Official Luthiers Forum!

I know my old pal David Vincent from Wichita taught classes at Red Wing Vo-Tech, and many students graduated from there down through the years. Who went there, or to some of the other schools here in America?

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

I studied with David Nichols of Custom Pearl and at CF Martin . I recommend taking a class over trying to teach yourself. It is better than being your own teacher . You don't know what you don't know until you know it.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I went to the OLF school of lutherie

Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Dave,
I wanted to post the exact same.
There are no Luthier schools in Germany.

What about Mittenwald?http://www.instrument-making-school.eu/
There are some others listed here;http://buildyourguitar.com/resources/schools.htm
I studied instrument repair at Anniesland College in Glasgow and guitar making at London Guildhall University, now part of London Metropolitan University. I'd love to still have access to either establishment- it's a great environment to learn and develop, and the libraries are priceless.
Cheers,
Bri

Hi Brian,
I didnt know about Mittenwald. Thanks a lot for letting me know. I will get in contact with them and see what it is about...

I took Frank Finocchio's one week course. Even that amount of info is worth many months of trying to figure things out on your own.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

I took the guitar course at Red Wing with Dave Vincent. He was a good teacher. It's a whole new ballgame when you wait a year and try and build your own guitar. Like others have said. It still requires alot of research and tools. I wish I would have known what I got myself into

Leeds guitar making school...

Roberto Venn, and I've been a full time repairman since the day I left eight years ago.

I've taken some guitar building classes from Robbie O'Brien at Red Rocks Community College and highly recommend it. I probably could have done it on my own, but you learn more and faster with good personal instruction.

Although I took the class, building on my own has taken off slowly. One big advantage of the class is using his shop, tools, and jigs. Making and buying all that stuff takes time, money and a surprising amount of space.

Now that I'm set up to be fairly self sufficient, I'll still go back and take his class again after I've got my wedding behind me. Building alongside 30 other people over a semester with the guidance of an expert teaches me far more than I'd learn on my own building a bunch of instruments in my basement.

Mike

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Mike Lindstrom

I wish I had. My guitars wish I had.

I guess I should weigh in.... I did not benefit from any kind of formal instruction. I started by picking the brains of local luthiers and buying as many guitar-building and repair books as I could get my hands on. I was already taking apart my guitars and putting them back together, and it snowballed from there. I was refretting my guitars about once a month, changing bridges and hardware, and refinishing them in different colors every other month, and so on.

Since I was a skilled scale modeler I used many of those tools, and purchased more as I needed them. After about a year, two of the local music stores I hung out in asked me to try my hand at installing nuts and doing setups on used store instruments. Once I had proven my skills they started recommending me to customers. Within two years one of the store invited me to join them as they moved into a larger building and my luthier business was born. This was 1979.

I worked doing repairs, setups, and refinishing part-time for two years (my day job was as a tool & die maker), before taking the plunge and going full time in the shop. The store moved into a succession of larger buildings, and each time I was allowed a larger shop area. At the busiest time of my shop, I had a fulltime apprentice, a part-time apprentice, and a part-time finisher who was more skilled with a spray gun than me.

When I closed the shop (Six String Fever) in 1990 I was burnt out from all the 70 hour weeks. I was so busy running the business, I was only at the bench a few hours a day. The rest of the time I was doing paperwork, or working the phones, etc. I went back to work as a tool and die maker at one of the big aircraft plants here in Wichita, and only did repair work for a few close friends and members of my family. I retired recently, and am now getting back into the swing of things just to kill some time.

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

Because I was a good luthier, but not a good businessman.
I did have an accountant, and she was worth every penny I paid her!
Also.... I was cheap!

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

Hey Chris, Where did you work at in Wichita? I was at Boeing now I'm at Spirit.
Looking forward to meeting you in July.

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

I have been retired a little over 2 years. I worked at Raytheon for about 8 years and was laid off in 2003. Loved working there, but you know what's been going on with the aircraft biz since 9/11. Worked at many of the job shops here in town - some production work, some programming, mostly tool and die work. Sold most of my precision tools, but still have a monstrous Kennedy box.

Never sold any of my lutherie stuff.

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

In 1977 I went to Charles Foxs school in Vt.
(guitar research & design center)
George Morris was our primary instructor.
He has a deep knowledge of woodworking experience to pass along.
When I left there I never stopped reading & trying to learn all I could about repair & construction .

Mike

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Mike Collins

I took the Charles Fox course in 2003. It was called "Contemporary Guitar Making". Highly recommended.

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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 sure wish there had been some sort of luthierie training around here, I bet it could have saved me a lot of wasted time. Then again, we live in the information age, everything you need to know is available, if you know where to look. It takes time to gather it all though, not to mention figure out what or who you want to believe. What you need to get anywhere no matter what, is to put in the time, and practice practice practice. You don't need a school for that, but they can really improve your learning curve.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

I am looking into taking a class on guitar building, hopefully next year as my vacation schedule is booked this year already. Does anyone know of a TWO week guitar building school where you can build one from scratch (or almost)?

Has anyone been to the Vermont School? http://www.vermontinstruments.com/

That's the one run by George Morris!
YES-go there!
It will be a life changing experience!
That is for instrument making !

You will not get better instruction anywhere else.

Mike

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Mike Collins

I took Charles Fox's course as well through the American School of Lutherie. It was the two week Steel String building course. Well worth the time and effort even going in as a pro woodworker. In fact, going in to formally train being a pro woodworker, and having already built one guitar, was quite a humbling experience. As most here already know, being a master furniture builder does not necessarily a master luthier make. Only building guitars, and time, along with continued education whether formally or through research can do that. Some can and do pick up on matters much quicker than others. And some never do. I can't say enough good about Charles though, he was very personable and his innovative ideas especially in the area of jigs was quite inspiring. And it was a great experience handling and playing an Ergo. He's very wise in allowing his lovely wife to run the business and web aspect of things. She's very good at it. I've also taken a few misc. courses at RRCC with Robbie O'Brien, another great guy and as many here have experienced, he has a great love and passion for sharing the art of lutherie. All the rest of it for me is combining years of woodworking experience and continuing to learn and self train on a daily basis (even in standard woodworking, I'm a perpetual student and will be till I check out of this life). That combined with actually building guitars and getting them into the hands of happy new owners make the passion well worth it indeed. At least to me.

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

My friend Steve Brown took me through the process. He took Frank Finoccho's class. So, I benefitted from his formal training...
Steve

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

I'm from Portugal and spent a lot of money to travel to Michigan and study at the Galloup School of Lutherie. I'll say it made a huge difference on my approach and I wouldn't make a different decision today.

That was two years ago. ROI is granted and I'm having fun, learning everyday and my (small) business seems to be rising when the economy is skydiving.

Regards

I'm currently going to a lutherie school in Montreal.

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars