Selling Guitars

[Equinox]

Hi Folks,

I'm new to the Forum.

Bought my neck from Warmoth just before the LP ban !

Built a flat top LP style out of Black Walnut and Butternut which I already had the wood for.

So Neck = $ 300, parts = $250, misc. $100. So that brings the total to $650. I built the body myself. If I built another one what would someone be willing to pay for it ? (It does sound great by the way)

 

[Perry Combover]

Warmoth guitars are like new cars.  Beautiful, functional, and exactly what you wanted.  They also lose value the minute they come off the lot. 

However, you will probably get more for the neck, but only because availability is limited.

 

[Wolfie351]

Any profit you make is going to come from what you actually build yourself.  Buying necks and hardware at retail prices will be a killer on your bottom line.  You'd be better off just selling finished or unfinished bodies.  If I saw a walnut/butternut guitar from a no-name builder, I'd be more inclined to take a chance if it was just the body.  I actually just bought a cheap korina/redwood Strat body on eBay and I'm happy to say that it approaches W quality.  There's a half dozen or so on eBay who have garage CNC machines that turn out pretty decent products.

If you're dead set on selling built guitars, get to know the players in your local music scene.  Loan out guitars and get feedback.  If they decide to buy, you'll know you're doing something right and word will get around quickly.  But, no one is going to pay boutique prices on the internet without having a good reputation behind you.

 

[AutoBat]

Things pretty much required for posting gear on this page: All neck specifications, including core wood, fretboard wood, back profile, fret size & material, nut material, nut width, tuner ream, finish used.
I guess the body details & pickups would be nice to know too.

Also, why didn't you post this in the Gear For Sale section?

 

[Wolfie351]

From what I read, he's not listing this guitar for sale...he is asking what he could get if he built similar guitars in the future.

 

[Equinox]

Yes indeed that is exactly what I need advice on.

Would anyone pay $900 or more for a custom (home made) guitar.

It surely couldn't be on eBay because they would never get a chance to see or hear it. It would have to be a local classified sale where we could meet and play the guitar etc...

Steve

 

[Cagey]

Would anyone pay $900 or more for a custom (home made) guitar.

It's possible, but it's not likely. Besides, you have to ask yourself why you'd want to build/sell them at that price anyway. By the time you were done with one and added up your hours, you'd find you were working for a lot less than minimum wage. May as well be a burger flipper, grocery bagger, or WalMart shelf stocker. It's easier, and you'd make more money more consistently. Plus, at the prices you mentioned for your costs on the first one there, you were either using low-end parts that won't get anyone excited, or you had some stuff in stock already. And you don't mention the finish. You can't ask high prices for something with a kitchen table finish on it. That means no [whatever] oil, no brush on stuff, unfilled wood grain, rattle can finish, etc.

You also have to consider your competition. It's nothing short of amazing what the Koreans will do for a buck. But, not everyone wants an import so maybe you could ignore that competition. I know Ron Kirn makes some very nice Strats and Teles at home pretty much from scratch, only buying the necks pre-fabbed. He gets about $1,800/ea to make it worth his while, and I doubt he's making a living at it. Not a ton of money, but they're pretty much just regular ol' Strats and Teles. No carved tops, no exotic woods, no tricky pickups or hardware. Basically, just a higher-quality version of one of those instruments as they were in the early '60s.

If you look through the completed sales of Warmoth guitars on eBay (not the listings, they're always high), they generally go for about 1/2 what they cost to build or less (if they sell at all). So, if you spend $1,500 building a Warmoth, which would be a fairly high-end instrument, you might get $700 for it brand-spankin' new.  Many of them don't sell, because the owners just won't take that hard a hit.

If you can come up with something unique and of a high-enough quality and low enough cost to justify a reasonable price, you could make a go of it. Tough to do, though. Even Carvin, who makes some damn nice instruments and keeps the dealers out of it, has to charge in the $1,500+ range these days to make things work.

 

[Equinox]

Excellent response

Thank you very much

I did the body on mine on my own and already had the wood, and I have a lot more.

Not sure why you think the parts were lower quality, all from Stewmac, Gotoh bridge, tailpeice & tuners etc...

 

[rapfohl09]

Great looking guitar, looks to be nicely built, relatively "standard" with nothing too special.

Mine kind of guitar! I would also probably pay 500 max for it.

This sounds like a dig, but what Cagey said is spot on. There is a lot of competition for "standard" type instruments, and the fact that it doesn't have a big brand name on the top will kill your resale. A lot of people don't even know what Warmoth is, let alone that it makes top notch stuff.

I just sold a guitar I built with a Warmoth neck for a pittance. Just a bit over what I actually spent to put it together, which means I basically worked for free. I build guitars because I love it though, but everyone has different wants and needs.

 

[Cagey]

Not sure why you think the parts were lower quality, all from Stewmac, Gotoh bridge, tailpeice & tuners etc...

I didn't mean lower quality, I said "low end". That is to say, standard parts. For instance, Gotoh tuners are ok, but they're not Schaller or Sperzel lockers. Those are premium parts that set an instrument apart because they make life easier. If you want to draw people away from the run-of-the-mill stuff the large OEMs make, you have to offer something they don't, such as higher quality workmanship, finishing, hardware, etc. It's not hard to do because production guitars are full of compromises, but it's not something you can do as an individual and sell the end result competitively while making a profit. You'd need to be buying parts by the pallet-load to get practical pricing on them.

The unfortunate part is there's a lot of dogma out there concerning what's good and what's not that has little to do with reality. Pickups are a prime example. There's no question that Lollars or Kinmans or Bareknuckles sound good, but that doesn't mean everything else does not, or that if you pay less than $400 for set of pups that you'll be sorry. I have some guitars here with GHS pups in them that are unbelievably great-sounding, and if I wanted to sell one, I could tell whoever shows up that they're custom Kinmans I paid $525 for and they wouldn't know any better. Be happy, they would. Tell 'em they're GHS parts I paid $70 for the pair and they might not buy the guitar at all, never mind how it sounds. GHS pickups suck, not because they sound less than stellar, but because they don't cost a million bucks apiece.

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

I think there's some potential room for selling partscasters as custom built instruments, but only if you're doing luthier work already.  I could easily see a tech at a [non-megacorp] music store building a few, selling on consignment, and using them as examples to potential clients.  There's a few guys in the gallery that have a few dozen instruments to their credit, they're doing something like this, as well as selling on ebay.

Still, Cagey's logic holds true: if you're spending that much on the parts for a custom instrument, you're losing value.

 

[tylereot]

Actually, this is a great thread.  Cagey: eloquently said, as usual.

I think however, the conversation is reflecting a "given" that the builder wants to really start a profit making business.
I'm having a similar conversation with a friend who's been helping me build bodies.  He could easily sell half a dozen guitars he's got hanging around completed already. 
AND he should.  At least that would a) help him make a name as a builder, b) free up cash for more guitar parts, and c) help him understand what the market REALLY wants and will pay for and what it won't.  I feel that in the long run, he's in a winning position if he's losing money on every sale.
This thread isn't 'free market research' but rather really good informed advice.

Anyway, if you thought you were going to get into the luthiery business and make money, as Cagey and others are saying, you're likely up the wrong tree using Warmoth parts.
Look at what the guys are doing who actually ARE making a modest living at it.  Guys like Tom Ribbecke (who didn't make a living for a VERY long time), David Myka, Erich Solomon, Michael Spalt... just a few off the top of my head.

 

[McGuyver]

I have some guitars here with GHS pups in them that are unbelievably great-sounding, and if I wanted to sell one, I could tell whoever shows up that they're custom Kinmans I paid $525 for and they wouldn't know any better. Be happy, they would. Tell 'em they're GHS parts I paid $70 for the pair and they might not buy the guitar at all, never mind how it sounds.

Sounds like exactly what you would do, oh wait I mean probably already have done multiple times to several people.

 

[tylereot]

I have some guitars here with GHS pups in them that are unbelievably great-sounding, and if I wanted to sell one, I could tell whoever shows up that they're custom Kinmans I paid $525 for and they wouldn't know any better. Be happy, they would. Tell 'em they're GHS parts I paid $70 for the pair and they might not buy the guitar at all, never mind how it sounds.

Sounds like exactly what you would do, oh wait I mean probably already have done multiple times to several people.

Ah, it seems someone here has a personal issue that might be better resolved out back.

 

[Equinox]

Thanks for all the great responses folks, it seems like my dream of making a few bucks off of selling a few guitars won't work.

I am more of a woodworker than a guitar player but making a neck seems out of my league when it comes to frets. and how exact the neck connection must be.

I really enjoyed making the body for this guitar and my daughter also helped a lot and we bot really learned a great deal.

Steve

 

[Dan025]

Thanks for all the great responses folks, it seems like my dream of making a few bucks off of selling a few guitars won't work.

I am more of a woodworker than a guitar player but making a neck seems out of my league when it comes to frets. and how exact the neck connection must be.

I really enjoyed making the body for this guitar and my daughter also helped a lot and we bot really learned a great deal.

Steve

it could work.. but you'd have to do every bit of production yourself. wont do it at warmoth prices unless you get some big time brand recognition. there are builders that use warmoth as a supplier but people know who they are.

now if you have some capital and can build a kiln and a gantry style cnc router, learn to program it, get a planer, and various sanders and a couple employees and stock up with lot premium wood you might find that you can produce parts for very little and might make a killing on ebay selling bodies for under $100. but it's a lot of investment of time unless you just do bodies and buy wood that is pre-dried and milled. but then your material costs go up.... there are guys doing it with cnc gantry routers making a living on ebay but they probably have a ton of time on their hands. i say just bodies because necks need several different processes to go through so unless you gang things up and do 5-10 at a time. 1 step at a time you'd lose a lot going from one process to another. you probably wouldn't have 1 neck out in a day but you could maybe have 15 necks done in a week if you group together the type of work..

a lot of people try the cnc router thing but don't put enough into the design and have high expectations that the machine can't deliver. wood can be cut at speeds up to 400ipm (maybe more) which is really fast. a router at this speed could knock out a body in under an hour including setup times for the different fixtures in a well tuned production shop.

 

[Wolfie351]

Thanks for all the great responses folks, it seems like my dream of making a few bucks off of selling a few guitars won't work.

I am more of a woodworker than a guitar player but making a neck seems out of my league when it comes to frets. and how exact the neck connection must be.

I really enjoyed making the body for this guitar and my daughter also helped a lot and we bot really learned a great deal.

Steve

Like I said previously, there's a handful of people who just make raw bodies and let their customers finish them.  Perhaps if you just focus on exotic woods and hand pick your stock, you could find your niche.