it works in Taiwan, but all of the successful luthiers I know of here in the States got that way via good luck versus the less unattractive alternatives (e.g., hard work, diligence in customer relations, and all that other nonsense).

I suppose the question you have to ask yourself is whether you are feeling lucky...

_________________
We have become a civilization that elevates idiots, prostitutes, and clowns. Am I still to defend it? Yes, for its principles. Yes, for what it was. Yes, for what it still may be.

-Mark Helprin, The Oceans and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story (A Novel)

"Have you considered entering a ‘Win Instant Success as a Luthier!’ lottery? I’m not sure how it works in Taiwan, but all of the successful luthiers I know of here in the States got that way via good luck versus the less unattractive alternatives (e.g., hard work, diligence in customer relations, and all that other nonsense).

I suppose the question you have to ask yourself is whether you are feeling lucky..."

Woodie,
This reminds me of something I read long ago in Mason Williams' "Reading Matter", a brief excerpt of a conservation between two people.
To paraphrase:
"My, you have a beautiful leg"
"Oh! why thank you"
"Do you mind if I pull the other one?"

While I don’t always agree with Tai Fu’s posts, I think we are piling on a little thick.

If people weren’t influenced by brand Gibson guitars wouldn’t be able to charge 2 to 3 times what Ibanez or Eastman charges. I build my unusual guitars (carbon fiber arch tops). I sell few guitars, but I know several have become wall hangers for collectors and are not played. Finally, we have also had MANY posts on how the market for boutique instruments is very weak, despite an overall global market of multiple million guitars a year, and does not track with the skill of the luthier or quality of the product.

While the tone may come across as a bit whiney, he didn’t say anything that doesn’t jibe with what many others have said on this forum.

That said, I know of no way to overcome the odds except to build exceptional guitars, work relentlessly on marketing, and never give up. Even so, you may never have financial success doing this. The odds are long.

The real question IMHO is do you have the resources, financial and emotional, to do what it takes to even have a shot? Are you in a position to put those resources in and survive even if it never turns out? This is an exceptionally difficult business plan to make work, and no one is entitled to success no matter how hard they work or how skilled. The most skilled and hardworking farmer still can’t make it rain.


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It seems pretty obvious to me that people are more interested in big names, generally speaking. I don't think you need to do an actual study on it. And that doesn't apply just to guitars, heck it apply to toilet paper.

The key is you have to offer something that big names don't. For me personally, it's the whole hand made, local grown, eco friendly and so on angle that gets me to selling a few guitars a year. Tone and play ability of course is paramount but most people would be perfectly happy with a Martin in the $2500 dollar range and they should be because it's going to be a great guitar.

It seems to me that generally speaking people don't come to small guitar makers shops because they want a Martin or a Taylor. They want something unique and special so you need to find a way to deliver that.

I didn't think Tai was being whiney. I think he was stating his position based on the relevant facts. I think Tai is taking the sensible approach by trying to limit the costs involved in producing an instrument. It is something I do myself. I can't afford to put a thousand dollars worth of materials into a guitar I will sell for $995. But it is possible to build a high quality guitar with inexpensive materials, if they are sourced properly.
Another tack to take is to find a niche that is relatively free of competition. I think the carbon fibre archtop is somewhat of a niche guitar, although not quite as much as this fellow imagines: https://reverb.com/item/7129114-carbon- ... top-guitar
You have to keep trying until you find something that works, and not go broke in the process.

The problem with carbon fiber is guitarists are very conservative, and so you notice there are very few innovations with guitars.

For example in the solid body electric guitar world, you very rarely see active pickups or modern solid state amp with all sorts of technology. Rather you see more people play with traditional alnico pickups with a tube amp with not much in between. This applies even to modern metalheads.

Whereas bass players are far less conservative and they have all kinds of technology attached to their bass or their amp.

Which is why I can see carbon fiber guitars becoming wall hangers. I think guitar players, especially acoustic guitar players, want wood guitars. I think a better idea is to engineer a guitar that has wood covering but carbon fiber sandwiched between the wood, and with the increased stiffness to use minimal or even no bracing. So you get the benefit of carbon fiber but it still looks like a traditional guitar. You have to have known when people get picky about back and side wood (for example nobody wants a guitar made from oak), that they'd be picky about the guitar made from plastic (which is what carbon fiber is).

Back to the topic at hand, while I have a tendency to be defeatist I did see a lot of rather defeatist posts from this forum, and also from other luthiers in Taiwan. The way I see it is, in Taiwan a daily wage of 30 dollars is considered livable, 60 dollars is considered rather mid range, and 100 dollars is considered loaded. It takes me about 6 months start to finish to make a guitar, but I work maybe an hour a day on one or two guitars at a time (I can work the full 8 hours if I were making a bunch more at a time). By keeping material costs down I can offer in stock guitars for 1000 dollars, and commissions for 2000 dollars. In Taiwan the cost of Martin, Gibsons, etc. are inflated because the Taiwanese government charges a rather punitive tariff on musical instruments (like 15%) coming in, but not on wood, materials, parts, etc.. Maybe they do this to encourage local manufacturing? So big name guitars START at 5000 dollars. Of course you have stuff like Mexican Martins that start at 1000 dollars (those guitars retail at around 500 in the US), even baby Taylors go for almost 600 in Taiwan.

So what I offer is a guitar that's as good as, if not better than a Martin but at much lower prices. In order to do that I need to resaw my own wood, source trims (binding, purfling, rosette, etc.) from much cheaper sources than LMI, or just make my own. I bet big names do the same thing too, no way they're paying 500 dollars in material per guitar. I imagine it's around 100.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Ok here we go...



Based on what evidence? People are buying carbon fiber guitars. They're buying enough of them that companies like Blackbird Guitars and Rainsong are still in business. Sure they're conservative but so are violinists/cellists/violists and there is a good enough number of them buying carbon versions of their instruments from the likes of Lewis and Clark and Glasser. Enough that these companies are staying in business even though they're not making "traditional" instruments in terms of materials.



How many metal concerts have you been to recently? With the advent of people like Tosin Abasi and other modern metal (Mansoor/Plini etc...) there is an abundance of people using Kemper/Axe FX units and others simply because they can get the exact same sound night after night and not have to lug around a massive full size stack, there is a LARGE section of the market that simply doesn't care about tube amps anymore because they can recreate that sound night after night and get better sound with an easier setup than any tube amp can offer.



That is somewhat true. However it becomes reverse discrimination, because if you DON'T have the latest greatest tech then you're just as much of a loser.



That is straight up not true. Stop reading the gearpage and think about this. There are millions of guitar players out there and you're telling me that not a single person plays an oak guitar? I recall a prominent member here making some fantastic oak guitars that he sold to people, they are out there. They're just not snobs so they don't clog up the internet with their endless pontification. You cannot assume what the market wants and you're mistaken.

Matsuda has made instruments with nomex sandwiched between spruce. There's this extremely successful builder named Greg Smallman who has made absolute world class guitars using a combination of carbon fiber and wood. The fact that you did not bring up someone like those two MAJOR builders shows me you really have not done any research on this topic. If you google "guitars built with carbon fiber and wood" the results are immediate and easily accessible.



You are being way more defeatist in this post than most of the others I've seen in my years reading here. You cannot compare the living wage in Taiwan and equate that to the problems abroad. You are complaining about the price of something that is an import in your country. By nature an import will be more expensive, that's why it's an import. If Martin made guitars in Taiwan would they really be cheaper? Price is determined according to market value and complaining about it cannot change it.



You are claiming to be cheap. Good for you, you're now cheap. You "imagine" it's around 100? If you don't know the answer then don't speculate about something in which you clearly show no knowledge. If you buy anything in bulk it will be cheaper. Buy 1 top? maybe 40$. Buy 1000 tops? 15$ each (I'm just giving an example). Bulk buying is the best way to stay alive in business that is just the way it is. Use these sources you claim to have and quit claiming how superior they are to the sources others use.

You want to make your guitar? Make it how you want. Complaining on here about prices/business practices won't help you make a better guitar.

I’m sorry. I see now that I totally misunderstood your earlier post. I thought you were saying that some buyers are not able to know the difference between a quality acoustic instrument and a poor one, thus making it hard to differentiate your product and reach customers based on the acoustic quality and playability of an instrument. I was speaking to that.

You can spend hundreds of hours perfecting an instrument and sometimes the buying market doesn’t really care. The client I was thinking of has a collection of over 150 guitars. The carbon fiber issue is irrelevant. He doesn’t really play any of them regardless of what they are made of. If anything the uniqueness of my guitar is what made the sale, not the other way around. The point is that few customers are discerning connoisseurs, and trying to build a market share assuming they are can be frustrating.

I now understand that you were just speaking hypothetically about what you imagine the market to be with no actual experience. I apologize for muddying the waters with my examples.


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Hi Tai,
I made a guitar with carbon fibre laminated between two pieces of BRW veneer (for the back and sides). The back had what I would describe as a "tupperware" tap tone. I didn't notice any appreciable gain in stiffness with this construction. The rest of the guitar was built conventionally - spruce sound board and braced normally. It sounded just fine and my son picked it over a number of others he was offered. Carbon fibre has some real advantages for people who live in adverse climates - those that are extremely wet or dry, and some all CF guitars I've heard sound pretty good.
If you want to bring material costs down, buy in bulk as suggested. This is particularly true of soundboard material. And you can find good quality wood in the lower grades if you don't mind some cosmetic flaws. If you are careful sourcing your materials you can build a guitar for less than $100 in materials + the cost of tuners, even here in the U.S.A.. I do it much of the time (I'm cheap too )

I order from Alaska Specialty Wood for this reason. Their tops are very inexpensive and good quality. I can save quite a bit of money going through a forwarder but it takes longer because I have to consolidate stuff to save... I saw some video from a luthier in Taiwan who is discussing the sound quality of various grades of tops, but in reality tops are selected based on cosmetic flaws, straightness of grain, how straight the quarter is, grain spacing, etc. and those are all cosmetic qualities, but I'm sure tighter grain and straighter quarter means better sound...

Speaking of forwarders, their per pound rate goes down the heavier the package... so it makes better sense to buy in bulk.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Tai, there is much bad information on tops out there. As Clay S. mentioned in an earlier post, some of the best tops are not the most expensive. Fine, straight grain perfectly quartered does not always produce the best top. I've talked to a few luthiers who prefer the grain to be ten or so degrees off from quarter because they believe (rightly or wrongly) that the top can expand and contract more without splitting. Jean Larrivee has said he would like to build with tops that have 12 to 14 grains per inch. Alan Carruth has done many experiment over the years that will give good info on tops. With the price of Adirondack spruce being so high, I have been buying European lower grade tops from Romania that are as good or better and look identical. Other than IRW, buyers will have to get use to 'alternative' woods. Limba (black or white) is a perfect replacement for mahogany. There's lot's of woods around if you keep looking.