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Hey I was wondering if it's true that guitar companies in the U.S.A. send wood to China so they can make guitars for them. Does China have Spruce?

I belive large amounts of US and Canadian tonewood heads towards China, yes. Why wouldn't they? They're good for huge numbers of annual sales. There ain't no Stika or Engelmann in mainland China as far as I'm aware.

Yes, that is true. But most of those guitars are coming back to the West. I don't know if China has spruce, but I do know Timbertone ships container loads East.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Hi Rick and welcome to the forum. Just wanted to say hi.

I thought that would be expensive for them to ship it there, but I also thought how else would they get it? I've been looking at cheap acoustics made over seas and they seem to say spruce tops. How can a builder compete?

Hi Rick, same as Doug, wanted to say hi and welcome here!

Serge

Some very good instuments are made over there as well. Sitka and Engelman are two most common demanded spruce tops on factory built guitar. Therefore the wood must be imported to China. They do have various species of spruce in China I am sure some is used for tone wood. But if you think about the import issue most exotic wood is imported from somewhere. Even common tone wood Like IRW is imported.

A local music store owner thinks there's no difference between a guitar made in China or the U.S. I thought the wood had to be the major differnce.

Thanks,

I believe I read that Timbertone ships 35,000 tops in one container. That is a lot of Sitka and Englemann.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

[quote]A local music store owner thinks there's no difference between a guitar made in China or the U.S. I thought the wood had to be the major differnce.
[/quote]

That is likey true for factory made guitars. I imagine the Chinesse can run factory machines just as good as we do. But factory guitars don't compete with hand made ones as far quaity goes. In my humble opinion anyway.

A 40,000 lb container load from the east coast to Shanghai is less than $1,000. That's a lot of gitfiddles.

Your local music store owner would have to specify which two guitars before I'd believe him. Some of it will be wood selection, but less and less so. Some will be craftsmanship, but again, depends on the price bracket. Major differences? They'll both sound like guitars, for one thing. There's nothing 'magical' about 'US made' vs. 'Chinese made' when it comes to final product, except for the simple truth that US instruments are generaly in the mid- to high-end part of the market. For now, anyway.

'course, we're all builders here, and essentially, you can't compete with Chinese imports at their price level. Impossible. So you have to offer something different, something specific, custom designs, options, whatever, a personalized attention to detail and building according to the properties of the wood rather than to firm specs (one assumes). Many (most) players won't hear the difference in the end, many won't care about the fact it's hand-made vs. factory made, but that's just the reality of the situation. I'm not in this to make a living, but it's a tough, tough market out there, and hand builders are only addressing a tiny fraction of the (huge) guitar playing population.

Our own Jason Voth of CV tonewoods ships tens of thousands of cedar tops overseas every year. I can't remember the number but something like 30,000 seems to ring a bell. It was alot in my mind anyway.

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[QUOTE=Graham Steward] [quote]A local music store owner thinks there's no difference between a guitar made in China or the U.S. I thought the wood had to be the major differnce.
[/quote]

That is likey true for factory made guitars. I imagine the Chinesse can run factory machines just as good as we do. But factory guitars don't compete with hand made ones as far quaity goes. In my humble opinion anyway.

[/QUOTE]

Hy Graham, how are you doing? I completely agree with your opinion; I often buy 2nd hand (and 3rd and so on) damaged chinese guitars to practice repair tecniques; craftmanship is another planet, take a mirror and give a look inside. Or crash one and try to repair
Luigi

It's not the much better on a North American made, lower end guitar either. I have a Seagul 12 string in the shop which has almost all the top braces fallen off from being in a minor basement flood. Havn't started to tackle it yet.

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Besides... people are not JUST buying a guitar. They are buying romance, they are buying an heirloom, they are buying a little piece of the builder.

these intangibles are hard to quantify but certainly add to the value.

The same goes for Martin and Gibson, they are buying a little piece of the history of those companies when they plunk down the cash for one of those vs. a foreign made guitar.

I think as long as there are guitar players we will all have a market.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

This is another thread, but goes along with what Brock just wrote, It is funny how many of my clients have told me. (paraphased)"Before I played one of you hand crafted guitars I would not have paid the price you ask for enven a new Taylor or Martin. Now I would not pay half that price for either" What a complament

Now I make no claim to build a guitar better than Tayor or Martin. But it has been my experiance that someone that gets a well crafted hand made guitar raely goes back to a $800 factory built.

You guys are all really cool. It's nice to see some educated people all over the world. I agree with everyone. I recently picked up a G&L made in the U.S.A. and what a difference compared to the over seas model. The G&L rep told the store owner that there wasn't a difference!

[QUOTE=GuitarGuru] Hey I was wondering if it's true that guitar companies in the U.S.A. send wood to China so they can make guitars for them. Does China have Spruce?[/QUOTE]

We do send China tons of tops. How do you compete with 6 cents/hour?? Better get all kinds of creative...

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A tour of our shop (Somewhat outdated)
My Personal eBay profile. BCWoodBug

[QUOTE=GuitarGuru] I thought that would be expensive for them to ship it there, but I also thought how else would they get it? I've been looking at cheap acoustics made over seas and they seem to say spruce tops. How can a builder compete?[/QUOTE]

Hi Rick and welcome.

To answer your question just let me say that it is cheaper for me to ship a 40 foot container from China to my doorstep in Perrysburg, Ohio than to ship a 100 Hp air compressor (3000# or so) across the US. My company has checked into it and that is the surpising reality.

Regards, Steve

We can't beat the chinese market prices because they have amazing access to tools at unbeleivable prices and labor at nearly nothing compared to us!

With that beeing said.... look at the final product...there is no love involved. when you look at the details, thats where the rubber meets the road! The braces are not that nice, none of they're guitars are voiced, they just copy cut the braces and glue them on, the glue clean up is pretty bad and when you look inside the box you can see where the quality contron failed. I just looked at a $1700 high end classical guitar made in asia (can't remember the brand) and it looked beautifull!! the rosewood was nice, the finish and action was dead on....but when I looked inside the box....MAN what a mess! Glue all over the place, chipped kerfing, etc...
That was a $1700 guitar....imagine a $200-$1000 range!

Thats my to cents worth!

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

Yeah, but don't look into all those famous 'old master' guitars and fiddles, then; the obession with clean interior work is a relatively recent phenomenon. If the sound's there, it's there. And if the outside looks good to boot, that's a winner for most buyers.

I think as was said higher up, it depends on what you are comparing, some of the high end Chinese stuff is getting pretty good. I'm inclined to agree with Brock that you have to create an aura for lack of a better word. Also by offering a very tailored service, you can do what factories struggle to do.

The problem is not just one of Labour, I used to work in the chemical industry and in the USA and Western Europe we have a lot of health and safety and enviromental regulation, most of which is entirely sensible, but we were competing agains Polish and Chineese companies, that had little regard for such things, I worked out in China on a project supervising the installation of some Plant (I was working on the Distributed Control Side), I came in one morning to be told 2 men had fallen from a Gantry and been killed I had a look of horror on my face as they told me, The Chineese guy who was our translator looked at me and our engineering manager and said don't worry they have hired two replacements, and I walked off leaving us with our jaws on the floor.

From that day on I stopped moaning about the safety culture in Europe.

There are at least four Spruce species in China:
Picea smithiana, schrenkiana, wilsonii, and
spinulosa.

See http://www.conifers.org/pi/pic/j1.gif for a
distribution map and http://www.conifers.org/pi/pic
for links to detail pages on each.

If you peruse some of the Eastman archtop descriptions
(e.g. at Buffalo Bros), they are said to use "Tibetan
Spruce". Its probably Picea smithiana, but I'm not
sure.


Eric (long-time reader, first-time poster)

That's part of the problem with China and other countries making poeple work the whole day for a bowl of rice. It's sad that hardly any guitars are U.S.A. made anymore. I think Gibson is the only one left.