How many guitars does [ENTER NAME HERE] make per year?

[GibbyPrague]

Stonebridge / Furch 1500 annually or 30 per week.

[royd]

Originally Posted by M19

I read "somewhere" that Lowden makes about 500 per year.

I think that is accurate right now although George would like to raise that by a bit.

[Bill Ashton]

This past month I visited both Huss and Dalton as well as Martin...whoa, what a difference!

The lady conducting the tour at Martin stated they manufacture 1200 guitars a day, that they were working long shifts and hiring! She also said that every guitar we saw on the shop floor was spoken for and was someone's order.

Huss and Dalton on the other hand do 6 guitars a week (answer to a question that was not mine) At the time we were there I think I counted 11 employees...and the namesakes are not just figureheads, they work the shop...Jeff Huss was sanding and fitting a neck to a body, and I suspect that Mark Dalton was the one who put the neck strap button on my DS for me.

Not to desparage them, but the Martin factory is massive, and looking down from the mezzanine it could be any large factory anywhere...you cannot really tell what they are building...clearly there is a lot of handwork and great skill in the end departments though. At Huss and Dalton, the whole operation just looked like a labour of love, no other way to describe it...

[williejohnson]

Originally Posted by zumaboy

My understanding is that "Custom Shop" for Martin just indicates that a specific guitar has been ordered by a customer or dealer with non-standard specifications. "Custom Shop" guitars are built on the line right along with production instruments by the same people using the same techniques.

I don't know if I'm buying that. This is straight from the Martin Custom Shop website:

"At C. F. Martin & Co. we have a small, dedicated and highly skilled team of guitar luthiers who live to design, sand, shape, sculpt, assemble and play the finest acoustic guitars in the world. The sole purpose of our work is to help people create their perfect instrument, their masterpiece, their dream guitar.

Everyday you can find us working in the Custom Shop building instruments for some of the most celebrated guitar enthusiasts in the world. Each instrument is built one at a time and treated as if we were building it for ourselves. This is the way we have crafted instruments at C. F. Martin & Co."

Hopefully, there really is a Custom Shop and custom ordered instruments are not just part of the assembly line as described above...............because I'm waiting on a custom order right now!

There are many forum members who have actually visited the Martin Factory, perhaps they can clear this up...is there really a Custom Shop on the premises?

[Bill Ashton]

Willie, I think I can address you question, at least partly.

There is a "Custom Shop" at Martin, but to be fair it is a section on the production floor, not another building or anything. We saw them doing custom inlays on fingerboards, fretwork on necks and carving bracing. I think that maybe tops and backs might be cut during regular production, but given the number of side bending jigs we saw, that could not possibly be the total that Martin uses, so I would presume they "belonged" to the Custom Shop. There is a spray finishing process in the same area as the Custom Shop, and once again I could not believe that all regular production work would flow through this little area.

My take would be that a custom guitar would not be a single-builder type piece like a Fender custom electric (although it could be), but that much closer attention to detail by a small team in a special area is utilized.

[Klef]

I can't find Stefan Sobell's numbers but I bet they are amongst the lowest in the realm of well-known luthiers.
As for my cigar-box guitars, I have K&K minis in all of them and they just kill in DADG.

[Steve314]

Originally Posted by learner

There seems to be a huge drop in total produced between Taylor/Martin and Gibson.

Are you saying that Taylor numbers dropped? If so, what would lead you to believe that?

[williejohnson]

Originally Posted by Bill Ashton

Willie, I think I can address you question, at least partly.

There is a "Custom Shop" at Martin, but to be fair it is a section on the production floor, not another building or anything. We saw them doing custom inlays on fingerboards, fretwork on necks and carving bracing. I think that maybe tops and backs might be cut during regular production, but given the number of side bending jigs we saw, that could not possibly be the total that Martin uses, so I would presume they "belonged" to the Custom Shop. There is a spray finishing process in the same area as the Custom Shop, and once again I could not believe that all regular production work would flow through this little area.

My take would be that a custom guitar would not be a single-builder type piece like a Fender custom electric (although it could be), but that much closer attention to detail by a small team in a special area is utilized.

Bill,
Thank you. I was also told that in order to even work in the Custom Shop at Martin, you had to have worked in all of the various other departments for many years and so Martin's most experienced people work in the Custom Shop. And, Custom Shop instruments cost more not only new but used and that wouldn't be happening if they were all just made on the floor like the non-Custom Shop instruments.

I'll be going there to pick up my guitar once it is ready and I'll make a point of finding out more about it.

[rar]

Originally Posted by Steve314

Are you saying that Taylor numbers dropped? If so, what would lead you to believe that?

I think what was meant is that Gibson's production is much smaller than Taylor's and Martin's. This is quite correct. Based on the 1200 per day (as of April 2011) figure quoted earlier in the thread, Martin is building about 20 times as many guitars as Gibson Acoustics. (You might argue that Gibson Acoustics + Epiphone's acoustic production would be a fairer comparison. But Epiphone's low end is a lot lower than Martin's, so that doesn't really work either.) Based on the 500 per day (as of 2010) figure quoted by Taylor, they're around 8 times the size of Gibson. Evidently, both Martin and Taylor have ramped up production a lot in the last few years. Gibson hasn't: the Bozeman factory is at maximum capacity, so increased production would require either a second shift (which had been considered) or a major capital investment.

-- Bob R

[Herb Hunter]

Speaking only of the U.S. market and based on sales, in the $1,000+ category, Taylor and Martin are so far ahead of the others that in 2010, the market share of Gibson plus all other brands combined was was significantly less than either Taylor's (the leader that year) or Martin's market share. Gibson was third but their market share was less than half that of Martin's.

In the $500 to $999 category, Taylor was the leader followed by Martin. Takamine was a distant third, followed by Yamaha, Breedlove, Ibanez, Gibson and Ovation.

[murrmac123]

I cannot describe how heartened I am by reading this thread.

By my calculations, summing up the figures quoted, around 20,000,000 guitars coming off the production lines every year.

And every single one of them needing a fret dress and a set-up....

[Anand00028]

So,is there really a shortage of tonewoods ?

[Steve314]

Originally Posted by Anand00028

So,is there really a shortage of tonewoods ?

Depends on the tonewood...

[mc1]

Originally Posted by williejohnson

I don't know if I'm buying that. This is straight from the Martin Custom Shop website:

"At C. F. Martin & Co. we have a small, dedicated and highly skilled team of guitar luthiers who live to design, sand, shape, sculpt, assemble and play the finest acoustic guitars in the world. The sole purpose of our work is to help people create their perfect instrument, their masterpiece, their dream guitar.

Everyday you can find us working in the Custom Shop building instruments for some of the most celebrated guitar enthusiasts in the world. Each instrument is built one at a time and treated as if we were building it for ourselves. This is the way we have crafted instruments at C. F. Martin & Co."

such puffery. i'm not a big fan of puffery. i have a very hard time believing that each instrument is built one at a time. i also doubt they work everyday. i have a hard time believing any of it, really.

[islandguitar]

Bourgeois....about 360-400 per year.