Official Luthiers Forum!

Okay, so I know this is gonna be different from builder to builder. Just how many guitars some of you "full-timers" build per year (assuming you're not doing repair work too) and how many you folks with a day-job are building? I know of one guy who says he builds 25/year and another extremely high-end (10 year wait, $8000 and up etc.) builder says 10 is all he can do. What say you folks?

Right now I'm at 4-6 per year and I quit all repair work. I probably get in 8-10 hours each week in the shop as my day job and poultry farm will allow. I'm debating on going full time. Orders are starting to back up some and I must admit building guitars/furniture, whatever, is the coolest thing....and I do have a back-up plan if the market gives me a swift kick in the pants.

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"We might not be big but we sure are slow"

at the peak of my acoustic production I would put out about 40 a year.

I plan on putting out about 30-40 electrics this year.

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

As a hobbyist and when I was working in the corporate world I built 5-6 per year. My production rate dropped substantially when I got sick even though I was off work.

I have done a lot of thinking about this and timed my last 5 guitars and I think that it would be pretty easy for me to build one per month if that was all that I was doing. If I pushed it I think that I could do 20 per year with my building style.

You know guys like me who outsource our finishing skew the results here because we have the extra time to build the next guitar when others are finishing the current guitar. You might get a better sampling if people indicate if they outsource their finishing.

I only have enough room in my workshop & time for one guitar a year.

In the past 12 months or so I've built 16. This includes two electrics. Most of them were Weissenborn style which I'd say are slightly (thought not hugely) quicker to build than regular acoustics without neck set, action, fretting etc. to deal with.

I do all finishing myself. About half my finishes are satin, which is quite popular down here, and they are quite a bit quicker to do.

The other variable for me was the fact that an abnormally wet summer, though great for our drought, lost me about 3 months, as my current dehumidification setup couldn't deal with sometimes 2 or 3 weeks of straight rain. I'd expect otherwise I'd have completed closer to 20. The plan is in the next few months get that under control with a smaller, better-controlled room for assembly and storage within my larger workshop where the machines and powertools are.

I'm currently part-time, but not working full-time either, so I typically get 3-4 full days a week in the shop.

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Richard
http://www.guitarmaker.com

I am making 5-6 a year at this point. I have a full time job (40+ hrs. a week with an hour commute each way) and I have been french polishing them (although that is changing! Thanks Joe). I could do one a month easily if it was full time with them overlapping slightly.

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

the 40 acoustics I did in one year included doing my own finishes fwiw, and no CNC outsourcing. I was very busy. The electrics I'll be putting out this year though I'm not doing my finish.

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

I do 10-12 a year!
Plus repairs!
Quality is the most important factor!
if i try to make more I would not be happy -nor would the quality of my guitars be where I want them to be!!!!!!!!

You can't have it both ways!!
Quality-or-Quantity ?

Mike

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Mike Collins

6 in a good year , 1 in slow year. Average 3. Day job supports my sawdust habit.

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Greg
http://garibaldiinstruments.com/

if i keep the experimenting to a minimum i think three a year would be pretty do-able. but seeing as it's a hobby, and seeing as i'm just building the 9th, i realize that things still take longer than i think they should. and when i make mistakes, they turn out to be pretty lengthy setbacks.
hesh's point about finishing is an important one. i've now finished 8 guitars, and would be happy to just add $300 to the final bill if i had someone in my neighborhood who would be willing to do it for me. my hunch is that this could nearly double my output. if i was a pro in reasonable proximity to a pro finisher this would be such a no brainer. but living in the middle of no-where, i'm not willing to double the finishing price with all the shipping, insurance, and then the risk.
phil

15+ setting up and have the base for that now plus the 10 or so give aways. John I remember those couple of years of your going full blast in shop. Don't forget the ukes and my all time favorite the performance guitar.

6 the first year and it looks like it will be 6 again this year, as #8 is just waiting to buff and set up, and #9 is well under way, I make everything on the instrument and do all my own finishing, plus have a 40 hr. a week job. I've never kept track of the hours spent, but I would estimate that it's between 100 and 150 hours per instrument.

Some parts of the build process are definitely quicker now, but I find that any time savings is used up by trying more difficult features on subsequent builds. For me it is totally a hobby that I'm 100% addicted to. I've sold a couple and hope to sell some more, just to make room for the next ones.

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Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
Facebook
Cairns, Australia

Full time engineering job during the day, evening lutherie, 4-8 per year on a good years 6-10 on a not so good year. ( leaves no time for the family)

I'm somewheres around 8. I could maybe get to 10 but that would probably be my max right now.
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.

I'm close to finishing #5 and 6.
Will build probably 2 more to total 8 for the year.
This is my first year building.
I'm totally addicted to this and hardly even play anymore cause I'm
in the shop all the time.

Don't you mean "years per build"?

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The member formerly known as erikbojerik....

Dude, tell us more!

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Being a shopaholic/workaholic I was thinking I could do 20 in a year if I concentrated my time in the shop 30-40 hours per week. That's about all I can spare with my farm, family and church. After the responses I still feel confident in that. It would take that many to justify throwing in the towel with my day job. Maybe next Spring.

Thanks for all the replies too.

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"We might not be big but we sure are slow"

I averaged about 50 per year for five or six years in a row with 52 being the maximum number that I produced in a year,
but I was working 16 to 18 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week.


Like John Mayes, that was including doing all of my own finish work and with no CNC work or outsourcing of anything.

I produced exactly 18 guitars in 2006 before I got hurt, none in 2007 while I was completely laid off by the injury and
am in shape to possibly have 20 done before 2008 ends.

I'm hoping to settle into a more reasonable and healthy 30 to 32 guitar range for 2009 and on from there even though
24 would probably be more healthy.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

I'm building for myself, and my lutherie shares shop space with my canoe building, which is my day job.

Right now, I finish about one per year. I can't take time off in the evening or weekend due to family commitments. I steal time from my "work" for the guitar building, so guitar building actually "costs" me.

I refuse to work those insane hours every day of the week kind of schedules. Episodically if I have to, but that's it. If I did, my family would not take it and probably leave. Work is not worth that much to me.

If I had sales, I could set my processes up and put out a lot more work.

Phil, you're not in the middle of nowhere, you're just 24 minutes down the road from me!

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

Doug,
Agreed....nothing is worth losing time with your family. I always worked overnight and would grab a very few
hours of sleep in the morning before going at it again and then setting aside some time for the wife and kids
after school and for dinner....then it was overnight again.

I finally figured out that if I can't get a living made in eight or less hours a day, my prices were more fair to
everyone else than they were to my family and needed to be adjusted.

I'll not work those hours again except for an occasional short spirt of days to meet a goal or to please a
customer with a special time achievement.

Thanks,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

You guys might enjoy this quasi-article from BusinessWeek. I have a collection of these articles printed out to help remind me what I want out of life.



http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/co ... 27_601.htm

Mike, exactly. I'm reminded of a funny quote:

Qualilty, price, speed. Pick any two.

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

12

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Bob Connor
Geelong, Australia