Official Luthiers Forum!

How much time do you spend at building or ordering or doing other instrument-building tasks? Do you build/sell full or part time? Or hobbyist? Just curious, never seen the question come up before.

I'm a hobbyist, working on a second commission, do guitar-related work maybe 6 - 8 hours a week if I'm lucky.

How boutchoo?

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

I just finished a geetar last week and am taking a break for a while. But when I was going at it I spent about 1 hour a day actually building.

In the future, after I get my man bag from the OLF, I hope to build more. I tend to build 4 per year at my rate.

Hobbyist, and Not nearly enough!! Probably about 3 hrs week. Would prefer more like 40, but there's that pesky working-for-a-living thing to contend with...

great question. I try during most of the year to put in 3 hours a night during the week. and 16 to 20 over the weekend. During the winter this comes down some as I find my productivity falls off during the winter and i find my self struggling with some of the more concentration intense processes. I find I do better if I press a bit less during the winter.

varies widely, but finishing 2, and have a student just starting a third for him. Lately about 10-15 hrs a week. I am a painting contractor, so I get more shop time in the winter. As I have invested heavily in tools, machines, and jigging (Thanks Todd!) I can get more done b/c I'm much more efficient with each guitar

I used to work 80 to 96 hours a week or 16 hours a day, 5 or 6 days a week.

For the 12 months after my shoulder was torn apart, I worked exactly 0 hours.

Over the past 8 months, I've worked as many hours as the shoulder allows....
sometimes 2 sometimes 4 hours at a time, but I'm working on getting a full
day in again as soon as possible.

I'll never do more than 12 hours a day again. It's just not healthy.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

Amen to that, Kevin!! I used to be cabinetmaker with m own business, and there were times I put in 20 hour days for weeks to meet a deadline (the worst was 36 hours straight! Not very safe...). Does bad things to your sanity. Good luck with the shoulder - that's a tough thing to deal with.

I just do for a hobby (therapy). Sometimes I go out to the shop and spend 2 hrs. messing around and not being very productive. That's ok because everything else I do (especially work) has a deadline. I like having something with no exepectations or quotas to meet. When I find myself in a hurry building guitars I have to stop and tell myself to slow down and enjoy it. So I try to get out to the shop everyday and spend several hours. In two years I've completed 4 acoustics and one electric. Can't really afford ( the materials) for much more than that! Clinton

Hello, my name is Larry and I am a Instrument-o-alic,I work at guitars, Irish Bouzoukis, and mandolins at least six to ten hours every day....when I am not working ,I am either surfing the net or watching videos on TV on the subject......Totally addicted...Even when I go to bed my last thoughts are on guitar building.....Yes,I am married, to a very understanding person....I totally love it.........................Hope they never find a cure for this addiction....Larry

My guitar building time varies a lot. There will sometimes be weeks or even months with nothing, and sometimes it will become obsessive and I'll get more time in. I don't have the opportunity to build in my "spare" time, so I steal building time from work. This is rather easy/disastrous as my lutherie shop shares space with my real job shop.

From time to time I can safely work on lots of small stuff. Somedays I'll resaw a bunch of wood, or fingerboards, or glue up some necks. When I get the guitar close to being guitar-like, I get obsessive and have to finish it in order to exorcise it, and to keep it from leading me to financial ruin.

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Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

As a hobbyist with a busy life, I seem to only get around 3-5 hours a week in the worskshop. What I mean by that is you have to include tool sharpening time, etc.

I'm a beginner hobbyist without a real shop area. It seems that for every hour or so that I can work it takes more time for setting up and cleaning up after. I have put off finishing a Dread project to organize my garage and try to find a small corner that I can call mine.

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Greg Hatcher
North Carolina

Forty hours a week for Ervin, and about 25 a week on my own stuff.

-Mark

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Pullman, WA

The more I know, the more I know I don't know.

trippguitars.com
OR
Find me on Facebook

My shop time varies a lot too. Whenever I have the time away from work I'm
building. Especially the weekends - I get 8 to 10 hours a day. During the week,- a few hours at night if
I'm not too tired. So that would be approx. - 25 to 30 hrs. a week . Of course I take the occasional
Sunday to have fun with the family !

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Also a part-timer, I’m lucky to get 8 solid hours a week on average.
I have tried to claim its therapy, but some will argue it’s an obsession.
Lately I’m working on making guitars on “guilt free” time.
One commission a year helps to justify the other 2 guitars I try to build each year.
At this pace however, it is easy to keep excited about it and I look forward to shop time even if it’s not always productive.
Sometimes I just look at wood.

Seeing what everyone here is up to helps to keep the magic alive too.


Wade

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Wade
Nashua, NH
http://www.wadefx.com

Wow! Don't you ever get fed up with it all?

One of my fears is that if I built guitars full time (or 65 hours a week as you do), I'll get sick of the whole Luthierie thing....

40 hours a week. No weekends or nights- I need family time. I start normally at 8:30-9-10, go to 5:30. Sometimes I get lunch/internet time, most times I combine lunch and researching images- art, etc.. at the same time. I actually am getting done more complicated pieces now in 2-3 weeks with smaller ones thrown in between depending. I still have two new ones just finishing now and another four in their series to do next.

Craig L

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www.handcraftinlay.com

I'm guessing I get about 45 or 50 hours a week in 6 days. I try to knock off when my wife gets home from work and take at least one day away from the shop with my wife. This weekend we are going to sit and watch the river go by, weather permitting. I actually have a small backlog of orders now but I will not increase shop time as I need sanity as well.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

I spend at least 80 hours a week building/ordering stuff/ or talking on here about building guitars.

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Reguards,

Ken H

I'm retired, but in the middle of a major house remodel, so I don't get as much time as I'd like (it's an obsession...plus you get to buy all that beautiful wood). I work on the house about 4-5 hours/day, and in the shop 1-2 hours/day. I'm also learning guitar, so I practice about 1-2 hours/day. Doesn't sound like much, but at 64 my back limits how much heavy effort I can put out pretty severely (that's the remodeling), and then yells at me the rest of the day, so I take it pretty easy...

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Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain

I don't really know how much time I spend in the shop, I don't have a clock out there.
But it seems like I put in between 4 and 8 hours almost every day.

Mark

I'm a dilettante builder/player. I have a 20 hr/week day job that pays the bills, and I generally spend 15 hrs per week building or playing. More if I'm playing Bach. I love playing Bach.

Probably around 30 hrs/week. I've got a little backlog of orders too and I have to discipline myself not to get too obsessed with the whole thing and take time away from the shop for issues of balance.
Terry

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Great info. Thanks, everybody!

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

More hours than I should...but fewer hours than I want.

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The member formerly known as erikbojerik....