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  #166  
Old 12-15-2015, 04:00 AM
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Originally Posted by Badcrumble View Post
just that tools for nut slots and level fretboards were necessary and not too costly and over ten years I expect you could have taken things further with these tools than without them.
Frankly I agree. If the OP is having to melodramaticly decide between buying a decent set of nut files or paying the rent, then the opinion of a bunch of AGF mavens is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Littlesmith, I've been following this thread for quite a while now. It's obvious that when people make suggestions your stock response has been that you cannot afford the proper tools. I'm not saying that's not the case; what I am saying is that asking the same question and getting the same response over a one year period is a bit like banging ones head against a wall, in that it feels so good when you stop. It's also starting to sound like an extended advertisement for some sort of online Bitcoin/gofundme campaign, and within the bounds of this sub-forum, is against AGF policy.

This is the final warning to keep this thread civil. Posters, the OP probably isn't going to take your advice. OP, the posters are probably going to tell you something you don't want to hear. Please share your progress with us, as we're all interested at this point in the outcome, but let's please for the love of Pete stop the bickering, otherwise I will be forced to close it.

Thanks for reading,
Matthew for the mods

Last edited by CoolerKing; 12-15-2015 at 04:06 AM.
  #167  
Old 12-15-2015, 06:40 AM
littlesmith littlesmith is offline
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Originally Posted by matthewpartrick View Post
Frankly I agree. If the OP is having to melodramaticly decide between buying a decent set of nut files or paying the rent, then the opinion of a bunch of AGF mavens is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Littlesmith, I've been following this thread for quite a while now. It's obvious that when people make suggestions your stock response has been that you cannot afford the proper tools. I'm not saying that's not the case; what I am saying is that asking the same question and getting the same response over a one year period is a bit like banging ones head against a wall, in that it feels so good when you stop. It's also starting to sound like an extended advertisement for some sort of online Bitcoin/gofundme campaign, and within the bounds of this sub-forum, is against AGF policy.

This is the final warning to keep this thread civil. Posters, the OP probably isn't going to take your advice. OP, the posters are probably going to tell you something you don't want to hear. Please share your progress with us, as we're all interested at this point in the outcome, but let's please for the love of Pete stop the bickering, otherwise I will be forced to close it.

Thanks for reading,
Matthew for the mods
I will post facts about progress, nothing more.

Thank you.
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  #168  
Old 12-15-2015, 01:48 PM
jmat jmat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by matthewpartrick View Post
Frankly I agree. If the OP is having to melodramaticly decide between buying a decent set of nut files or paying the rent, then the opinion of a bunch of AGF mavens is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Littlesmith, I've been following this thread for quite a while now. It's obvious that when people make suggestions your stock response has been that you cannot afford the proper tools. I'm not saying that's not the case; what I am saying is that asking the same question and getting the same response over a one year period is a bit like banging ones head against a wall, in that it feels so good when you stop. It's also starting to sound like an extended advertisement for some sort of online Bitcoin/gofundme campaign, and within the bounds of this sub-forum, is against AGF policy.

This is the final warning to keep this thread civil. Posters, the OP probably isn't going to take your advice. OP, the posters are probably going to tell you something you don't want to hear. Please share your progress with us, as we're all interested at this point in the outcome, but let's please for the love of Pete stop the bickering, otherwise I will be forced to close it.

Thanks for reading,
Matthew for the mods

Solid moderating Matthew. Working title for your memoirs: "Getting Cats from A to B - My life as a Mod" (?). Don't leave us for Reddit as the money isn't any better!
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  #169  
Old 12-19-2015, 02:32 PM
littlesmith littlesmith is offline
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Making a tool cabinet :

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  #170  
Old 12-19-2015, 05:01 PM
The Bard Rocks The Bard Rocks is offline
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"Why dont you listen to our advice"... you have not started a company on welfare while battling a disorder with an acoustic guitar model that uses aerospace quality materials and production processes. I`m not the 12 year old boy cute kind of autism, im the 31 year old anti social alianate my own family kind. I don`t know how to talk to people, im socialy akward, and sooner or later people get sick of me. But this all says nothing about the guitar model and its potential

I am glad you let us know this as it gives some insight that we all could have used. If we all kept this in mind, there might have been more civility going around. And if you are correct, at some point you need to get a front man to talk for you, to do the smooging, while you produce the product and the inspiration.
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  #171  
Old 02-23-2016, 11:55 AM
littlesmith littlesmith is offline
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Hello,

I have a brand new announcement :

The Hybrid guitar operation will be funded with initial seed capital on March 1st by a private investor with the primairy goal of elevating the Hybrid guitar model from prototype to consumer quality.

The second goal is using the 8 new guitars to gather feedback from players, builders and retail stores.


-------------------------------
As some of you may know, there was a crowdfunding campaign with around 10 guitar players including Mark Lettieri from grammy winning band Snarky Puppy. Unfortunatly this campaign failed due to a number of reasons (in my opinion) :

-People want to play the guitar before commiting a high ammount for a high end guitar. A guitar is not really an online play, it needs to go to a retail environment where people can test them, there is no substiture for hearing with your own ears and feeling with your own hands.


-There was an insufficiant marketing budget (24 Euros on facebook ads), if i would do it again i would reserve around 500 Euros for facebook ads, and Fiverr services for example. The Indiegogo page got 3000 unique visits and "sold" 3 guitars, so the conversion rate was 1/1000 visitors buys, i needed 15 sales, so i was short 12000 unique visitors. You can buy ads to help with this.

I might do another crowdfunding with Hybird 2.0 but im not covinced that is the way to go.

--------------------------------------------------------------

What will i do with this seed money?

There will be 8 unique prototypes.

I will build 4 guitars with nylon strings and 4 guitars with steel strings that are basicly the quality of a production / consumer guitar. I will build almost identical pairs where one has spruce and one has cedar as a soundboard. This way i can really compare the soundprofile. Some guitars will have maple inside the neck and others will have mohogany.

These are the 8 unique wood combinations that i will build, with their own soundprofile :



There are 16 unique combinations in total). The idea behind it is that mahogany in the neck will make a guitar sound warmer, while maple in the neck will give more mid / high. Some combinations like mahogany in the neck and a cedar soundboard (which is already warmer then spruce) might be "too warm".

The idea is that i can establish a baseline soundprofile, and that will be the default wood combination (it must not become too complicated for consumers). For example, i will hear that guitar 3 is warmer then guitar 2, i can keep comparing these 8. Then many guitar players will test them and we will collect all this data in a file.



All will have a carbon fiber unibody for sustain, strength and clarity.

I will be building all new plugs, molds and tooling for the Hybrid 2.0 guitar at home in an optimised space.

This seed capital investment includes most essential specialty guitar building tools from Stew Mac and other sources like fretting tools, straigt edge, radius sanding beam and all other essential tools that i never had.

There will be a good random orbital sander and a polisher to get perfect high gloss soundboard, headstock and body. I can also use these machines to improve the finish on the 3 generation 1.0 Hybrid guitar prototypes.

A USB laser engraver will burn the logo in the wooden headstock plate, guitars will have unique serial numbers.

The laser engraved headstock logo will look like this:



For the first time in my life i will have what i need to build at high quality. After these guitars are finished, we will evaluate them objectivly by asking guitarplayers to test them. We will go by other luthiers and try to get a retail price by going to music stores. This evaluation period will last 6 months and then the investor will decide on a GO or NO GO scenario.

-With the Go scenario, I will recieve a second round of funding with the primairy goal of building 20 production units which will repay both rounds to the investor.

-With a NO GO scenario, the 1st seed ammount will be converted into debt, and the 8 guitars will be sold, i currently sold 3 of these 8 guitars if this scenario happens.

This is not an equity deal but a loan, so i am taking the risk on myself.
This is a calculated risk because the investor is taking a risk by believing in this model and in me, and i am taking the risk of a loan because i believe in this model.

I am convinced this is the best option for the Hybrid model right now as a strategy. I have tried everything from venture capital to private investors, to entrepeneur competition to crowdfunding to many refusals of grants, etc. I have used up years of time and a lot of energy focussing on trying to get resources, so i am happy to say that is now behind me, and i can start to focus on building again. This time it wont be on nickels and dimes, but on thousands of Euros.

So in short : I am very pleased with this announcement and this thread will now go back from talking to a building thread, with many pictures and unique building methods, custom tooling, and hopefully 8 amazing guitars at the end.

Thank you for reading,

Koen Klijnsmit
CEO / builder at Dutch Luthier
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  #172  
Old 02-23-2016, 12:03 PM
Minexploration Minexploration is offline
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congratz!!!
  #173  
Old 02-23-2016, 02:57 PM
FahroutUkes FahroutUkes is offline
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I have watched this thread for a very long time, with mixed feelings...

I can relate to what you are trying to do here: I (self-funded) started building ukulele's 3 years ago as a way to spend time with my sister who always had something better to do than hang out with me. It worked pretty well and, as a result, I decided to build her a guitar for her graduation from high school, I was 14. I documented that build on this forum here http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/f...d.php?t=369723 and I got a lot of positive feedback so I decided to offer to build custom guitars for people on the forum. I got three takers wanting four guitars! This is where the problems started. I bought the materials and started all four, then I started having small issues and being a perfectionist I couldn't let myself continue on something that I knew had issues even when no one else who even know they ever existed in the end. I jumped the gun, and eventually, I ran out of time and had to pay them back because I couldn't do what I promised in the time frame I promised.

I can't even begin to say how aggravating it is to see people give you simple advice on how to fix the finish on the top or the rosettes! I finished my sister's guitar with $40 of canned lacquer and some $15 micro mesh, no buffing machine, no spray equipment!




For you to say that you can't do it because you don't have the money to buy the supplies makes absolutely no sense to me, at all! It doesn't take money to build a good looking guitar, it takes time, patience and a willingness to accept constructive criticism!!! Taking an electric bridge off an acoustic by cutting a hole in the top and covering it up with a weird looking inlay does not show prospective buyers that you A) know what you are doing or B) that they should give you money! Your kickstarted campaign didn't fail because you didn't have a budget for marketing, it failed because 999/1000 people who viewed it saw major issues with the way you were doing things!!!

I am not writing this to bash you at all, I repeat NOT TRYING TO BASH!!! but I am actually worried for you, what happens if this doesn't work and you now have $50'000-$100'000 in debt? I also don't know why you called it invested capital as no matter what you have to pay it back and that means it's a loan! How will you pay that back? Even if you sell all 8 guitars somehow, that's what, $15'000? Where's the rest coming from? What about interest? You keep saying you have no money and chose between a new tool and food, so how do you expect to pay back other people when you can't put food on your own table?

Just take your time, look at some of the other threads on here, learn something from the people who previously commented on here!!! No one here wants you to fail, in fact, a lot of people want you to succeed. But you have to be willing to admit that something, other than funding, is wrong and take the time to get it right!
While Edison didn't make the first light bulb he built over a thousand light bulb prototypes before he had one that worked well and was ready to be sold, everywhere along the way learning how to fix a previous problem!!!
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Last edited by CoolerKing; 02-25-2016 at 06:41 AM.
  #174  
Old 02-23-2016, 10:17 PM
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I'm looking forward to seeing *one* perfect instrument, with no excuses.

I have friends who need all kinds of perfect supplies to write songs, whenever they'll actually start.

I have a notebook, I record bits of music or even me singing ideas, and I work with whatever materials and instruments I have to write. It's not a matter of having the perfect tool for me, just that I have to write.

I also have friends who have built amazing instruments with no power tools, or who made tools. Some went on to bootstrap their way up, meaning (for non-English speakers) that they started with almost nothing, and then earned enough to get slightly better tools and materials, while also improving their skills, so that when they got really nice tools and materials, they also had a better understanding of how to really use those tools and materials.

There are plenty of great build topics over at places like Ergonomic Guitar, and plenty of people making novel and clever tuning machines out of raw materials.

I too worry about the potential for debt in this story, and so I hope that there will be one really great instrument made as a proof of concept of the whole process. No excuses, no blame for inadequate tools or materials, just one instrument to show a demonstrated understanding which will then be used to build the other instruments.

One perfect instrument. That's it.

Good luck!
  #175  
Old 02-24-2016, 06:29 AM
littlesmith littlesmith is offline
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Thanx guys, it`s gonna be amazing.

I ask you respect my announcement as a new beginnning and do not keep bringing up old topics / doubts, or perpetuating an old image of me. I have explained my position / situation many times, how i got here and why i did what i did, and i still stand behind every choice. I respect that you might have another method, please do the same for me. For example the 3 Hybrid 1.0 prototypes were never built for appearance, they were proof of concept guitars. I have always been building a company....not a guitar.

I will be building new amazing guitars, the way it should be done. Every little job done well with the right tools, and this time it will have a nice appearance as well.

I am very thankfull the investor believes in me and the model and it will be my honor to fullfill expectations.

Since i can no longer reply to your message, please keep the doubts and old topics to yourself and allow this thread to return to a building thread with pictures and building methods.

Thank you.

Koen.
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Last edited by CoolerKing; 02-25-2016 at 06:42 AM.
  #176  
Old 02-24-2016, 09:40 AM
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I'm very happy for you. It sounds like a very good new beginning, and I hope the models are all successful in that they all sell, as well as provide additional feedback for requested changes to increase broader appeal (if necessary). Wishing you the best of luck as you move forward!
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  #177  
Old 02-24-2016, 10:24 AM
littlesmith littlesmith is offline
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Originally Posted by mikealpine View Post
I'm very happy for you. It sounds like a very good new beginning, and I hope the models are all successful in that they all sell, as well as provide additional feedback for requested changes to increase broader appeal (if necessary). Wishing you the best of luck as you move forward!
Thank you!!!

It`s an amazing opportunity and i will grab it with both hands.

Koen.
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  #178  
Old 02-24-2016, 11:59 AM
FahroutUkes FahroutUkes is offline
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I wish you the best of luck and hope that you can get the guitars to sound, and look amazing.
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  #179  
Old 02-24-2016, 02:23 PM
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Glad things are on track for you!
  #180  
Old 02-25-2016, 02:20 AM
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Originally Posted by littlesmith View Post
I will be building new amazing guitars, the way it should be done. Every little job done well with the right tools, and this time it will have a nice appearance as well.

...(P)lease ...allow this thread to return to a building thread with pictures and building methods.
I do look forward to the pictures!
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