[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Ozarkpicker

What is the difference in the terms “Handmade” & “ Handcfafted” when referring to how a particular manufacturers guitars are made. I am a bit confused, because I recently heard a member here refer to Eastman acoustic guitars as being “Handcrafted”, when I’m pretty sure they are machine-made for the very most part...to keep prices lower, I suspect. But, that term would suggest they are not.

I have always thought of guitars like Bourgeois, Collings or Thompson being “Handmade”, with virtually no machinery used to build their instruments, and therefore they are made in far lower numbers than even those made by Martin, Gibson or Taylor...which I would consider more “Handcrafted” than “Handmade”.

Will someone smarter than I give a shot at this?

Hi Ozark Picker

I understand the confusion. There is no 'official' language to differentiate between manufactured (Martin, Gibson, Taylor), from small factory (SantaCruz, Froggy Bottom, Collings) or solo builders (Olson, Bashkin, Lowden) and small team builders…(Somogyi has apprentices, McKnight…others' hands touch guitars during builds, but Tim does the main parts and voicing, Ryan…two man builds).

I've left out a lot of major names in the solo category. There are a bunch of really great solo builders and small team builders these days.

I offer this link to a short paper by Ervin Somogyi who is generally recognized as one of the greatest solo builders, and small team builders (different than small factory builders) of the 20th-21st century to date. He uses apprentices, and turns out world class (orchestral quality) guitars. He attempts to describe manufactured versus solo built (hand built). There are a lot of grades/shades of the concept of building. Every one of them I know of uses plenty of machinery. The differences in build are not caused by the machinery, but by the design and amount of customizing of tone.

Difference Between Handmade and Factory Made Guitars - CliCk

He also did a Luthier-on-Luthier podcast episode with Michael Bashkin talking about his history as a builder which is fascinating. It's available on the major podcast hosts.

One of the things Michael Bashkin explained to me when he was building my guitar in 2005 was the goal of manufacturers is that the next model will be as good as the last model and the next model following that model will be the same.

Michael's goal is that his NEXT guitar will be even better than his last guitar…continuing on to his following instruments.

There is a place for both styles (and all who fall in between). I own and play both manufactured and solo built instruments. My main guitar is solo build, but my factory built Voyage-Air is the one which travels with us in the Car, RV, plane etc.

My 1993 American Strat Plus is a custom manufactured guitar. My Indian made Telecaster which we changed pickups & electronics in is a customized inexpensive manufactured guitar. Both sound great.

One last point…I asked Michael Bashkin when I commissioned my guitar from him "Does this come with a lifetime guarantee?" and he said, "Yes, as long as I'm alive and building guitars." That's pretty much true of any solo builder.

Hope this adds to the discussion…