demonx

Doug, as your sig suggests, you seem to be a CNC guru... I know virtually nothing about CNC's and I remember someone at a local business saying they upgraed to a vacuum table and it solved a lot of their mounting problems being they did a lot of unique jobs. I'm curious if there is a reason you dont use a vacuum table?

I wonder if it would be beneficial to have a business section on the forum, viewable only to members admin consider approved businesses or professional builders. I'm sure there are many topics not posted, questions etc and various supplier issues that professional builders would not discuss in public, that might be discussed in a more provate area? Just a though. This thread is an example of what could be posted in such an area.

Killemall: overpriced you say... Lets break it down in a business sense by the hour, in hourly blocks as most trade like businesses charge by the hour, not in minutes. Time spent talking to customer sorting out details, usually drags on over a month, lets just say an hour Disassemble and store away all the parts etc, one hour. Sanding the body and neck, an hour Sealing, grain filling or any spot repairs, could be several hours but lets just say one If its very damaged or has raw wood parts may need sanding back and sealing a second time, add another hour Sanding again and spraying a primer of some sort, another hour Sanding again and spraying colors and clears, lets just say two or three hours depending on the guitars needs Wet sanding and buffing the clear, an hour Assemble, set up etc could be an hour, could be two. So here we're at eleven hours in a by the block breakdown. In reality its less hours, but you would also have to over quote to cover your arse. So eleven hours labour, times by your hourly rate as a trades person. Most tradies work at over $100 an hour. Then add paint cost, plus overheads, sandpaper, a $35 canister for your breathing mask, etc etc etc. A grand is more than fair if you look at it as a business rather than hobby transaction. Why do you think most luthiers don't take on respray work. People aren't willing to pay for their time.

You want it flat. When I'm doing these surfaces, the face of the neck will be flat, prepared by jointer. The fingerboard will be flat, prepared by drum sander. I pre slot the board with deeper slots than I need, but I don't radius it until after the board is glued to the neck as the radius stage allows me to make sure that the area is still flat after the two flat surfaces are joined. The hard part is clamping the neck in a manner that it is straight for you to radius. I really need to pull my finger out and build a jig as I end out spending a couple minutes messing around with a straight edge. Sometimes you might even use the truss rod at this point. I think what you're seeing is just the neck pulling back on itself which you'll be able to fix with the truss rod etc, but you want to be careful, as you don't want to just go levelling the board if you haven't clamped up the neck straight or you'll actually level it into a wave shape when tension is on it

As far as buying wholesale, yes I have wholesale accounts at several of Australias biggest distributors - the problem there is, most of the wholesales prices are not far off ebay prices and often the ebay prices are cheaper. It really sucks for Australian business. EG: The Aust wholesaler for Grover sells grover mini's at approx $80 cost (plus freight) and then the retail is something like $130, whereas I buy them from the UK at approx $50 - this is just one example (prices are approx, not exact) There is no distributor for the bridges I like, so I have to buy them from the USA. Pickups from the UK. Every overseas purchase attracts international fees for using credit card as well as adding international freight costs. Down the track I'd love to be making my own pickups and get at least one cost inhouse, however at the moment I'd like to learn to make guitars first.

RAD - keeping a real life time log on paper will open your eyes to areas you need improvement or at least change method. The first time log I kept was rediiculous. I was at around 100hrs (very new to building). The last time log I kept (23 builds ago) I had lowered the build time to 50 hrs and discovered I had spent the same amount of time on paint that I did on woodwork (it ws an airbruished guitar though so more hours were added there). I knew instantly I needed to change my paint process and I'm stil trying to lower the time spent in certain areas. So each log you keep, you'll be able to isolate focus areas to improve on. It's probably about time I kept another one. Your advice on the CNC is sound. My plan at the moment for that is when it happens, buy something like what Doug has ($$$ I dont have), rather than buy something that I'll regret like you fell into the trap of. The learning curcve as you said I fully understand will melt my brain, so I have it in my head I'll basically shut up shop and not take on any customers (like I have now for my house reno's) and just work with it until I get a grasp on what I'm doing. So I'd essentailly be dedicated to working on/with/learning the CNC 6 days a week.

I also agree with RAD that parts are my biggest expense. I spent 3 times the amount on parts that I did on timber. I own my workspace (mortgage) which is approx 1500sq ft area, plus outside of that has onsite parking etc, so that percentage of the mortgage is also to be considered in the final costing as well. There are so many things to factor in.

That was just an example of how the price will change once you add labor etc - when working out things in full, I totally agree. At certain points an hours log needs be kept (and occasionally reviewed as your procedures change and improve) and then a wage caculated to reflect. I have been through all that AND need to go back and review and start a new build log. The first couple builds I sold were at zero profit and giving away the labor. They were for friends. My first paying customers and I charged them to cover material only. The first "non friends" builds I sold were build at a wage of approx $14hr. That hourly wage now sits at approx $36hr but it'd vary per build as some are faster and some are slower. When I get my **** together and decide on some set guitar models with set range of variable specs (I'm getting there but still way off) THEN I'll go back, do another couple time logs and do an accurate calculation of a hourly wage and adjust prices accordingly as they'll need to be much higher than they currently are to sustain an income. However as I'm still in the experimentation and exploration stage and still learning how the hell I plan on doing the builds, all this is just hobby money and not wage. Its all just a model to experiment with until I decide and am comfortable to launch what I consider the real business where I would like to be running CNC and a few other toys, in which case build times and other costs will change dramatically again. The end model as you call it will be based on materials, associated running costs + tax and other expenses plus wages = price. However I'd like to stay at "hobby" stage until I have a real idea of what the hell I'm doing, I'll then have a scale of associated costs I can relate to builds and get a rough idea from that what I should be charging as "running costs" per build and so forth.

I'd like to expand on Rads Tax and insurance comment above. Most people dont consider other costs like advertising. I spent over a grand advertising this year. Credit card fees for part purchases ran up several hundereds of dollars which is a percentage of the several thousands of dollars hardware opurchased. On going running costs like replacing bandsaw blades, blunt router bits, worn out files, razor blades etc this year added up to several hundreds of dollars. Add on top of that buying sheets of perspex to make templates, a sheet can costs hundreds on its own and if you're doing full customs you'll know you spend a lot of time making templates. Then theres various bookkeeping and admin related expenses. Lets not even get into safetly gear, breathing protection, hand cleaners, gun cleaners, plastic sheets and the dozens of other things we have around our workshop that are part of the build process. I spent hundreds of dollars on sandpaper alone and that gets thrown out. Masking tapes, double sided tapes, wax/grease remover. All things we're buying and they are used up = ongoing running costs. A customer and will look at a guitar and see a couple hundreds bucks worth of timber and a few hundred bucks worth of hardware and think that if you're charging two times this price then you're a rip off artist. They don't see the things I'm mentioning above or the time involved. In realism you need to cover your hours and running costs and material costs. In essence it could be that to run full time you need to charge 6.5 x your actual material costs or more. Minimum cost. This may not be the right number for everyone as it'll vary on your build style and what you pay for things, but its the number floating around in my head at the moment and I can tell you I'm not charging that at the moment. I'm undercharging, but I'm still getting things sorted.

Ok, I must have miss read. I skim read the whole thread quickly. My bad. I've never had this problem as I drill all mounting holes etc after paint, in exception if tuner holes, which I have to run a drill bit through hand held in some vice grips after paint.

I agree with the too cheap. I don't normally take on this sort if work, it was for a guy who's a return retail customer on other items and I threw him a bone but regretted it later. In the future I plan on simply refusing all respray work.

My opening comment was a poor attempt at humour, not a personal attack as you might have read it!

My advice is similar to above. Just start from scratch. It's easier a lot of the time to start again than to fix. With the maple neck, if you want stability, maple is good, 3pc maple is awesome. I like 3pc necks as they always seem much more solid than one or two piece. As far as reusing the board, the time it takes to remove the board "carefully" enough that its reusable (I have done this) you're better off just making a new one. At least the new one you can choose the board and do custom inlay if that floats your boat. I've built myself a warlock before based on my old stage guitar, a USA neckthru warlock and this is my advice. Start from scratch, you'll be more proud of the finished product.

All I got from the whole post was blah blah blah $300 Thats a ****ing bargain! Last resprays I did I quoted $500ea for and the customer jumped at it. When I was doing all the work I was pissed off at myself that I charged so little for all the work involved. I usually turn down spray work as it's simply a pain in the arse and people usually aren't willing to pay for the time involved. To answer your question though, I've never wiped on a polyurethane finish, I have always sprayed, so I cannot offer advice. I have wiped on epoxies, however I would not leave that as a top coat, I believe its best to spray a clear over the top.

I'll have to completely dissagree that you cannot use Auto 2k primer on wood. I used it for years. In fact, I was sent a link on the weekend to a video of to two of my guitars playing side by side on stage in Melbourne. Bothy are old builds, both I used auto 2k primer on. No goo, paint still holding up, so you must be doing something seriously wrong. The only reason I stopped using Auto 2k primer is because of sinkback. Even though I had grainfilled thet things to death, over a period of time I was still getting sinkback. Not in the time the instrument was here, but several months aftrer the customers had taken delivery. So I now approach grain filling and sealing differently (west systems epoxy is doing the job at the moment) then just use an automotive clear over the top as a primer, then can add color or whatever after that. No sinkback.

$148.87 It is currenty end of the financial year here in Australia. I just finished up my tax spreadsheet yesterday and $187.87 is my profit after twelve months as a registered business. My cash taking is a five digit figure, however I have been putting every cent back into machinery upgrades and various other tool purchases etc. I consider that having an "in the green" a pretty good result at this stage, being that I'm living off a factory income as well as doing this whilst I get things set up and sorted out. It also tells me that once the workshop is setup then most of those spent dollars on tools and machinery purchases will be profit in the future leaving the potential for a five figure profit rather than the three figure of this year. At this stage, I don't see it being a "full time" income, however with more planning, change of procedures, reducing labor intensive excercises and more machinery purchases/upgrades that will enable more precise work resulting in less labor in other areas, I can see the potential for a full time income. Building guitars for a living is not in the short term future for me, maybe long term. I am curious though, how many members on this board are full time builders?

I'm aware you can buy kits etc that need upgrading, I'm more interested in knowing the cost if a machine that doesn't and will never need upgrading, that can handle working as a business not a hobby. If this is a machine that doug had upgraded to from an industrial machine, than this is something that gets my interest.

I'm curious what something like this costs to build, assuming you are starting from scratch?

No worries sd, glad to be of service. I was just trying to think of other workplace near misses I've bene involved in. A couple years ago I was on a site, up on a ladder whilst a guy was about 3 meters in front of me on a ladder with a framing gun. First day he'd ever used one and he shot a full length framing nail through a 35mm piece of timber. The nail came so close to my head I heard it whoosh past my ear! I can assure you he copped a verbal beating. Sorry for hijacking the thread

------------------------------------------------------ Mate, in the video, you're not even wearing safety glasses! It's very scary! I've spent enough time on a router table (and spindle moulders which are even more freakin scary) over the years to have more than one router bit explode, one of those times flying at least 10 - 12 meters across my own workshop. Imagine if that hit you in the face. I know my "safety" talk might seem to be a bit over the top to some people, but after working in a factory environment for so long and seeing so many industrial accidents... it's for a bloody good reason I preach safety. I work with so many people who are missing fingers, eyes, extreme chemical burns, oil burns, crushed in machinery or forklifts, caught between belts and having flesh ripped from their body etc etc. I work in this environment every damn day and see **** I wish I never had to. I myself have had so many "near misses" that its a ****ing big wake up call to not just take things for granted. I have a grip/push paddle I use these days for routing that is missing a chunk out of it AND I route much more cautiously than you demonstrate in the clip. I can photo this if you dont believe. What I'm saying is dont get too attached to your digits as it's going to happen one day unless you change your ways.

I've messed around with various methods, straight flush trim bits. spiral cut bits, bits I've had custom made etc etc - I've gone back to simply bandsawing close and then rasping back. I find is actually quicker and completely eliminates tearout and massively reduces risk of injury. As far as Chris' video, I have a friend who is missing a finger due to a router table accident. A professional wood machinist, not just a hobby hack. Every time Chris posts that video it reminds me of my friend. I excercise extra caution when using router tables, just google images "router accident" and you'll see why.

I voted Pan_kara. PsikoT - Brilliant work and outstanding detail. The shape itself looks very much like a BC Rich Eagle, a shape I've always thought to be very classy. I dont really dig the carve with the thin top. It's something I've considered doing myself and now I've seen it I wont. All out great finished product though. I picked you for third place (my tastes/opinions are usually not main stream around this place) Shad Peters - Yours was my close second place. I'm not a fan of timber pickup covers and knobs (some people really love em) but other than that it's a pretty cool guitar. Pan_kara - Well done. I've been wanting to make myself something like this for ages. Not a fan of the timber knob and te headstock shape isn't too much to my liking, but they weren't bad enough to kill my vote. The shape (I'm a superstrat guy), the simplicity and the top all just add up to a great overall package. Well done. All the other entries (my own included) I haven't commented on simply because the guitars are so far from my tastes/opinions, but good luck.

A quick update to the refurbs I was posting about in case anyone was following them: They were collected a few weeks back and the owner seemed very happy

Few pics of the clancy star:

Clancy's Star - Neckthru 6 Built for the guitarist of: https://www.facebook.com/impactdriverballarat THERE ARE 47 PIECES OF TIMBER IN THIS GUITAR! Neck, fingerboard & headstock - Wenge, Maple & Padauk laminations Body - Padauk top on African Mahogany with Maple stringers Kahler trem (NOS blue annodised from the 1980's) with spurzel locking tuners Tusq nut Carbon fiber output jack plate Blue plastic cavity covers and binding Glow in the dark side dots Bareknuckle Aftermath set - burned chrome covers mounted over red LED's Kill switch (arcade button) with blue LED Coil split, phase switches and 3 way pickup selector 24 frets - Dunlop 6150 25.5" scale 16" radius Finish is West Systems epoxy as grain filler and sealer, then UPOL 2k clear coat - fingerboard finished the same as body. Build pics here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.394120110669829.92715.122774891137687&type=3&uploaded=12