jeremy-Budgen
I have a woodworking buisiness in Delmas MP, using modern cnc woodworking machines.
As an old (not in age) luither in the UK i used to make custom electrics for the guys who came into my friends music shop, i was wondering if i should start making again here in SA, is there people out there in SA land who might want to have bodies and necks made, if so i am just getting up and running with this project, but i would like to know the general demand that is out there.
I have done a few through necks and have even done a few accoustics for myself and near family.
When i was in the UK i did not have pictures taken of the customs, i am regretting this now.
Heres hoping this project gets up and running.
Jeremy Budgen
Vipur Guitars
AlanRatcliffe
Hi Jeremy
If you start making parts, you'll get an initial rush that may give you a false impression of how large the market is. When it settles down, it'll taper off to maybe a dozen bodies and necks a year - unless you can meet a low price point to compete with brands like Mighty Mite and Musicraft. Taking the high quality approach, you're in competition with USA Custom and Warmoth, etc. and that is a very small local market anyway.
Same goes for complete instruments - the nature of the replacement parts business means that you are limited to making higher priced instruments and those that have the money to buy them are mostly going to go for a name brand.
Sourcing instrument grade wood may take some work. The better woods like Honduran Mahogany are getting harder to find and CITES treaties makes it impossible to import them. Luckily the African mahogany is acceptable, but not quite the same and limba is a great substitute. African blackwood is a great ebony substitute too. Madagascar rosewood is the next best thing to Brazilian IMO. I haven't found a good African ash, maple or alder substitute yet, but there's no problem with supply of those.
Pity you do not have any pics for me to see...
Manfred-Klose
It depends on what you want to charge for them, if it is good tone wood and cheaper than mighty mite bodies, then yes there is a market.
If you can get a website up and running it would certainly help.
The best way would be to have an online bussiness where one can order it locally.
How much would you charge for say a les paul body or strat body?
jeremy-Budgen
Not shure on pricing yet, but what i would like to do is make unfinished parts and the end user finishes as they wish, is this a good way of starting or do i need to finish off the guitar.
Would the LP have a carved top or in some cases i have seen just be a flat top, i am looking into carved tops like the PRS types and also LP's but i have to receive my software that i have ordered first in order to be able to calculate the pricing.
Getting back to the tone woods, i have recently been using American Mahogany for a project the we have completed, this in the thicker section is almost black colour, could this type of mahogany be used for bodies and also the ash that we get here?.
Jeremy
AlanRatcliffe
Most people don't have the knowledge or the spray gear to finish stuff themselves.
"American" mahogany is Swietenia macrophylla, which is the proper South American mahogany. You will be very lucky to get a regular supply of this wood as it is under CITES protection and very little is being harvested. Those that have stocks may no longer export it from the Americas. You said it is almost black though and mahogany rarely goes very dark - are you sure it's not American walnut (Claro walnut)?
Ash found locally is more likely to be Northern hard ("baseball bat") ash which is too heavy, dense and hard as well as being very bright tonally. You need Southern ("swamp") ash. Some of the local wood companies will try and sell you sen as ash, which it is not - looks similar, but it's not even the same species. Be careful of the local suppliers - a lot of the wood is green and they rarely have any idea about tonewoods. I once asked the wood "expert" at a big local company if they could get me fiddleback maple and he came back (after half an hour of searching) with "We have the plain one, and we have the one with the spots." - hardly confidence inspiring. If they don't know what Bird's eye maple is, God help you if you ever want to find a piece of
bee's wing mahogany or
angel step maple figuring.
Riaan-Combrink
Alan, I really need your advice on good braai wood in the Western Cape! LOL ? ?
Just kidding; fascinating stuff.
Riaan C
FatBoy
Now THAT I can help with! Rooikrantz, nothing else gets close!
AlanRatcliffe
Fritz Brand wrote
Rooikrantz, nothing else gets close!
+1
I'm a veggie, but even I know
that. ?
Riaan-Combrink
Fritz Brand wrote
Now THAT I can help with! Rooikrantz, nothing else gets close!
C'mon, Fritz. That was a very informed discussion we hijacked. You certainly meant to refer to Rooikrantz as that Australian invader that goes by the name of
acacia cyclops? ? ;D ?
OK, let's get serious again LOL
Riaan C
Manfred-Klose
Almal weet kameeldoring maak warm kole!! (Sorry for the english guys).
Jeremy, i would certainly prefer a CNC body, and spray my own finish.
Not many is in the trade for guitar customizing, only rarely selected few want to go the extra mile.
I also want to try african mahogany as an guitar wood, since i live in africa it is easy to get.
Isn't african mahogany a dark red colour? i use to work for a exotic wood furniture company a while, i learned a lot about wood.
http://www.exotichardwoods-africa.com/mahoganyafrican.htm
AlanRatcliffe
If you have a production line mahogany guitar made in the last ten years (at least!) you already have an African mahogany guitar. Prices of Honduran started skyrocketing about 15 years ago and then only custom manufacturers carried on using it, everyone else switched to African. BTW - the wood we call Sapele is often used as a mahogany substitute too.
Here's a guitar made of a single piece of Honduran with a simple matt oil finish. The golden colour is typical of Honduran. It's a big pic, so I'm putting a link in rather than let the forum resize it:
http://ratcliffe.co.za/sundry/DSC_3941.jpg
Great guitar. Unfortunately I couldn't get used to playing the Gibson scale length, so I sold it. ☹
Manfred-Klose
nice, it must have had an unique tone.
AlanRatcliffe
It's an RVC Woodstock II, BTW. Pretty much everything you would expect from a singlecut LP Junior - raw, in your face, strong midrange voice. Think Leslie West and Mountain. Acoustically one of the loudest and most resonant guitars I've ever owned. If I'd kept it, I'd probably have fitted some underwound Lollar P90s to get a more subtle voice with a bit more of the acoustic character coming through.
jeremy-Budgen
Manfred
If you want drop me an email and we can talk.
I like they way things are going here, as i originally thought we do have some good tone woods here in SA/ Africa land.
Maybe with the ash, to lighten it substantially we could pocket out the insides and fit a capping piece to the top. as fender did with there hollow teles.
Good to know that the guys out there are still having good braais as we do here in Africaans land Delmas all the time......
AlanRatcliffe
jeremy Budgen wrote
Maybe with the ash, to lighten it substantially we could pocket out the insides and fit a capping piece to the top. as fender did with there hollow teles.
You could just import a stack of instrument grade blanks too. ? The Ideal weight for a Tele body is about 4lbs and a Strat round about 3lbs 10 oz - lighter than that and the tone starts getting too dark.
Thinline style bodies bring weight down, but is a different sound from a lightweight piece of wood. Having two large cavities sets up particular resonant frequencies that give you more of a hollowbody tone.
Thinline routing:
What most are doing for weight relief is a lot of smaller cavities and a cap. Of course with a cap on a guitar with a forearm contour like a Strat, you have to be able to do a drop top cap, glueing the cap to the contour.
Warmoth:
Gibson used to do this:
Gibson now does this in most of their production models:
Manfred-Klose
+1, alan.
Do gibson do that sort of routing on all the standard les paul guitars?
Jeremy, i'll go and talk to one of my friends that might be interested in buying bodies.
AlanRatcliffe
From
Gibson.com"
"Check out the success of Gibson USA’s chambering techniques by picking up any of a number of new Les Pauls, including the
LP Studios,
Classics, and
Standards. Alongside these, the
Les Paul Supreme has its own, entirely different weight relief system, which has been engineered specifically to benefit that model. Les Pauls in the Custom Shop’s
VOS range, on the other hand, are prepared with bodies that are not weight relieved, but which are generally light and resonant thanks to the rare and expensive wood stocks acquired for use in these guitars, which is reflected in the increased prices of these models."
jeremy-Budgen
Hi all again
Allan whats the polyester finishes you have mentioned, is this a type of fiber glass resin, as i had one finishing job to do back in the Uk and the headstock when sanded smelt like fiber glass and very hard, can we get this type of finish here and if so what would the name of it be.
I was wondering if to make 3/4 or even 1/2 size electrics for the complete beginner out of plywood as some of the cheaper guitars, fit say a single single pickup and manufacture bridges simular to the tobias bases, very easy to make i think. or even use wooden ones with a pizzo in.
They would have a short scale length and say fewer frets on the neck, and maybe when the player gets older he or she could substitute the hardware into a full size cheaper model at half the price or so. ?
AlanRatcliffe
Polyester is a catalysed finish - you have to mix two substances together like an epoxy for it to cure. Most manufacturers have one or two in the range - Plascon Glatex 8 jumps to mind. Works well with a HVLP system, less wastage from overspray, minimal orange-peel and it cures very quickly. I did a Mex Strat in sunburst with an acid-catalysed poly a few years ago - the whole job from stripping to reassembly took only six days - easy to see why the manufacturers like using it.
I think if you cost out your cheap guitar, you'll find you still can't compete with the Asian instruments, who not only have cheap labour and woods, but own the companies that make the hardware too.
jeremy-Budgen
We use Chemspec woodline here for our manufacturing, i suppose this is the same as it too is a two pack system.
