Official Luthiers Forum!

QUESTION:
What % of say, Martin's guitars have luthiers carving braces or 'tuning'?

I know for a fact that some of the custom shops for larger companies do take the time required on the higher end products. They look at them more from a "luthier" standpoint and not simply one of production. They have to look at them like this in order to justify the price tag...anything less than top end would damage the reputation of that part of their business.

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http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

This is a bit of a diversion but related.

I have heard a number of times from several people who worked for some of the large resellers of Taylor and Martin that this is what they see.

When receiving 10 new Martins 3 might be fine right out of the box and be placed on the sales floor.  Another 6 might need some minor things like action or truss rod adjustments and spend a bit of time in the shop.  And one will need more extensive set-up before it can be sold.

With Taylors I was told that usually 9 out of 10 are ready to be sold right out of the box.

Anyone have any experience with this?

I have a cousin that owns a music store that retails Martin, Taylor, Gibson and Alvarez/ Alvarez Yairi. he has told me that the biggest issue in years past with Martins was neck sets but this seems to have diminish over the past few years. but that it is still a less than 50% go on the sales floor right out of the box. Set-ups and broken necks are the issue with Gibson. Taylor and Alvarez Professional and Masterwork series as well as Alvarez Yairi's tend to be fine the vast majority of the time. But that the lesser Alvarez like the Artist series almost always need set-up work.

He Also carries Crafter and Aria and claims the Crafter (distributed by Hohner) have very few problems. But Aria's are a pain in the tail, Al sorts of return issues.

I wont mention names, but one of my students works for a large canadian music store chain .... they routinely have to fix frets on 1 of 3 from a major electric guitar company - they get paid to do this rather than be able to send the faulty guitars back - the factory/distributor doesnt want them. On the acoustic front, not far from that - one particular brand has protruding fret ends on one in four .. another needs setup work on quite a few - they have someone in the repair dept just prepping guitars for sale.

With the Stew Mac action gauge, they state the factory spec for (name removed) setups on the info sheet - I just about fell on the floor laughing because about one in four at my local shop the last time I was in was actually set up that well - the rest I couldnt even play.

Then do the math .. it takes a repair shop guy maybe an hour (maybe more) to fix something right out of the box, on an electric guitar that took what - 5 hours total to make .... they actually pay 100+ bucks to fix a guitar that sells for 399, simply because they couldnt be bothered - law of averages, it will be cheaper in the long run to fix the odd one.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Why not name names?