I want to do what you do!

[Geoffro6]

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Hey guys

I'm currently completing year 12 and really hope I can become a Luthier or guitar maker/repairer afterwards.

I have looked everywhere for courses, apprenticeships, degrees etc and can't find anything, teachers are no help either.

The only courses I can find are either in America or $4,000 2 week ones that seem more of a hobby thing rather than something to prepare me for work.

So does anyone know how I can get into this business for example a course I can complete or if i should do a woodwork/electronics course for a year or something?

Or maybe someone needs an apprentice next year Wink

any help will be appreciated guys thanks

you can reply here or pm me or email me
geoffro_pro@hotmail.com

Last edited by Geoffro6 on Mon Aug 09, 2010 12:18 am; edited 1 time in total

[kiwigeo]

Welcome to the forum Geoff,

If you do some more googling you'll find there are courses that run here in Australia and there's at least one that runs in NZ every few years.

You can do a search on this forum as well and you'll find discussion on guitar building courses.

Unfortunately becoming a luthier isnt quite as simple and straight forward as becoming a plumber or a builder. Most luthiers operate as small businesses and taking on an apprentice is way beyond their financial capabilities. You'll find that a majority of the luthiers in here making guitars for a living have taught themselves their craft.

My best advice....make plans to have a fallback job/career in case the luthiery dream doesn't come to fruition. If I had my time again I'd have done a cabinet making course instead of going to uni. As it is I did finally get to build guitars but purely as a hobby and only because I have a main job that pays fairly well and allows me to splurge on wood and tools. The down side is I dont get much time in the workshop.


Cheers Martin
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One can never have enough tonewood

Last edited by kiwigeo on Sat Aug 07, 2010 11:31 pm; edited 1 time in total

[vandenboom]

Geoff - what city or state do yyou live? Might help in suggesting courses/resources.
Frank

[Geoffro6]

Ahh thanks Kiwigeo I thought it was that simple, just do a course and get into the same as any tradie I guess.

Hey Frank I'm from the eastern suburbs of Melbourne but I would travel for the right thing I suppose

[Allen]

First off, welcome to the forum.

The closest course to you would be at Thomas Lloyd Guitars.

It will give you some insight into the process, but it's a long journey to take that into a viable living. Truth is that there are very few that can turn this into a means of supporting a family and being able to have all the perks of modern life. Getting into a repair job at a local music shop would also be some very good experience, and will help to pay the bills.

Martins's (Kiwigeo) comments of having a trade to fall back on is a very prudent one. Cabinetry would have been my first choice, but it wasn't an option when I was just getting out of high school. Turned out that panel beating and spray painting was a real asset. Never been a day without work and the skills I learnt there are easily transferred into lutherie.
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Allen R. McFarlen

[sebastiaan56]

Hi Geoff, welcome! You will learn a lot here just by checking out the tutorials and the discussions.

If you can, take your mobile number off you're post. This is the internet and these pages get very regularly googled. ID theft happens.

As for jobs, Perry Ormsby had a job going last year but that is all I have heard of. That was in Perth. As Martin has indicated most real luthiers have day jobs.
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make mine fifths........

[peter.coombe]

Geoff

As already mentiioned, most Luthiers have a "real" job. The best advice I can give to you is first to get yourself a job that pays the bills and puts food in your mouth. If that involves working in the music business then great. If not then at least you won't starve. I have had lots of queries as to apprenticeships, but I just can't do it becasue there is not enough money in the trade to support an apprentice. I would need to charge an apprentice because of the extra time involved. That time is not building time, and building time is what brings in the cash. So an apprenticeship is out unless you get incredibly lucky, or are rich.

Do you have basic woodworking skills? Did you do woodworking at school? If not then you will need to take some sort of woodworking course to learn the basics. Once you have the woodworking skills then start your Lutherie career as a hobby and slowly build it up into a business. Eventually you might become a full time Luthier, but that takes many years. It takes years to work out how to make music instruments that sound exceptionally good, and it takes years to build up a customer base and a reputation that allows you to sell music instruments for a price that pays you a reasonable salary (usually a low salary). Usually what happens is that all the profits from instrument sales get spent on tools and a space to use the tools (i.e. a worshop). You will need specialised hand tools and some power tools. The power tools are mostly to save time, but they do cost.

It is a lot easier nowadays becasue of the Internet. There is a lot of information available on the net, and you can easily contact other people with the same passion for making musical instruments via email. You need to be capable of educating yourself by reading books, Internet research and just plain doing it by trial and error. Meeting other Luthiers and asking lots of questions can be very helpful.

It helps a lot if you are already a musician. You need a passion for good sound, so you can immediately recognise a good sounding instrument and also able to know about how the instrument feels in the hands of the player. There is more to it than just sound. A musical instrument must be a joy to play as well as sounding good.

Hope that didn't put you off. The good side is that you will have a ball. There is nothing quite so satifying as playing a musical instrument you made with your own hands and it sounds better than you had ever dreamed you would ever be able to do.
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Mandolin and mandola maker

[xray]

Hi geoffro, Being a teacher and a hobby luthier i can honestly say that to become an apprentice luthier, you would need to be a great player of all things strings for understanding, have a great knowledge of timber, e.g great results in woodwork classes and even have built a guitar for your final works. The last resort is to check out any factories in melbourne (matin maybe down their from memory) Offer your services for free as a work experience gig and whatever they throw at you no matter how shitty the job is,do it with enthusiasm and a grin on your face the whole time your'e there. Sometimes this is a sure fire way to show your commitment which can be more desirable than skill in a young apprentice.
If that fails, become a miner or a fire fighter, do not have children and make the most of a roster that gives you multiple days off to play with woodwoork stuff. If you kept at it because you are so young in ten years it would be easier for you to start a small business. what do you think? hard work i guess!
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Ability is of little account without opportunity.

[DarwinStrings]

G'day Geoffro, one option that may be worth considering is going to the U.K.. I had a friend in London 20 years ago that was doing just that, a Luthier apprenticeship. I think you can still get good work holiday visas from here to there but getting the trainee-ship from here may be difficult.

Another suggestion if you wish to stay in Australia is to get a carpentry/joinery apprenticeship with a small/medium sized business that specialises in high end joinery(not a company that just makes MDF cabinets). You will learn much about wood and joinery but, depending on your boss you may be allowed to have the keys to the workshop over the weekend. This would give you great opportunity because of access to the bosses tools without having to buy your own and provide a shed. Also Ebay is full of cheap broken guitars that you could work on without fear of trashing them to get you started before you build.

Jim

Bon voyage

[Puff]

Trying again: http://www.soaresyguitars.com/
This man is as straight as. Put your request to him and I have no doubt that he will see you right if it is possible.

[Puff]

Thanks Kim for the straightening. Geoffro if you are prepared to do the hard yards for FA to learn this may be an option. Worse places to be too. Bon aventure.

[vandenboom]

Geoffro6 wrote:
Ahh thanks Kiwigeo I thought it was that simple, just do a course and get into the same as any tradie I guess.

Hey Frank I'm from the eastern suburbs of Melbourne but I would travel for the right thing I suppose

Geoff
I actually live in Melb Eastern Suburbs - there are a few other members in this area that I catch up withn also.
I can't do much to address your original questions, but you are welcome to drop by for a chat and a look sometime if you like. PM your contact details if you would like to take that up.
btw,Thomas Lloyd guitars - the guitar building 'school' that Allen referred to, is based in Eltham. It's an expensive venture but probably good value if you have the dough and are looking for a quick start in learning how to make one type of guitar using one method.

I wasn't in a hurry when I started so I used books, this great forum and spent the money on tools instead of a course.
Frank

[Geoffro6]

woah thanks heaps for the help guys.

First of all yes I do play guitar that's probably the main reason I want to get into being either a Luthier for all stringed instruments or just a guitar repairer so I can not only fix my own guitars but also work on others because I just love it so much. I had to take my Floyd-Rose off one of my guitars a while ago and even that was just a massive thrill, taking it off and fixing it to put it back on.

I did woodwork in highschool from yr7 to yr10 and was always going well in that, also metalwork aswell. I have done electronics for a year at school but forgotten most of it anyway but I'm good with soldering and such.

The custom shop guy from Maton lives up my road (he builds guitars from scratch) and I've spoken to him about it because we jam and stuff but pretty much what he said was that I would be given a section in the factory and only work that bit, I couldnt just build full instruments.


Anyway, would a guitar repairer in a music shop such as Billy Hyde or whatever be likely to have me on board with them and sort of teach me as we go (or even want an extra person?)

[kiwigeo]

Geoffro6 wrote:


The custom shop guy from Maton lives up my road (he builds guitars from scratch) and I've spoken to him about it because we jam and stuff but pretty much what he said was that I would be given a section in the factory and only work that bit, I couldnt just build full instruments.

This is an avenue I would be looking at seriously. You might start out making a thousand necks a week on a CNC machine but youre in the factory and whats stopping you knicking down to the custom build shop to check out whats going on there. If the people that run Maton have any sense theyll quickly realise that your talents are wasted on a CNC machine and get you onto more interesting tasks.

If I was living In Melbourne Id love to spend a bit of time working in the Maton factory...just to see how its all done.
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One can never have enough tonewood

[Geoffro6]

Yeah that's sort of what he said too, you might be getting paid shit all and doing one thing but you look around and your in a building with thousands of other guitars.

Thats an option for me

[Geoffro6]

I've been sussing out bodies on eBay, cheap parts etc

would it be worth buying stuff to muck around with
and would a kit guitar be worth buying so I experience putting one together?

[Lillian]

Geoff, it's all worth doing. It all has value. You need to understand repairs, even if you only intend on building. What you see and deal with while making a bad one playable again will influence how you build and give you insight to what caused it to fail. Plus, you'll have deal with your babies when they've been mistreated and return to you for help. But understand, the skills you gather are not necessarily ones that will translate into building one from scratch.

I don't know what you have in you shop tool-wise, so I'd suggest you find something that is basically playable but needs a good setup. Figure out what tools you'll need for that, troll through the archives, looking at what others have used or made to do a job and have a go at it. Once you feel comfortable doing whatever it was you picked, move onto another type of repair and start the process over.

Stewart McDonald is a great place, but a lot of the tools they offer are expensive and unnecessarily. Some of them will save you butt when you are in a jam, oh yeah. But unless you've won the lottery or are a trust-fund baby, you can't afford to kit out your shop with them. There are a ton of threads that show jigs, tools and fixtures that people have created or adapted to building. Check out Craig's and Taffy's offerings. Brilliant offerings. Craig's thickness gauge is a work of art made from bits and pieces he had laying. Taffy puts MacGyver to shame. Ask what people are using or where they got their tool/jig from. Answers might astound you.

Working at Matron will do one of two things for you. It will inspire you to build or it will kill the desire all together. There is no way to predict which it will be. The experience will be invaluable and as long as you don't set things up so that you can't afford to leave. Don't get into debit, pay yourself first, build up your savings so that you can pick up and leave when you have had enough or a better offer.

But no matter what you do, have fun. If its not fun, its not worth doing.

[kiwigeo]

Lillian wrote:



Working at Matron will do one of two things for you.

Lil', I think youve got your companies mixed up.

Theres a company called Maton over in Melbourne but Matron Guitars is over in Perth and its run by our Kim Hickey. Kim is a bit of a skinflint so all his staff are little old ladies hired out of his local nursing home and paid in tea and bikkies...hence the company name.
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One can never have enough tonewood

[Lillian]

Ooops. Sorry 'bout that.

Thanks for pointing it out.

Kim, you might want to rethink your business model.

[jackspira]

Hi geoffro,
heres a list of courses in Australia that I'm aware of, apologies if I've missed any..

Carson Crickmore school of guitar making (Melbourne) www.carson-crickmoreguitars.com.au/school.htm

Thomas Lloyd Guitar making school (Melbourne) http://www.thomaslloydguitars.com.au/Gu ... e_137.html

Northlands Secondary College NTEC
(Melbourne) www.northland.vic.edu.au/guitar/index.htm

Richard Howell guitar making tuition (Melbourne) http://learnguitarmaking.howellguitars.com

Gerard Gilet Guitar Making course (Sydney) www.giletguitars.com.au/school.shtml

Strato Anagnostis
Australian Guitar Making School
(NSW) www.australianguitarmakingschool.com.au

Cloud Nine Guitars
Guitar building courses
(Nth Queensland) http://www.cloudnineguitars.com.au/a/Gu ... ng_courses

Hancock guitar making course (Queensland) www.guitarmaking.com.au/

Hollingworth Guitar course (Queensland) www.hollingworthguitars.com/courses.htm

[sebastiaan56]

And here is a link to a book that will interest you,

http://www.sherline.com/business.htm
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make mine fifths........

[DarwinStrings]

kiwigeo wrote:
hence the company name.

Laughing

[Geoffro6]

Thanks heaps Jack I think Carson Crickmore sounds alright I'll have to save up a bit though.

As for Northland, I'll have to find out if I can do that next year because I think it says it is a VET course which is part of VCE.

So far I think I'll just buy a couple of kit guitars and old bodys with working parts and muck around with them.

[Kim]

kiwigeo wrote:
Kim is a bit of a skinflint so all his staff are little old ladies hired out of his local nursing home and paid in tea and bikkies...hence the company name.

Whats wrong with tea and bikkies??? Evil or Very Mad

Geez I dunno, one little story in the press about using insensitive like a little electrostimulation to increase productivity and everybody's gotta be a bloody critic...bring back work choices I say.

Baaah!
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ĆϾϿƆ
_(ӧ) ∩
_ڔ ڔ
Pull me Finga

[liam_fnq]

Those kerosene baths for the oldies were a bit of a rookie mistake too though Kim, given their proximity to the timber stores. No one wants you to make that mistake again.
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Cheers, Liam.





Cairns Loon.