guitar companys

cena

i'v been thinking over the last few days that could be a good opening for some one to start a company that makes guitars.


i know it would cost loads to have the right tools etc.

what do ye all think

brendansmith

Can i nominate this of the 'Instruments forum most awesome thread of 2009'?

Cena, i think that there are already companys making guitars.

You may have to develope your original post abit.

cena

well they could either be making electric guitars or acoustic guitars. they could get a dell with some shop over in england and ireland and make a name for themself.

if they are good enough and word starts to get out maybe some day they could start mass produce there stuff for world wide, like gibson, fender or bc rich.

spoonbadger

brendansmith wrote: »

Can i nominate this of the 'Instruments forum most awesome thread of 2009'?

Cena, i think that there are already companys making guitars.

You may have to develope your original post abit.

And i'd like to nominate this for "least helpful post of 09".

OP, if someone started a company doing proper,traditional style electric guitars in the U.K. they could make some serious cash. It's incredibly hard, to get something as simple as a proper les paul, unless you're buying MIJ (japanese made). Gibson's current model les pauls are missing so many of the "little features" that make it what it is (ie, long neck tenon, solid body). I would pay massive amounts of money for a proper LP.

That's just one example. IMO a medium scale company doing simple production electrics (without the unnecessary cost-cutting used by some brands) could easily sustain itself.

brendansmith

spoonbadger wrote: »

It's incredibly hard, to get something as simple as a proper les paul, unless you're buying MIJ (japanese made). Gibson's current model les pauls are missing so many of the "little features" that make it what it is (ie, long neck tenon, solid body). I would pay massive amounts of money for a proper LP.

"least helpful post of 09", to be honest your above post is not far behind.

I cant make out what you are trying to say, could you clarify please?

68 lost souls

Not quite sure what this is all about but yeah it would be great if you had the skills, resources, capital, investors to start up sucha company. I would love to do it. Fancy lending me a few quid so I can get it started.

Not trying to annoy any one but that is the reality. There will be huge startup costs involved due to the tools and materials required. You will have heavy losses for the first while since peole wont trust your name and sale swill be slow. Its very time consuming so it will take some time to get everything up and running smoothly.

Getting supplys is a nightmare in Ireland. If you want to get parts on expect a big wait. Also to get the deals with parts suppliers will be hard. Probably cost you a huge chink more because we are in Ireland and genereally guitar companies will charge us more.

So yeah in theory it would be great but hard to do.

Now looking around Ireland there are a few people who do this.

http://www.georgelowden.com/

http://www.avalonguitars.com/

Derek Nelson

http://www.hazeguitars.com/

Are just a few of the Irish based producers ranging from very small independents to larger manufacturers.

If you fanvcy having a look at how much it will cost you here is a bit of a quick calculator you can use as a guide.

http://freelanceswitch.com/rates/

legologic

I worked closely with a luthier when I was doing my leaving cert project and I have read many articles on this. Unfortunately the outlook from both sources was fairly bleak with both saying it's insanely difficult to be successful as a luthier or make any money from it. The luthier I worked with moved to France to make Harps as he couldn't make a proper living here and the article said something along the lines of "If you go into luthierie with the aim of making money, prepare to be very dissapointed"

I'm not saying it's not possible but very risky. Personally I would absolutely love to do this and it's been a dream of mine for years. I don't know if the Irish/UK market would be big enough to successfully support an independant guitar co. unless they were really something special. You'd have to have appeal at the right price not just for the consumer but also for the banker. Biggest risk would be that you'd price yourself into a niche with low sales, high quality, low output, unhappy banker.



Just my 2 cents i'm sure there's those who disagree. For me Luthierie is going to be a personal pursuit.

brendansmith

I dont think an irish company could compete on a mass production scale. Have you seen the price of anything there? Its not competitive.

Thats what your chinas, koreas and indonesias are for.

cena

it isvery hard to make a guitar. i made a strat for my lc. i got all the parts from stew mac. got the timber from a cousin who gets timber delivered to his home house because he some times cut timber up for your local saw mill (murrays saw mill)

MattKid

There are loads of small builders out there ranging from those who use Warmouth etc bodies and necks as a starting point and to keep the price down, to those who make absolutely everything.

Unless you're coming up with a brilliant new original design that is going to set the world alight, I don't think the world needs another strat, tele, lp clone maker.

cena

too true. it would have to be out of this world design

Ravelleman

Your should go on Dragon's Den. That would be funny.

Dord

Solely making guitars in Ireland to sell will not make you enough money to live off. Most small luthiers would primarily do repairs which would provide a more steady source of income.
But luthiery is a craft and as with all crafts you do it for the love not the money. Because it most likely won't make you a lot.

Doctor J

It can be done but it's unlikely to be done in Ireland. You're not going to beat Chinese, Indonesian, Taiwanese etc on price or value for money, so you're talking high quality instruments in low numbers. There are lots of people in Ireland alone who do that, let alone Europe where the shipping isn't too bad and no import taxation for customers here. There's a fella who's on talkbass, called Nino Valenti, who recently set up a business using the parts route - Warmoth and USA Custom bodies and necks which he'd then assemble. His basses are still $1500 at least and he has the reputation advantage of being a former Sadowsky employee. He doesn't have the overhead of having to ship in parts internationally. The other alternative would be to get somewhere in the Far East to build your designs on the cheap but you'd need a ****load of starting capital for that and things like distribution set up. It's a crowded market, you'd need to have something unique that customers can't get cheaper from an already established brand. Bear in mind how many guitars Gibson sell despite their renowned quality issues, musicians like brands they know, often over something which might be better.

Johnny Storm

Dord wrote: »

..But luthiery is a craft and as with all crafts you do it for the love not the money. Because it most likely won't make you a lot.

I'm sure this is true. I'm guessing a luthier would make some decent money on 95% of his/her jobs but every now and then one will go totally arseways which will require the luthier to spend load of his time (= money) and supplies to put right.

Johnny Storm

Doctor J wrote: »

It can be done but it's unlikely to be done in Ireland. You're not going to beat Chinese, Indonesian, Taiwanese etc on price or value for money, so you're talking high quality instruments in low numbers. There are lots of people in Ireland alone who do that, let alone Europe where the shipping isn't too bad and no import taxation for customers here. There's a fella who's on talkbass, called Nino Valenti, who recently set up a business using the parts route - Warmoth and USA Custom bodies and necks which he'd then assemble. His basses are still $1500 at least and he has the reputation advantage of being a former Sadowsky employee. He doesn't have the overhead of having to ship in parts internationally. The other alternative would be to get somewhere in the Far East to build your designs on the cheap but you'd need a ****load of starting capital for that and things like distribution set up. It's a crowded market, you'd need to have something unique that customers can't get cheaper from an already established brand. Bear in mind how many guitars Gibson sell despite their renowned quality issues, musicians like brands they know, often over something which might be better.

+1

Good article here about Avalon guitars in Norn Iron. They could only make and flog 1500 acoustics a year until they sub-contracted production to Cort in the Far East, now they can sell 8000 per year.
Cort make 600,000 guits per year!

paul mcnamara

OP, if someone started a company doing proper,traditional style electric guitars in the U.K. they could make some serious cash. It's incredibly hard, to get something as simple as a proper les paul, unless you're buying MIJ (japanese made). Gibson's current model les pauls are missing so many of the "little features" that make it what it is (ie, long neck tenon, solid body). I would pay massive amounts of money for a proper LP.



Funny you should say that. thats exactly what im in the process of doing. im setting up a small company making all hand made guitars the way they were done in the 50's.
Its cool, a small companies low overheads mean that despite fitting the absolute best of the best hardware with hand selected lumber i can keep the costs low.

Look out Gibson ! your not gona know what hit you (in about 30 years ha ha ha)

If anybody is looking for somthing just PM me.
Website is under construction so i will put up the URL when its ready

Dord

paul mcnamara wrote: »

OP, if someone started a company doing proper,traditional style electric guitars in the U.K. they could make some serious cash. It's incredibly hard, to get something as simple as a proper les paul, unless you're buying MIJ (japanese made). Gibson's current model les pauls are missing so many of the "little features" that make it what it is (ie, long neck tenon, solid body). I would pay massive amounts of money for a proper LP.



Funny you should say that. thats exactly what im in the process of doing. im setting up a small company making all hand made guitars the way they were done in the 50's.
Its cool, a small companies low overheads mean that despite fitting the absolute best of the best hardware with hand selected lumber i can keep the costs low.

Look out Gibson ! your not gona know what hit you (in about 30 years ha ha ha)

If anybody is looking for somthing just PM me.
Website is under construction so i will put up the URL when its ready

I've got some news for ya.... someone is already doing that and for the last 20 or 30 years!

http://www.gordonsmithguitars.com/

Completely made in the UK and cheaper than Gibson. They're no frills guitars but supposed to be damn nice.

sweatingbullets

if your looking to make money doing that sort of racket you may forget about it im afraid,ever since the internet came more and more places have closed,unless your gibson,fender,dean,ibanez etc youll be chewed up and swallowed.:mad:

68 lost souls

Also dont forget about the lawsuits, once you go into sellings guitars to the public then you cannot replicate say a les paul exactly, it must have a certain amount of changes to pass through the laywers plus the large companies have way more money to fight a law suite so if they want they can just keep the law suit going till you go bankrupt. Saying that I would like to see you do well as I am all for handmade instruments coming out of Ireland.