Custom build advice??

[twostepct]

I have a very good friend and mentor at work that will be retiring in 3-5 years. I recently came up with the idea of having him a custom guitar built for his retirement gift. We have a master luthier in town who has been building all kinds of stringed instruments since the '70's. His website says that I custom guitar starts at $1000..... I'm not made of money by any means, but that is considerably lower than I thought it was going to be? I haven't spoken to the builder yet but I would assume for a custom build, laminate wouldn't even be in the options. I don't want to get fancy with it because my friend is as fancy as an old holey pair of long johns! I'm sure inlay work is expensive but I do require a custom inlay either on the headstock or preferably at the 12th fret.

The good thing is my friend picks with the luthier every week so that should give us more insight on the specs and an opportunity to expose him to the guitars to get an opinion BEFORE the build starts and yet not blow the surprise.

Those who have had a guitar built for you, would you do it again versus spending that money on a high end production model? At this price point I'm honestly considering having twins built with our respective inlays being the only difference. What do y'all think?

[jwsamuel]

I'd be concerned about anyone who says they can build a customer guitar for $1,000. That just seems a bit too low to me. I think you'd be looking more at $2,500 for a basic, unadorned model.

Now, there may be a valid reason why he charges so little but I'd want to check him out before you commit to anything.

Jim

[twostepct]

See, that's what I was thinking too.. Like I said, that's what his website shows. I'll have to go talk to him tomorrow and see if he maybe just hasn't updated his prices.

[Twelvefrets]

Sounds low to me as well, unless this guy's retired and has a bunch of wood stocked away, somethings not right.

[otterhound]

Can't hurt to talk to the man . You can always decide to not use him .

[jkingma]

I built an acoustic guitar for a $100 Challenge on another forum last year. My materials were only about 90 bucks, but I had almost 100 hours in it.

So if I sold that guitar for $1000.00... less $90.00 for materials... leaves $910.00 for labour... divided by 100 hours...

I'd be working for $9.10 per hour. I don't know about your guy... but I certainly can't live on that. Even if I did it in 50 hours things would be tight.

He is either doing it as a hobby... or he is paying alimony and wants her to starve too.