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#1
05-30-2018, 04:26 PM
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Luthiers, has your customer's woods ever cracked during building?
I'm curious about one thing during the process of building a guitar for a customer (because I have one in the works now)...
When the customer chooses a particular set of top or back woods, and the builder starts building the guitar with it.. does it happen where that exact set cracks or splits or spoils (for whatever reason), making it completely unusable and impractical to continue? As a builder, what happens then? do you repair the wood, or ask the client to choose another set? how often does this happen? As we all know, wood can sometimes be unpredictable, and accidents do happen.. but what's the protocol then? I'm just curious about this part.. 
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#2
05-30-2018, 05:55 PM
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If I supply the wood and it breaks and continues breaking, then its on me.
If you supply me the wood and it keeps breaking, happens but not very often IMO, then you need to supply new stuff. Steve
__________________
Cole Clark Fat Lady Gretsch Electromatic Martin CEO7 Maton Messiah Taylor 814CE
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#3
05-30-2018, 07:32 PM
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What Steve said. And on another note, there was a thread in the main forum about the cost of tone wood, this is why I have a reasonable upcharge for what I have in stock. Not only do I need storage space to keep it climate controlled for years but I it's wood, and act of God, mother nature, or what ever you want to call it and it's subjected to cracking.
Often times I repair the cracks and move on, nothing wrong with that in most minor cases, or in the case of something like The Tree wood you bet I would not trash it. But sometimes it's ruined and needs to be replaced so the up charge helps in that regard.
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#5
05-31-2018, 04:45 AM
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Quote:
Try this: https://www.luthiersforacause.org/the-tree/
__________________
Englemann/Hog OM (Carson Crickmore course custom build), Breedlove Premier Concert (R/W), 1977 S Yairi YD303, Yamaha LJ16, Fender Tele Standard, Furch Little Jane (Cedar), Baby Taylor BT1
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#6
05-31-2018, 05:03 AM
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First, I very very very seldom will work with customer supplied wood unless it came from a reputable industry supplier. When I do it is subject to extra scrutiny. That said I am currently building a set of instruments for a band from a tree that fell on their practice studio...... So I guess I have no rules, just guidelines.
But I do let my clients choose the exact sets of wood they want either from my inventory or from a suppliers. This where your skill and knowledge as a luthier come in. I only present options that I am fairly certain will not pose problems. Nothing with pin knots (except birds eye...), nothing that transitions from flat sawn to quartered through the piece of wood in question, nothing cut too close to the pith.... etc. This will limit the problems you may encounter and keeps my risk of having to deal with the situation you mention to a minimum. Of course this means that some of those wild looking pieces of wood are out of the question. My standard answer to that? " Not every tree can grow up to be a guitar". And if the client has their heart set and mind made up they must have wood that looks like problems either during construction or later under warranty then I decline the job..... I mean they are already ignoring my advice and expertise before we even started and I have better things to do......
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#7
05-31-2018, 05:53 PM
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Just a comment from a customer’s point of view...
A while back, I had a guitar made using wood that I supplied to the luthier. We (I) agreed that if anything went wrong, we’d trash that wood and just write it off as one of those things. In my mind, nothing short of that would have been fair. I learned much later that despite our agreement, he was really sweating it when he worked that wood. I felt badly when I heard that and probably wouldn’t ask someone to do it again. More recently, I had a guitar built using luthier supplied wood. It was really pretty, but developed some cracks when he began to thickness it. He wanted to cut out the cracked section and replace it with a wedge. I wanted to preserve the perfect book match he had made and the sapwood in the center joint. We compromised by having him re-glue the crack and reinforce it with a slightly wider center strip on the inside. I think the key is to find a luthier/client relationship that’s a partnership. It certainly makes the creative process a lot more fun for everybody.
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#8
06-01-2018, 05:24 AM
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Quote:
I say it all the time, the guitars are secondary. I work with people.
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#9
06-01-2018, 06:00 AM
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a couple thoughts as an experienced buyer of custom guitars.
DURING CONSTRUCTION: When bending rims with tight radii (particularly with Venetian Cutaways) even a skilled luthier can crack a rim. In some cases, the set needs to be scrapped, but in many cases the crack is small and can be stabilized structurally. Reputable luthiers will let a client know of the encounter and remedy. I have guitars with some small stabilized cracks that occurred during construction. Unless I pointed them out to you, you likely would never notice them. If all cases the builder and I decided together to move ahead. Laminated sides are an approach to minimize the likelihood of this (rims are much thinner and bend more easily). Now if the set is supplied by a client, my view is the luthier is NOT responsible to replace it. They do not know the provenance of the set, its seasoning/drying history. If it is a set supplied by them, they should replace it in the event of a catastrophic break. How often this happens depends on the type of wood, type of figure, the bend geometry and the luthier's experience. There is NO general rule on this. UNDER WARRANTY: The beauty of using wood sets from a reputable luthier's wood locker is: 1) it was selected by someone "skilled in the art" for structural and acoustic properties and 2) it has been seasoned, air dried and properly stored to avoid warping/cupping and is ready for use. Some luthier's that I have worked with wont even use any wood that has not been in their shop for > 5-years. Wood sets purchased by clients are frequently purchased from supply houses (some times Ebay) and the seasoning, drying and storage is unknown. They may look great but can present stability problems down the road long after it is made into a guitar. Warranty issues on cracked guitars are always difficult to deal with even with luthier provided wood sets because whether the guitar saw a dry environment is always in question that is difficult to determine. Using a set of wood that was not supplied by a luthier compounds the issue because a builder does not know the history of the wood prior to its use. My $.02 Quote:
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A bunch of nice archtops, flattops, a gypsy & nylon strings…
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