Quote:
Originally Posted by Ted @ LA Guitar Sales
As Earl pointed out, the cost of making a CF guitar is much greater than building a wood acoustic. Material alone will run you 2-3 times that of what goes in to a D-28, and while a wooden mold to build a D-28 clone can be put together with a few dollars worth of scrap wood, an aluminum mold to make a proper CF guitar will set you back tens of thousands of dollars. Given that one mold makes only one guitar per day, I am not surprised we don't have more CF builders out there. One top guy from a large company that builds wood guitars told me that a Rainsong with their logo on it would need to have a street price of $4000.
Speaking of price, last I checked the D-28 carried a higher list price than the Rainsong WS-1000N2. Yes, I am well aware of the deep discounts forum members can get on Martins, but those discounts come from the pockets of dealers, not Martin. In fact Martin gets paid more for a D-28 than what Rainsong gets for a WS-1000N2.
Clearly folks have been performing with wood guitars for over a hundred years without having their guitars fall apart, but once you experience the piece of mind that comes from traveling/gigging with a CF guitar, it will be hard to back.  |
Very informative post Ted. CF must be a labor of love for the builders if the economics are skewed towards wooden guitars by that much. The specifics of the molds make a great deal of sense to me. There is a traditional and CF dealer not far from my house. He carries some of these brands, and I did make a point to play a few of them during one visit.
My experience was that the lower priced instruments he sold, which would be more inline with my budget for a travel/backup/camping guitar, did not have the tonal variety. They played very easily. So, I did't bother to pursue it. On the other hand, a well respected player in our area gigs with a Rainsong of some sort and it sounds lovely amplified.