Build Your Own Guitar With My Guidance and Supervision
Recently I was contacted by someone who wanted me to teach him to make guitars. After thinking it over I proposed that I would teach him in my shop with no one else present. We would each build a guitar from identical sets of materials. He would watch me build my guitar step by step and I would teach him to carry out the same steps on his guitar. I initially suggested five weekends, 8 hours a day, at $500 per day, or $5000--what a custom-made guitar could cost. He said that he had only $3500 budgeted and asked if I would lower my rate. I said that I wanted to keep the rate at $500 per day, but that I thought we could accomplish a lot in three and a half weekends for $3500. (We are using pre-made rosettes and I don't anticipate that we will have much time for learning finishing techniques.) He would also be responsible for the cost of his materials and supplies. (The cost of the materials for one of the guitars we are building is about $340.) And I was glad that he was interested in purchasing some of his own tools such as chisels, plane, files, rasp, and scraper, since these tools are easily damaged. Because he wants to continue building guitars he was also interested in purchasing some of the many other tools that are needed. Since doing everything using hand tools would take longer (and be so hard for someone not used to it that it might be discouraging) we will be using machinery. Some of the machining is too dangerous for a novice to try, so I will do the machining while he watches. And since even a simple chisel can be dangerous, I stipulated that he would have to sign a waiver promising not to sue me if he got injured.
Several other people have expressed interest in building a guitar with me, so I thought I would put this up on the website. I have some extra chisels and other tools, so it is possible for someone to make their guitar using only my tools. I am also available to teach guitar making on an hourly basis at $65 per hour.