building with own materials

[JJ model]

How would you charge if someone enquired you to build a guitar with his own wood? let say, if you have a base price and he wanted to supply you with a set of BRW for the B&S and Italian Spruce for the Top.

[Allen]

I wouldn't drop my price at all, simply because I would be responsible for not stuffing up their wood.

The cost of the wood for most of us that have been buying at the right price over a period of time is really a small part of the cost of the instrument. Baring some supper exotic stuff of course. If they have managed to find wood that they want their dream instrument made from, they either have heaps of money, and paying the regular price for one of your instruments is not an issue, or they are just looking at getting a bargain, and cutting you out of one of the ways you make a small margin on materials.

One customer is worth taking on, the other is not in my opinion.

[P Bill]

As the old story goes, a woman goes into a Melbourne milliner's shop to have a hat made for the Melbourne Cup. Almost in front of her eyes, out of a single piece of wide ribbon, he creates a beautiful hat. "That will be $1000., thanks". She says, " $1000. for a bit of ribbon ?" The milliner says "Madam, the ribbon is free."

[Kim]

Hi Jeff,

I would 'not' simply reduce the base price by the cost of a cheap back and side set and a top of equivalent value. Your skills as a luthier are still needed to assess the wood supplied and prepare it in such a way as to get the best from it. Sure this would need to be done anyhow, but the customer needs to understand that the pricing of a completed instrument is based upon a sum of the work required to produce each component, the cost of raw material used to produce those components, and a markup applied to that cost to cover the tooling required to process and store those raw materials without which there would be no workshop. It is fair to offer some reduction but you should retain the markup.

Given that BRW is notorious for opening up with changes in relative humidity once it is braced, before I agreed to make the guitar I would also make certain that the customer clearly understood that all due care will be taken, but no responsibility will be accepted for any problems that may develop with their wood. Again the customer must accept that this is fair and reasonable simply because wood selection is a skill within itself, and as you had no say in making the selection, you cannot be held responsible for its suitability, or lack, to be made into an instrument.

Cheers

Kim

[JJ model]

Thanks Folks for all your great advice.
I finally turn off the deal ( or rather the other way round ). Since its a BRW I quoted him a BRW guitar price!