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  #16  
Old 06-12-2015, 01:35 PM
Ted @ LA Guitar Sales Ted @ LA Guitar Sales is offline
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Originally Posted by frances50 View Post
This is probably very true. At some point, this choice may gain traction, especially with the supply of exotic woods becoming scarse. It all depends on the popularity of the instrument and how fast the trend begins to form. I dare say most guitar consumers don't even know CF guitars exist.
I' guessing there are as many people who know about CF guitars as there are people who know about hot hide glue.


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Originally Posted by perttime View Post
Don't know about that.... exotic woods may be traditional and pretty, but excellent wooden guitars are being built out of more common woods too. I've seen and heard some pretty nice guitars done using oak and birch, and hear that Walnut, many fruit trees, and trees like Black Locust and Osage Orange can be very good.
Exotic woods are getting harder to come by in larger quantities, but because of the costs involved building CF guitars, manufactures are definitely more likely to sell the virtues of less desirable tone woods before bothering with CF.
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  #17  
Old 06-12-2015, 02:05 PM
jwayne jwayne is offline
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Originally Posted by Ted @ LA Guitar Sales View Post
It can run 50K for a mold for a CF guitar compared to $10 for molds used to build wood guitars. Materials are also more expensive, about $400 worth of materials go in to building a CF acoustic, compared to $200 worth of wood for a high quality all solid wood dreadnought.

Discussing CF guitars with a lead designer for one well known brand, the guy told me a Rainsong dreadnought would cost $4000 with their logo on the headstock. IMO, don't look for less expensive CF guitars, look for them to go even higher if the big boys start building them.
Wowzer! $50,000? Is this something that 3D printing can handle yet? I was intrigued by the SF carbon fiber workshop video, especially how much of the process (but also with wood I guess) can be done by CNC, laser cutting, etc. Course the equipment to MAKE forms & molds & finished pieces are expensive, but I always hear about how quickly that cost is recouped. In the SF video, the biggest cost was probably the people-hours!
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  #18  
Old 06-12-2015, 06:16 PM
drjond56 drjond56 is offline
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As some others have mentioned, I have no problem with the price structure of CF guitars in general, and Rainsong in particular. Love my parlor. I could have purchased any of a number of cheaper wooden parlors and even something of high quality like a Martin 0-15 would be about the same price. But the issue of durability living in the heat of the south, very light weight, and a superb but slightly different sound justify the cost. I still love my wood guitars as well, but the Rainsong was well worth what I paid for it.

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  #19  
Old 06-12-2015, 06:41 PM
frances50 frances50 is offline
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Default When will carbon fiber guitars come down in price?

I agree with all regarding price and affordability. My Rainsong is still my least expensive acoustic and the quality rivals my Gibson's.
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  #20  
Old 06-12-2015, 06:57 PM
AZLiberty AZLiberty is offline
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Originally Posted by jwayne View Post
Wowzer! $50,000? Is this something that 3D printing can handle yet?
$80K is closer to the mark for a Dreadnought size mold. (I'd buy $50K for the parlor)

And no you can't 3-D print it, it's hogged out of a giant aluminum billet on a CNC.
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  #21  
Old 06-12-2015, 07:48 PM
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Acousticado Acousticado is offline
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There's something about this mould cost thing I don't understand given how flexible Emerald is in so many custom options, and at very reasonable and competitive prices. Has Alistair developed a unique, adaptable production process that other composite manufacturers have not figured out. It's likely that no one really knows except Alistair, but given Emerald's flexibility and relatively quick turnaround, the referenced mould costs just don't seem to make sense.
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  #22  
Old 06-12-2015, 07:50 PM
teleamp teleamp is offline
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When they can get a robot to "hand-weave" the carbon fibers.
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  #23  
Old 06-13-2015, 01:12 AM
perttime perttime is offline
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Originally Posted by Acousticado View Post
... Has Alistair developed a unique, adaptable production process that other composite manufacturers have not figured out. It's likely that no one really knows except Alistair, but given Emerald's flexibility and relatively quick turnaround, the referenced mould costs just don't seem to make sense.
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There's more than one way to build a carbon fiber guitar.... I believe Emerald uses cheaper, and faster to make, molding tools which adds flexibility - and labor.
I seem to recall a photo and some words about Emerald molds, somewhere. I think it was a CNC machine cutting a mold out of some sort of foam plastic. That would almost certainly mean producing an individual mold for each individual guitar.

That is not a unique process for composite structures, but other guitar makers have chosen to go a different way.

(Please correct me if I got something seriously wrong here)
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  #24  
Old 06-13-2015, 07:13 AM
Captain Jim Captain Jim is offline
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  #25  
Old 06-13-2015, 09:22 AM
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I suppose we might see some CF instruments at lower than usual prices, produced by companies willing to take a loss in order to reach a market. But, in general, I see no reason for CF guitars to become less expensive. first, the market is clearly growing--Where there used to be one major CF maker there are now four makers. Second, the durability of CF guitars make them serious heirloom possessions that might last generations of players. And third, CF guitars have a consistency and precision that is just not possible with wood.
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  #26  
Old 06-13-2015, 10:28 AM
Ted @ LA Guitar Sales Ted @ LA Guitar Sales is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by perttime View Post
I seem to recall a photo and some words about Emerald molds, somewhere. I think it was a CNC machine cutting a mold out of some sort of foam plastic. That would almost certainly mean producing an individual mold for each individual guitar.

That is not a unique process for composite structures, but other guitar makers have chosen to go a different way.

(Please correct me if I got something seriously wrong here)
Alistar builds but a few hundred guitars a year, what ever method he uses, I'm sure it wouldn't do for a thousand plus guitars a year. The molds used by Rainsong, along with the more expensive pre impregnated carbon fiber are the reason that their guitars are so consistent.


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Originally Posted by EvanB View Post
I suppose we might see some CF instruments at lower than usual prices, produced by companies willing to take a loss in order to reach a market. But, in general, I see no reason for CF guitars to become less expensive. first, the market is clearly growing--Where there used to be one major CF maker there are now four makers. Second, the durability of CF guitars make them serious heirloom possessions that might last generations of players. And third, CF guitars have a consistency and precision that is just not possible with wood.
Agreed. A great example of this is Journey. Their new carbon fiber OF660 is the most affordable CF guitar out there, but it is twice the cost of their lowest price wood model. And selling like hot cakes BTW.
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  #27  
Old 06-13-2015, 11:10 AM
jwayne jwayne is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ted @ LA Guitar Sales View Post
Alistar builds but a few hundred guitars a year, what ever method he uses, I'm sure it wouldn't do for a thousand plus guitars a year. The molds used by Rainsong, along with the more expensive pre impregnated carbon fiber are the reason that their guitars are so consistent.

Agreed. A great example of this is Journey. Their new carbon fiber OF660 is the most affordable CF guitar out there, but it is twice the cost of their lowest price wood model. And selling like hot cakes BTW.
That is a majorly cool guitar!
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  #28  
Old 06-13-2015, 04:21 PM
AZLiberty AZLiberty is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ted @ LA Guitar Sales View Post

The molds used by Rainsong, along with the more expensive pre impregnated carbon fiber are the reason that their guitars are so consistent.
As a point of clarification. Current Rainsong production uses pre-preg CF. Older models used the method where you have to mix/inject the resin separately.

The trade-off is that pre-preg costs more on the materials side, but the labor savings is significant.

Older instruments, such as my WS-3000 used the more time-consuming method. Rainsong has gone to all pre-preg (for many good business reasons) but that means that the older molds (like their 12-string molds) are not usable with the new process.

Also, autoclaves big enough for a Guitar probably are not inexpensive either.

This is one of the things that is slowing down the adoption in the aero-space industry as well. NASA has an autoclave for curing large CF components that cost $100 million to build.
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  #29  
Old 06-13-2015, 06:49 PM
steelvibe steelvibe is offline
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Acousticado, I too have wondered about how Emerald pulls off the custom jobs so quickly and at their price points. I haven't seen a virtual Emerald factory tour and Alistair's secret leprechauns are not saying a word.

Kudos to Emerald for filling this niche. I can't believe the price of the Synergy. I better get one before his prices go up
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  #30  
Old 06-14-2015, 09:28 AM
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While production CF guitars are justifiably expensive, CF custom guitars strike me as incredible deals. I've had three custom guitars from Emerald and one from Blackbird; those guitars were roughly half the cost of similar custom wooden instruments.
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