Question for the guitar players out there.

Hebrewhomeboy · 08:24 PM

I've always wanted to build my own guitar, and about 2 years ago I took the plunge and did it. Not quite as hard as I thought, a great learning experience, and a lot of fun. Well, I've built a few now, and in the near future I'd like to build one and try to sell it. My question is how much would you be willing to pay for a guitar like this?

Neck-through body construction. 5 piece laminated neck of maple/hawaiian koa/figured maple/hawaiian koa/maple. The body is Sapele, the fretboard, tailpiece, and pickup ring are bloodwood. The pickup is a Seymour Duncan JB. 24 medium frets, easy access up to the 24th fret. The balance is good, very comfortable to play, and has a nice warm sound. Gold hardware, 25.5 inch scale.

The materials themselves ended up roughly $500. I'd like to build another one to sell, but I'd to it with two pickups instead of one, and a slightly different tailpiece. That would probably entail about $600 total in parts.

Think I could sell it for $800 or maybe a tad more? The fit and finish are very high quality, only a tiny check on the fretboard and a nick in the back of the neck.

Hebrewhomeboy · 06-07-2009, 08:23 PM

woah, huge photo. Lemme resize that real quickly.

Hebrewhomeboy · 06-07-2009, 08:25 PM

By the way, I took this picture before the final polishing of the body, and before I put the knobs on.

Sonic dB · Sonic dB's Garage

That looks really cool. How does it sound? But im confused.....Did you design and cut the body and neck yourself and lathe it? Or did you just source out the various pieces and put it together?

If you did the design and the cutting and the materials cost more than $500, Id sell it for at least a grand, if it played as well as it looks. Otherwise your range of sub 1000 may attract more buyers.

Personally speaking, I wouldnt necessarily be looking at a home built guitar as my next axe, at least without hearing about it first or reading a positive review / getting good word of mouth....so... Have you thought about building one and send it out for review to the guitar magazines (they are always looking for new products to review) to get some publicity out there on it.... branding and all?

cwiert · cwiert's Garage

nice job! very cool original design... you can tell you took your time with it to do it right.
as far as how much i'd pay... well you can't say by just a picture. like the other poster said, how does it play? how does it sound? how does it feel? is it balanced? is it comfortable?
for me, i have a les paul and I LOVE the way it sounds, but its not very comfotable (for me) to play. I also have a Strat which plays AWESOME and is extremely comfortable, but doesn't sound as good (to me, for my type of music) as the Les Paul. If I could find a guitar that played like the strat, and sounded like the LP, I'd pay a premium for that.

Hebrewhomeboy · 06-08-2009, 09:32 AM

It plays well, a nice comfortable neck and nice low action. The balance is spot on as well. As for sound, it has a nice warm sound, and the JB is a pretty hot pickup, so it's capable of pushing a tube amp into overdrive nice and easy. It sounds great. Sonic dB - I built it from scratch. The only things I didn't build are the hardware and electronics.

FenderGuy · 06-08-2009, 11:16 AM

Looks nice I'm partial to my vintage fenders thou, new generation of players might like this

Heel n Toe · 06-08-2009, 11:23 AM

HBH, have you thought of getting in touch with a local luthier and showing it to him to get an idea of its worth?

911Freak · 06-08-2009, 11:33 AM

IMHO~
As far as custom guitars go - in my experience, usually a grand is the starting point... But it really depends on quality of tone, balance, feel etc. (as interpreted by each artist) As posted above it would be helpful to have a review written about your guitar by several sources. An endorsement from a known artist too? Find a local but known guitarist, lend him the axe for a few gigs and get him to write/video a review and put it up on you-tube. Link it to several forums where your end users hang-out and who knows maybe it'll take off!

The closest thing to a Les Paul mating with a Strat would be a PRS. Amazing guitars IMO..

T77911S · 06-09-2009, 10:56 AM

looks nice. not fond of the pointy thing. i am more conservative when it comes to guitars. i am more of a les paul type. currently have an old ibanez artist.
but it really depends on how well it plays and sounds.
interesting looking bridge. the whole thing makes me think of the alembic basses.
i am sure you are not making much for the time spent on it if you are building from scratch.

Hebrewhomeboy · 06-09-2009, 12:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by T77911S

looks nice. not fond of the pointy thing. i am more conservative when it comes to guitars. i am more of a les paul type. currently have an old ibanez artist.
but it really depends on how well it plays and sounds.
interesting looking bridge. the whole thing makes me think of the alembic basses.
i am sure you are not making much for the time spent on it if you are building from scratch.

That's the truth! I have a lot of hours in this thing. And the point at the bottom was just a random "hey, let's do that!" idea, just trying to figure out "my" signature style. I'm currently building one very similar in shape, but semi-hollow and different woods. We'll see how it turns out.

Oh, and +1 on old Ibanez guitars. I have two from 84 and 85, and I'd love to get an '81 artist (my birth year) or one of the first icemans.

Sonic dB · Sonic dB's Garage

ship it to me and let me check it out for a week and ill give you an endorsment... lol... im in the process of recording my first solo record. I have a website and everything.

I would guess that the neck through design plus the Duncans would give it more of a Les Paul type tone... but the body has the contours more along the lines of a Fender based product.

Personally I dont care for Les Pauls for the way that they play....Fenders are much more player based.

It is impressive work that you built it from scratch...from that level a grand is at least the starting point, but in the guitar MI market you need some pub and marketing...have you thought about getting a booth at the NAMM show? http://www.namm.org/summer

Sonic dB · Sonic dB's Garage

btw...have you thought about adding a neck pickup for that fat Cream type tone?

Hebrewhomeboy · 06-09-2009, 12:37 PM

Eh, I don't have money for all that stuff. Plus being in the military, sometimes getting leave to do things like that can be difficult. I've had some friends half-seriously ask me to build them a guitar, so I think when I build one that I want to sell, I'll just start asking everyone I know and go from there. Besides, if I can't sell it, then I get to keep it, and add to my guitar addiction. Apparently 6 guitars isn't enough for me

And best of luck recording your music. I've been trying to do the same thing myself for a while now. I have everything recorded but vocals, but military barracks are a horrible place to record vocals. Terrible acoustics, and I can't get too loud here. I'm probably just going to break down and pay a local recording studio soon.

Hebrewhomeboy · 06-09-2009, 12:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sonic dB

btw...have you thought about adding a neck pickup for that fat Cream type tone?

When I make one to sell, it will have a neck pickup. I didn't put one on that guitar because I personally never use neck pickups. Or tone knobs for that matter.

rouxroux · 06-09-2009, 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hebrewhomeboy

And the point at the bottom was just a random "hey, let's do that!" idea, just trying to figure out "my" signature style. I'm currently building one very similar in shape, but semi-hollow and different woods. We'll see how it turns out.

Well, take a look at Alembic...."pointy thing".....(Great for crowd control)

nostatic · nostatic's Garage

It actually reminds me of old BC Rich.

Not sure of the market though. A "no name" guitar isn't worth much. The custom guitar biz is pretty odd, and you have to really love doing it and be willing to starve until you get a following and a buzz. The sad fact is that cheap production instruments these days are pretty darn good, and they are making very "pretty" instruments in China for very low costs. So aiming for the middle ground is kind of no-mans land. You either design something "cool" and find a factory in China to build it so you can sell it cheap or you go high end and charge $3K for it.

Hebrewhomeboy · 06-09-2009, 03:16 PM

I'm not worried about making a living out of it, I just want to sell one. If I never sell another one, I'll be okay with that. I just want to sell one guitar.

And I guess I can always try ebay!

Zeke · 06-09-2009, 04:02 PM

"I just want to sell one guitar. "

Kinda reminds me of something.

Standing in the rain, with his head hung low
Couldnt get a ticket, it was a sold out show
Heard the roar of the crowd, he could picture the scene
Put his ear to the wall, then like a distant scream

He heard one guitar, just blew him away
He saw stars in his eyes, and the very next day
Bought a beat up six string in a secondhand store
Didnt know how to play it, but he knew for sure

That one guitar, felt good in his hands
Didnt take long, to understand
Just one guitar, slung way down low
Was one way ticket, only one way to go

So he started rockin
Aint never gonna stop
Gotta keep on rockin
Someday hes gonna make it to the top

And be a juke box hero, got stars in his eyes
Hes a juke box hero
He took one guitar, juke box hero, stars in his eyes
Juke box hero, hell come alive tonight

In a town without a name, in a heavy downpour
Thought he passed his own shadow, by the backstage door
Like a trip through the past, to that day in the rain
And that one guitar made his whole life change

Now he needs to keep rockin
He just cant stop
Gotta keep on rockin
That boy has got to stay on top

And be a juke box hero, got stars in his eyes
Hes a juke box hero, got stars in his eyes
Yeah, juke box hero, got stars in his eyes
With that one guitar hell come alive
Come alive tonight

Yeah, hes gotta keep rockin
He just cant stop
Gotta keep on rockin
That boy has got to stay on top

And be a juke box hero, got stars in his eyes
Hes a juke box hero, got stars in his eyes
Just one guitar, put stars in his eyes
Hes just a juke box hero, aah aah aah
Juke box hero, juke box hero, hes got stars in his eyes
Stars in his eyes

TimT · 06-09-2009, 04:43 PM

I built a few custom guitars in the late 70s' when I was going to be the second coming of EC, Jimi, Jorma,Jerry,Duane combined lol...

Don't have any pics.. I lost everything in Hurricane Gloria... but anyway..

One guitar I did was heavily influenced by Alembic.. I laminated all the wood, neck included... then carved the guitar with a spokeshave and various planes and drawknives .. formed the neck by hand, till it felt right... routed a groove in the neck for the truss.. glued on the fingerboard, cut and installed all the frets..Did some elementary mother of pearl inlay.. Probably hundreds of hours..

For the electronics I used two Dimarzio PAFs and one Strat pickup..the coils in the humbuckers were switched so they could be single, in phase out of phase any combo you could dream of..

I put so much time into that guitar that almost no price would have been enough..

I think you would have to build a few and get some gunslingers to play them... then you might be able to sell a few..