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Post by andyhowell on Jul 14, 2015 12:32:37 GMT
Hello all, The guitar in the review was Greenfield GF in Ziricote and Adirondack Spruce which sold within hours of its arrival (its new owner generously allowed us to keep it long enough to get the review done). Michael, That guitar sounds awesome — over my MacBook speakers ;-) I also have to concede that it might sound better with you playing it rather than me :-) I take it the owner is a happy bunny?
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Post by michaelwatts on Jul 14, 2015 16:13:52 GMT
Hello all, The guitar in the review was Greenfield GF in Ziricote and Adirondack Spruce which sold within hours of its arrival (its new owner generously allowed us to keep it long enough to get the review done). Michael, That guitar sounds awesome — over my MacBook speakers ;-) I also have to concede that it might sound better with you playing it rather than me :-) I take it the owner is a happy bunny? I love Greenfield guitars and this was a particularly wonderful instrument. Exhilarating to play, full and rich. my idea of a thoroughly good time... I delivered this guitar in person to its new home in Paris last month. Its owner is, quite rightly, a very happy bunny indeed.
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Jul 14, 2015 16:44:46 GMT
Un lapin heureux / Une lapine heureuse. Keith
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Post by marcus on Jul 15, 2015 3:15:40 GMT
Un lapin pas si heureux
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Post by Mike Floorstand on Jul 15, 2015 21:53:13 GMT
Ben-Heureux?
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Post by Mike Floorstand on Jul 15, 2015 22:02:02 GMT
I wonder why hand-made violins are generally more expensive than hand-made guitars - do they require significantly more man-hours to make, or more skilled work? Or just the supply factor - I guess there are a lot more people making guitars, as well as a lot of quality guitars via mass-production techniques, which will tend to bring down prices?
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Post by fretter on Jul 16, 2015 9:51:18 GMT
Very unscientific and purely speculative!
Say a solo luthier makes 10/12 guitars a year and charges £5000. That is around one a month on average. 200 working hours - that works out at around £25 ph. That is without the (high) cost of the woods and tuners etc. Finishing is an expensive process, if farmed out.
All of a sudden it looks pretty reasonable, if you consider the level of skill involved. Try getting your washing machine/car etc fixed for £25 ph!
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Post by gavdav on Jul 16, 2015 11:11:30 GMT
What's an average 'decent wage'in the UK these days? How many instruments can a one man operation knock out to standard in a year, deduct costs of materials, power, workshop space and divide by the number of instruments... I'd say making ten to twenty great guitars a year might be about right looking at people's waiting lists - more if you add in more people to the mix, but then overheads go up. £2-3k sounds about right, more if they're deliberately managing a waiting list. Much cheaper than the equivalent violin... Conversely, maybe it is artificially hiked by what people will pay for a good vintage Martin...
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davewhite
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Post by davewhite on Jul 16, 2015 11:34:14 GMT
I'd say making ten to twenty great guitars a year might be about right looking at people's waiting lists - more if you add in more people to the mix, but then overheads go up. The trick is managing to sell 10-20 guitars every year . . . for potentially up to 40 years depending on when you start.
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Post by earwighoney on Jul 16, 2015 11:35:49 GMT
I wonder why hand-made violins are generally more expensive than hand-made guitars - do they require significantly more man-hours to make, or more skilled work? Violins do seem really tricky to make in contrast to flat top guitars. I post on a flamenco forum and one of the luthiers there made a violin, here is his blog post news-from-the-workshop.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page.html
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Post by creamburmese on Jul 16, 2015 15:30:13 GMT
That report of making a violin was quite something! Luthiers definitely earn their money!!
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R the F
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Post by R the F on Jul 16, 2015 19:15:36 GMT
I'm no expert and definitely an amateur but, in defence of guitar makers I would say that violin making appears, in part, to be a rather similar process to making a carved top (and bottom) guitar - but there's a lot less of it to carve!
Slightly more fiddly (!) I'll grant you but rather less sweat. The funny thing is that my first two guitars were carved archtops and, when I then started making a flat-top, I thought it would be a lot quicker and a lot easier but making the sides fit the slightly curved top and gluing in a lot of carefully shaped bracing and getting the neck angles exactly right etc. etc. involves a lot of time and care.
I also have a friend who is a top violin maker and, on the odd occasion I've talked to him about it, he seems to be rather more caught up in the finishing process - trying to replicate the exact varnishes that the old masters may have used and tanning the violin under ultra-violet and so on.
Not sure I've moved the argument on but at least I'm rooting for the guitar makers! - especially since this is a guitarists' forum!
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Post by andyhowell on Jul 17, 2015 13:31:57 GMT
£2-3k sounds about right, more if they're deliberately managing a waiting list. Much cheaper than the equivalent violin... I agree with that. When I was searching for an individual commission last year I realised I might not have pay what I had feared. There may be a lot of reasons for this: luthiers have other job (teaching); a tendency to not want to muck about with expensive and time consuming bling; a desire to keep beneath the VAT threshold (do no ignore this one) and so on .... I suspect two things drive price up. Bling (as already pointed out) and trendiness/popularity. However, there are many fine makers who haven't yet been approached by Eric Clapton and the like. My own views after going through the search commissioning process. We (in the UK) are living through a golden age of guitar making as well. You have people making great, great, guitars at ridiculously competitive prices. We pay ridiculously low prices for fine instruments. The points about violins are well made. Remember this guitar tradition is quite young with many of the now famous literally making it up as they went along. As the new movement becomes an established tradition perhaps things might come more like the violin market. Better go ahead and commission soon!
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Post by fretter on Jul 17, 2015 13:41:15 GMT
Quite agree with you Andy. All of a sudden a commission doesn't look too expensive of you compare it with a well known factory model with added bling!
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Post by creamburmese on Jul 17, 2015 13:56:49 GMT
I would point out that concert level classical guitars tend to command higher prices - maybe because they are lumped in with the same category as orchestra instruments like violins, and are taught in institutes of higher learning ... although they may also be more difficult to make - they are certainly more finicky and less robust than a typical steel string - my classical guitar weighs about half as much as my steel string of the same size
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