Official Luthiers Forum!

Or has the price of acoustic tonewood SHOT up in the last year???

I spend most of my time online looking at various luthier suppliers, comparing prices and have noticed a 30% increases in prices this year, some places 50%!!

Please, I'm not having a go at the sponsors here, as I understand you lot have to make a living, I really appreciate that.

Whinging about the price of something is a British pastime. We whinge about the weather being too hot and too cold, when something is too expensive, we whinge, if it's too cheap, we whinge about it being a scam.   

Is the proliferation of hobby guitar builders driving prices?

From now on I am sourcing local kiln dried wood... (famous last words... )

Sam,

It's all Hesh's fault

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Sam-
That's my impression (high prices) as well. Some would say whinging is one of the things Canadians got from the Brits, so this may not mean too much. However, when folks are charging $300 for walnut sets, things are getting a bit crazy.

BTW, if you can find local air-dried wood, you will probably find it is easier to work than the kiln-dried stuff. In the boat-building world, people generally believe that air-dried wood is easier to bend and work. With the concern about imported diseases in lumber, most imported stuff is kiln-dried, so there's no choice there.

Cheers
John

[QUOTE=Dave White] Sam,

It's all Hesh's fault [/QUOTE]

I second Daves comments!

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

One of the driving forces is the number of Chinese factories building better quality instruments and competing for the usual suspects in the wood department. They want lots of spruce, cedar, mahogany (and it's imitations), Indian rosewood, etc.   That puts the pressure on North American factories, and that puts the pressure on the rest of us.

i have read comments by north american bulk tone wood(logs) buyers to the effect that the chinese account for an ever increasing proportion of auction purchases in africa and asia, sometimes amounting to 90% of the wood on offer. their exceptionally low labour costs allow them to pay higher prices for the wood and still meet or better the various price points in the instrument markets.

[QUOTE=Rick Turner]One of the driving forces is the number of Chinese factories building better quality instruments and competing for the usual suspects in the wood department. They want lots of spruce, cedar, mahogany (and it's imitations), Indian rosewood, etc.   That puts the pressure on North American factories, and that puts the pressure on the rest of us.[/QUOTE]

i heard this two, i was personally told, by someone who vends spruce, that "they" take all the best logs. "they" meaning other countries, before he even has a chance to process it. i guess im glad, i am a part timer at this, and because of WAS i have enough spruce to build for a very long time without worry. now if you can just turn on and off the WAS part.

meb

 

The reason why I have not stated the obvious words "Availabilty of global wood stock" and "Cites restrictions", is because I know whilst BWR is endangered, I have still seen increases in woods like Cocobolo, Wenge and Walnut.

A internet rumour goes out about there being no hardwood left in a years' time and everyone bulk buys. That alone can drive up prices. I have been a victim of that too, and those acute WAS attacks don't go away.

Me? I think I'll give up luthiery and start harvestin' that Cellulose gold...

My latest case of WAS has caused me to purchase another four piece back and side set of GASP! Cocobolo!

Here it is after a little photoshop magic.

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Luthiery is a tiny fraction of any wood market. So small it's rarely included in resource use charts. Premium logs go to veneer mills as matter of $$. Occasionally lumber dealers buy a veneer grade log and convert to timber, but at a very high cost. Unrest in many geo regions cause shortages which in turn drive up log prices. Think Africa and some Asian countries. If one is buying guitar wood just for the pretty factor there's no shortage, but if you want quality with the purty it costs.

I just got in over 1,000bf of 8/4 Black Limba after a two year wait and the importer "allotted" me this amount so he'd have some to spread around all his clients. My cost for this shipment was nearly 60% higher than the last shipment. Combine this with bug holes not being a defect in this wood (furniture makers love it and are the prime consumers) and other cracks/defects resulting in downfall, prices of solid body guitar blanks are large. I've seen the USA retail price of Black Limba double in the past two years.

I think many people are selling wood that does not meet the requirements to be considered instrument grade. I recently saw a flatsawn, plain figured, set of Black Walnut sell for over $100. For the life of me I could not understand how a person could pay that much or how the seller was able to call it instrument grade(Hopefully it was very well dried). Then it really occured to me how nieve a begginer can be. They are looking to a tonewood dealer for expertise so that they get proper instrument wood. There are soooooo.... many dealers out there today that have little to no knowledge as to what makes wood appropriately graded "instrument quality". Yet these dealers see the prices charged by experienced dealers(not understanding fully the requirements that set that cut of wood in that class), and figure the wood they have should be worth that much.

Down the road a bit, these dealers may become more knowledgable and either quit selling(improperly graded wood) or gain the reputaion that eliminates that business. While this is going on, the truely knowledgable dealer winds up being looked at as overpriced by some who know no better. His sales drop, but overhead remains(lower sales require them to raise prices to stay in business).

If prices are too high from a quality dealer(remember you are basically paying a good chunk of that money for their time and experience). Then you should source your own wood, dry it, cut it, surface it(if you have the time, knowledge to select, tools to do so). That is where you can cut your cost and control your quality(you still face finding the wood, but hopefully you will be able to find enough of what you need).

Then there is networking with other people you know that are also experienced enough and have equipment to do this. Share your resources! That helps build our community. Support swap meets(they are good for all of us), and local events with other builders. Also help that guy that is just starting out, by explaining what he should expect at instrument grade prices.

The demand for instrument grade wood has been rising, and that is something you can't control. Availability of some woods like Koa are extreamly limited(especially in high grades). They will cost more as time goes on(that is supply and demand, again you can't control that). Open your mind to other alternatives if you do not want to pay those prices.

Right now, Curly Koa(Lumber) is ranging between $65 and $125 bd. ft.(depending on figure and grade), and even at that lumber dealers have no need to offer "bulk" discounts(they can sell all they have). Consider the amount of ruff lumber that is needed for a back and side set(don't forget lumber is not always going to be the exact dimension required, there is often waste, beyond cutiing and surfacing), figure out what the value of the labor and materials are to cut and surface a set(yes, blades, electricty, tool maint., even sandpaper add to this cost), what did it cost to aquire that wood(if you have to go find it, did you pay for gas for your car and how long would it take to find? Or was the wood shipped or freighted to your door.), What about a bad cut or unforseen defect(which happens, and risk is a factor). I think you can see quickly how all these things add up, and this is what you or a dealer will face. Even if wood prices are stationary. The price of gas and energy will force the prices up. Think about these things when you buy or if you choose to source and cut your own. If you are informed you will make the market better(by not buying or even selling too high or low).

That is all just my opinion, based on my little world and experiences .

Peace,Rich

Like Larry, I have seen a steady increase in prices of wood over the last few years. There are some wood vendors who supply folks like Bob, Steve and me, who come to the realization that there's a market in the musical instrument grade lumber, and they jack up the prices. Plus, their suppliers are jacking up the prices, and so on. Just a few years ago, you could go to an exotic lumber dealer and buy ziricote at $15-17 per board foot. It's three times that now. Add to that fact that when someone like me buys wood to sell for guitar sets, there is a certain amount of waste simply to get sets of a particular size. Then we spend hours cutting it, time stickering it, and it sits on a shelf for weeks or months before we put it up for sale. So then we sell it, and it costs even more to replace it into inventory. Yikes!
Brazilian seems to be holding steady the last few years from what I've seen. More seems to pop up all the time. I know a guy who has been finding it all over the place lately, because he's actively looking for it. Then there are still folks who are getting stumps and old beams from Brazil and bringing that in to the U.S.
Veneer industries do get the best stuff, and the fact that those couple big logs of quilt sapele made it into our hands a few years back was pretty astounding.
I recently saw some great cocobolo, although it was narrow in a supplier's near me. They wanted over $35/bf for the stuff. And they were charging for 5/4 instead of the 1" stock that it actually was, because the supplier they got it from sold it to them that way. They got stuck passing the pricing on to their customers. The 2" stock was selling for $75/bf (!) because the supplier told them that it was instrument grade. It wasn't, but the supplier thought so. Can you imagine paying $75/bf for cocobolo? Usually, it's in the $17-20 range. It's insane...

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I am a beginner at the guitar making craft, and can fully appreciate the great comments on this forum.

Yes, air dried wood is better than kiln dried...my friend told me that last year when he was trying to resaw some kiln dried cherry.

Also, it is easy at this stage to make mistakes on wood purchases, being drawn by the savings made in the wallet.

Luckily I found a coppice manager who has worked in the trade lifelong. After a long and interesting discussion, he told me that logging trees and deciding what sort of purpose the wood should be for doesn't just come down to gazing at the grain....

In Britain, most managed forests have been overseen by woodsmen who have knowledge of how the trees grow, what sort of soil they grow in, how much space each tree needs, disease control, and any unusual weather patterns seasonally that might affect the growth of the tree.

That information is passed on to successive Coppice managers who carry this knowledge, and so when the trees are harvested, there is some sort of idea what the trees are good for.

My supplier will air dry the wood for a certain amount of time outdoors, and if the logs crack or warp within that time, they are suitable only for burning. If they survive, then he dries them in a shed for more time.

Then it's up to the customer to decide what they want.

This reminds me of the sugar shortage back in the 80's (there never was a sugar shortage) and thent he coffee shortage scare (never was a coffee shortage either). In both cases, the price of sugar and items containing sugar went up and never came back. Can you remember that before the shortage scare candy bars were $.25 and cold drinks were $.25 ?  Coffee served at resturants was generally less than that too.

Having a sawmill and knowing the wood industry, Some of my fellow sawmill owners are selling container loads of wood direct to asian buyers. The Chinese buy logs  at prices above what the sawmill owner would usually get for sawn and dried woods. These woods include Oak, Osage Orange and cedar among others. Some of this wood comes back to us in the form of furniture. Most of it is used for things like knobs and handles on other items.

A thread was started a while back that was basically the same as this one, and I was ridiculed for my post about the chinese buying up good tonewoods and then flooding the market with sub-$100 guitars. I still stand on my opinion that it is a shame that perfectly good tonewoods are wasted in a cheap and low quality guitar that will at best be fodder for the garbage dump in a short time. It isnt that I feel like North America should get first crack at all the best tonewoods, it is that I dont feel it is right to waste a valuable resource on cheap and low quality instruments. I dont mind good tonewood going into a quality instrument no matter what country it is made in.

Right now my cost of materials for building a guitar is somewhere in the $500 to $800 range. That is why I charge what I do for the instruments I build. I dont think I have WAS, but I certainly try to buy in bulk when I can to cut my overhead on building guitars. I am also trying to steer my tonewood acquisition over to domestic air dried woods.

As you can probably tell, I am passionate about this.

 

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Reguards,

Ken H

I don't think that the rising costs of tonewood is directly linked to the fact that there are more and more people that are interested in building their own guitars.

I can only say this because I am a young new luthier (so obviously cost is an issue for me). I too have noticed the rising costs of tonewood. But another thing that I have seen is the increase in the prices for luthiery tools. I saw a simple fret set from StewMac go from 10 dollars to 40 dollars.

Maybe the world of luthiery is becoming a more and more expensive profession/hobby?

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-Rob Eckert
Ann Arbor, Michigan

[QUOTE=RobE] I don't think that the rising costs of tonewood is directly linked to the fact that there are more and more people that are interested in building their own guitars.[/QUOTE]

Hmmm....I would have to disagree to some extent with that. There are literally twice as many hobbiest builders today as when I started back in the mid '90's. All those folks are looking for wood, and are building their inventory of woods for the future. Woodcraft magazine advertises StewMac kits every issue these days. More and more people are finding it to be a fun and challenging thing to do. Heck, Woodcraft now sells kits themselves, including the case. Obviously, there are enough people entering the hobby that big businesses are taking notice and also competing for their business....

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I would agree with you. When I first typed that I was going to say something completely different. But then I changed my mind and forgot to delete it. I wish there was an edit button.

I would agree with you. From when I first became interested in luthiery almost 3 years ago I have noticed an increasing number of people who enjoy building their own guitars.

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-Rob Eckert
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Is "factory" a dirty word now?

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

At the risk of ticking off the suppliers (sorry guys) . . .

Buy a good bandsaw and find a good hardwood store --- one that doesn't call itself a luthier supplier!

That's not a knock on the suppliers, because they need to charge for their time and make a profit. And there are some things you just can't get at an ordinary hardwood store --- well-quartered spruce, or Brazilian, for example.

But in general, a guy can save some serious bucks if he has a good bandsaw and a little time.

It costs me about $20 for enough Honduras Mahogany to make three two-piece laminated neck blanks.

I pay $30/bf for Cocobolo that is over 8" wide (it's much cheaper if you buy narrower pieces). For $150, I get enough wood to make 4 back & side sets and have enough left over to make half a dozen bridge blanks.

Last summer, I bought a board of Curly Koa that set me back $200 (ouch), but there's enough there to make about 200 pieces of binding. And this Koa has as good a curl as you'd find in any of the stuff from the luthier supply houses.

You have to shop around, of course, because not everyone has good stuff, and not everyone charges reasonable prices. But there are plenty of hardwood stores that do.

If I were trying to make a living at this, I don't know whether my time shopping for wood, resawing, thicknessing, sanding, etc. would justify the savings. But I'm not trying to make a living. I love going down to the hardware store and digging through the wood piles --- picking out wood is one of my favorite parts of building. And I enjoy it even more knowing that my Cocobolo costs me an average of $37.50 per set (including a bridge), my curly koa binding costs me $1 per piece, and my neck blanks cost me $7 each.

If you are going to buy from luthier suppliers, the sponsors here are all great. And there's a lot of work that goes into selecting, resawing and drying wood, plus the advertising and customer service stuff. So they earn their keep. But there is a cheaper way, if you have the time and the bandsaw.

Whoops --- no edit button. My math was off. On Coco, $150 is closer to 3 back & side sets, not 4. I tend to resaw a little on the thick side. So that works out to about $50/set. Sorry.

Hesh,I`ve talked to Monica personally ,and she says she knows you.
                       James

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James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee