Official Luthiers Forum!

Let's face it, I'm cheap. Lutherie supplies aren't in the family budget;
when I'm able to sneak something in, I might, but usually don't. So far
the birth of a child has been the only event that's warranted ponying up
for supplies to build a guitar.

So, my question to all of you (for entertainment purposes as much as
anything else):

How inexpensively can you build a "non-cheap" guitar?

When I say "non-cheap", I mean something along the lines of "of
reasonable quality." Using nice, stiff piece of corrugated cardboard for a
soundboard is cheap. Using a lower grade piece of sitka is inexpensive.

Here are my ground rules...
1. Assume that you have any reasonable tools that a weekend luthier is
likely to have - table saw, band saw, sanders, planers, what have you.
Also, To keep our focus on the guitar, let's assume that we have
whatever jigs, molds, bending machines, forms, or other working items
that you might need. Those are tools too, right?
2. Assume that you have ZERO wood in the shop - no scraps, no off-cuts,
no pallet wood, no scavenging studs out of the wall. Further, no
dumpster diving. Ergo, you MUST purchase some wood, and likely from
one of our fine sponsors since they've all got some great deals and offer
great service to boot.
3. Assume that you have ZERO other guitar parts and supplies like glue,
fretwire, tuning machines, any material for nuts and saddles, etc.


So, here's my first shot, and I'm just guessing at prices:

1 bottle of elmer's white glue, $2

4 bf (too little? too much?) of maple for neck and tail blocks and the neck
itself - it's cheaper here than mahogany and I figure we can also squeeze
out a fingerboard, kerfing, and a bridge plate out of the billet. Call it $5/
bf, $20

Let's assume one of the sponsors could scrounge up non-bookmatched
back set and non-bookmatched sides (who cares what species), and
maybe he carges about $25 for the lot.

Let's get a low-grade Sitka top set. Steve is selling his "good" grade for
$20.

We need bracewood, about $10 for two billets.

We're going for ultra-inexpensive, so should we skip "appointments" like
rosette, binding, purfling, and the like?

Fretwire is fretwire, and I'm guessing it takes maybe $10 worth if we only
buy enough for a single guitar.

For a nut and saddle, I'm going to go to the pet store and get a bleached
bone and cut it up and shape it. $2

We probably need a trussrod. How much do you think the materials are
for a cumpiano-style make-your-own? $10?

I think all that's left are the tuning machines and strings. I couldn't
honestly tell you what the best value is in tuning machines. Let's go
cheap on the strings - we can always change them later ($2). Stewmac
sells "economy" tuners for about $20.

So, that all comes up to a grand total of...

$121

What do you think? Shooting a little low? It's going to be pretty ugly
without binding or a rosette, but it should play fine. I do worry about the
top splitting without a rosette. Think would could have stolen a thin
strip, bent and inlayed it from the maple billet? Maybe add a bf of maple
and use maple binding, bump us up to $126?

OK, really have a cheap guitar here...........but

1. Splurge and pick up some Titebond at Harbor Freight for $4.00 on sale
2. Allied has Mahog neck blank for $16.00, Fingerboard Ebony grade B $6.00, Headplate $4.00, Bridgeblank for $2.00 Ebony.
3. AC Tonewoods has Sapeli B&S bookmatched for $36.00
4. Top - Alaska Specialty wood has Sitka at $14.00 or WRC at $8.00, not the best grade but workable. AC Tonewood has Sitka A grade for $12.00

Stick with the rest of your pricing from the Pet store, Fretwire, trussrod, Bracewood & binding etc.

My price would come to around $138.00

In reality you could actually purchase most of the items you are looking at from one of the suppliers and easily come out with a nice guitar for around $200.00.

That was fun,

Thanks

Mike

Jay, if you'd ask, and be willing to fork over some shipping cash, I bet you'd be surprised what folks would donate, just to watch you work! I bet I have enough orphan sides and backs to give you a guitar's worth. Just an idea. call it the luthier's leftovers guitar.    Remember Bob Taylor's Pallet guitar!

_________________
http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Back and sides...My neighbor's sycamore tree $0.00
Neck.............Same   tree    ;           ;  $0 .00
Bridge ..........Ziricote leftover scrap     $0.00
Top and braces shakes blown off of my neighbor's house in the last storm...............................$0.00
Fretboard........Same peice of scrap        $0.00
Truss rod........LMI 2 way..................$18.00
Tuners...........Grover Sta Tite 18:1.......$31.06
Fretwire....................................$10.00
Binding..........Black walnut scraps.........$0.00
Rosette..........Spalted maple from neighbor's
                          Firewood pile...............$0.00
Bridge pins..................................$5.00
Strings..........cheap set...................$5.00
total......$69.00 , or about what a dealer pays for a Chinese import guitar.          ;           ;           ;           ;           ;           ;
                                                                     

But I cheated.

AlA Peebels38826.0121990741

My first cost me less than $20 in material, more than a thousand bucks on toolin' up tho! And i did not cheat!

You can make a single action, Gibson style truss rod for about $2.50.

Check the local big box stores, sometimes they have realy nice cedar that's quartered and they don't know what they have, you can get it really inexpensive.

Like Bruce, said, if you were to pay for the postage, I bet you would get enough stuff to build, as long as you posted progress pics.

I'll give you flamed maple b/s if you want. They were given to me by a very generous man. But postage from Canada to you may be about $15. You decide.

_________________
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

Pay $20-30 for a decent top; the rest you can almost literally scrape up.. I bought very nice albeit unfigured
European Maple for $20/set recently.

I'll go with what I can do, so resawing backs/sides is out, but most other bits can be done by hand.

Consumables:
Titebond - $4.50
Sandpaper - $10.00 (bit on the high side, but still; I buy it in books these days)
Shellac/alcohol - $10.00

Hardware:
Gotoh tuning machines = 30.00
HotRod (I won't negotiate on that) - 11.00
CF rods (or this) - 10.00

Materials:
Sapele board (stacked heel neck, linings, blocks) - $20.00
Back/Side set, Sapele - $12.00
Euro Spruce Top, AAA equivalent - $25.00
Euro brace stock - $2.00
EIR bridge, fingerboard, headplate, rosette - $7.00
Binding+Purfling - $10.00
Bone saddle+nut blank - $1.00 (eBay)

Total: $152.50

This excludes shipping, though, and upgrades to Honduran mahogany throughout would mean an additional $15-$20, EIR another $10 on top of that for something reasonable (upside: don't need to buy binding any more, use offcuts from the sides). The cheap cheap prices on back/sides/fingerboards are all from spanish suppliers. Ebony headplate/fingerboard/etc. would triple the price for fingerboard/headplate/bridge blanks.

Mattia Valente38826.1794328704

I know you want us to estimate how much you can build a single guitar for with materials from the usual suppliers, but in reality you can probably always find some scraps or cast aways locally that you can use if you have the tools to shape them and know what to look for. It is fun too (and I'm not beyond dumpster diving as I've mentioned before, why would you rule out that )? That leaves things like tuners, fret wire and strings + consumables; buy the best you can afford from a single source.

If you buy larger quantities and from fewer sources you cut back on shipping fees and get discounts; the price per item goes down. If you don't have the cash or room to store it and must buy just what you need NOW, you pay more. To quote my old man "it is expensive to be poor".

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin

[QUOTE=ToddStock] likely as cheap as buying the materials at the Borg [/QUOTE]

Can someone enlighten me? What is the Borg?

_________________
Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

[QUOTE=Dave Rector] [QUOTE=ToddStock] likely as cheap as buying the materials at the Borg [/QUOTE]

Can someone enlighten me? What is the Borg?[/QUOTE]

The Big Orange Retail Giant, aptly named (after a Star Trek nemesis) cube that alights on a town and assimilates all smaller DIY/Home Improvement/Hardware stores previously in existence. Resistance is futile.

(Short answer: home depot)

I was beginning to wonder what the steely eyed Swede Bjorn Borg had to do with any of this...

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

[QUOTE=Bruce Dickey] Jay, if you'd ask, and be willing to fork over some shipping cash, I bet you'd be surprised what folks would donate, just to watch you work! I bet I have enough orphan sides and backs to give you a guitar's worth. Just an idea. call it the luthier's leftovers guitar.    Remember Bob Taylor's Pallet guitar![/QUOTE]

I have no doubt at all you're right! Shoot, I haven't even asked and at least three folks have provided both wood and expertise!

This is really just for fun; I really am so cheap that I sit around fantasizing about just *how low* you really could go ;-). In reality, though, by the time I'm finished with a guitar, I've usually had another birthday and gotten some cash to go towards another.

[QUOTE=A Peebels]But I cheated.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, but you get bonus points for the majority of materials beling liberated from the neighbor's house, yard, or firewood pile

[QUOTE=Rod True]Check the local big box stores, sometimes they have realy nice cedar that's quartered and they don't know what they have, you can get it really inexpensive.[/QUOTE]

That's actually a pretty good idea. Western Red Cedar is a big-time decking material around here, so there's plenty to sift through.

[QUOTE=Mattia Valente]
Back/Side set, Sapele - $12.00
Euro Spruce Top, AAA equivalent - $25.00
Euro brace stock - $2.00
EIR bridge, fingerboard, headplate, rosette - $7.00
[/QUOTE]

You've got some connections somewhere! I don't think I've seen sapele b/s sets that cheap, and I know I haven't seen AAA Euro spruce that cheap. Any links you want to post?

[QUOTE=Arnt] in reality you can probably always find some scraps or cast aways locally that you can use if you have the tools to shape them and know what to look for. [/QUOTE]

I agree. My next mandolin top and back plates and rib are going to be from some 50+ year old sorta-quartered (about 45 deg) SPF that I salvaged from the shop when I was cleaning it out after buying the house. I'm guessing it's fir since it seems reasonably hard and heavier than spruce, but I'm not sure. It's got an interesting dark orange color to it. A neighbor suggested it's "heart of pine".

I've also got some leftover mahogany from the current guitar, I think enough to make a neck and the neck/tail blocks. I've got a piece of ash that I think might work for a fingerboard and bridge, or I might try to work something out with a piece of ebony I have that's *just* too thin for a guitar fingerboard. I'm not above using poplar for kerfing. Tailpiece, fretwire, and tuners and I'll be set!

Man, all I need is some time in the shop!!!

[QUOTE=Mattia Valente] (Short answer: home depot)[/QUOTE]

Thanks Mattia, another DUH moment for me. They seem to be coming with more frequency lately.

_________________
Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

[quote]The Big Orange Retail Giant, aptly named (after a Star Trek nemesis) cube that alights on a town and assimilates all smaller DIY/Home Improvement/Hardware stores previously in existence. Resistance is futile.

(Short answer: home depot) [/quote]



I've seen lots of refferences to this before and always figured there was a hareware store chain in the US called the Borg!

Friends don't let friends shop at the Borg. Nobody there makes a living wage except upper management.

Welcome to discount retail baby. All Retail is the notorious for low wages

Huh. I was sure I answered the 'where you get dem things so cheap then?' question, but apparently not: hardwoods from Spain (Madinter or Maderas Barber), tops from Italy (Rivolta...although Madinter have lovely, lovely WRC). Doesn't help people on the other side of the atlantic, but it's worth pointing out there are some great suppliers on this side as well.

[QUOTE=Mattia Valente] Doesn't help people on the other side of the
atlantic, but it's worth pointing out there are some great suppliers on this
side as well.[/QUOTE]

Oh nuts! I forgot that you're not in the U.S. (typical American, right
) I guess Eurpoean Spruce is cheap in EUROPE. You'd think cedar would
be cheap over here, but alas....

The Borg, part machine part human, live in a cube spaceship on StarTrek Next Generation

Mike

Jay, if you want good, inexpensive cedar, drop Jason Voth a PM, he can't be beat (price that is) and his stuff is top shelf.

Isn't Zellers moto "where the lowest wage is the law, everyday"?

_________________
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