Official Luthiers Forum!

Just a short story since this question gets asked alot.

I recently had a customer come in with a few guitars. I informed him that in order to make them playable they would require far more money than they are worth, all of them were Harmony and stella style 1960s/50s entry level ones.

He thanked me for my time and left, we had a good friendly conversation after we had discussed the numbers.

Calls me the next day and asks if I could look at one more guitar for him.

He brings in a nice tweed case, much nicer than the ones from the other day. Inside was a gorgeous early 1950s J45. And it needed every job in the book. Neck was projecting so low that a previous owner had decided to have the bridge shaved down to a little over 1/8" thick. The frets were non-existant. Bridge plate was worn so badly that the strings would stick when you'd remove them. Neck joint had been monkeyed with by a homegamer some years ago.

I give him a price (it was high) and he let me do the job. Guitar turned from a kitten into a jaguar once all was said and done.

Upon reception of his guitar he specifically said that he trusted my opinion because of the fact that I had turned down the previous jobs. And thus he felt comfortable enough to let me do some serious work on a much more valuable guitar.

All this to say that you should always be willing to turn jobs down, even if you CAN do them it does not mean that you SHOULD. If your customer trusts you enough to know that you know when to say no, they'll trust you even more when you say yes. I daresay that if you never turn down work then you're doing something wrong (at least in this business, ymmv).

Preach it, brother.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

It's a worthwhile lesson... Trying to be all things to all people is a sure way to drive yourself to hating both the job and your customers..... People sometimes get so afraid of "leaving business on the table" that they forget that it's very bad business to lose money on jobs...

At the same time - those jobs you turn down often turn out to be somebody else's bread and butter work... For example - with old Harmony guitars - Baxendale guitars, Vintage Parlor Guitars and Antebellum Instruments come to mind... They do lots and lots of them - and are all set up for that kind of work....

Great story - I had a boss who once gave me some simple, but clear advice: "If you ever wonder what to do, just do the right thing."

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

That's great advice for many avenues of life. I have found that 90+% percent of the time, knowing what the right thing to do is, is the easy part; choosing to do it can be more difficult.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Great Story and good advice. Got any pics? I always love to see life skillfully breathed back into a an old instrument.

Thanks for the post.
Been thinking to turn one down, Les Paul with bent forward bridge posts (for intonation correction) neck "set" too far back, (bridge too high) a poor fret job, loose inlay on FB and worn frets 1-7.
He just wants some fall-off sanded in the top frets.....
Seems unwilling (or unable) to pay for a full job, and I'm reluctant to do that.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Seems like a prime candidate to pass on.

I don't have photos of the guitar in question, I think this was less about the guitar and more about the lessons behind it.

Being in East Tennessee a lot of people like to paint things UT orange. Had one guy wanted his dred refinished in UT orange. I quoted him a price that included the charge for a pro guitar refinisher, all shipping expenses, and a bit for my trouble. Needless to say he decided he didn't want an orange guitar that badly.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"