20 minutes of acoustic guitar mass production - very interesting video - thoughts?

[effzee]

This popped up in my YouTube feed. It's a well made video, the kind I enjoy regardless of the content, but this one is coincidentally a detailed view of the Crafter acoustic guitar production process:



While watching, I was wondering what the maestros here would make of it. What are the absolute no-gos? The only moment that had me raising my eyebrows comes at about 17:45 when the guy hammers the frets in place. I'm certain there were more steps in the process that just aren't in the video, but as is, yikes.

 

[robistro]

no quality control

 

[Freeman Keller]

Basically all the same steps that I do but I don't have the fancy jigs and cnc's. Frets can be hammered or pressed - both are legitimate. One thing conspicuous in its absence was any voicing or tap tuning or flexing or measuring stiffness or anything like that. I missed seeing how the braces were shaped.

Also missing was hearing protection for the workers - most were wearing dust masks, the finisher had a respirator, but manufacturing plants like that are noisy

 

[effzee]

no quality control

None to see on the video, but let's just assume

 

[RodeoTex]

Cool, and tons of extremely specialized machinery and all, but it still sounded out of tune.
I couldn't work there- nobody talks or smiles.

 

[effzee]

Basically all the same steps that I do but I don't have the fancy jigs and cnc's. Frets can be hammered or pressed - both are legitimate. One thing conspicuous in its absence was any voicing or tap tuning or flexing or measuring stiffness or anything like that. I missed seeing how the braces were shaped.

Also missing was hearing protection for the workers - most were wearing dust masks, the finisher had a respirator, but manufacturing plants like that are noisy

Yeah that's interesting. I was thinking the more impressive engineering went into the machinery. The workers clearly are doing precise work (and I know from experience with a completely different industry that they take tremendous pride in their work) but the setup seems fool proof.

I'm wondering about the quality of the materials themselves, and the adhesives. That would seem to me to be a major factor in the end product, which we don't get from the video.

I love that you picked up on the lower standards for worker protection. That flew right past me

 

[effzee]

Cool, and tons of extremely specialized machinery and all, but it still sounded out of tune.
I couldn't work there- nobody talks or smiles.

Yeah! I don't understand that demo at the end. They show the guitar being tuned with a clip-on (which seems cheesy, but fair enough, it's gonna be tuned down before shipping anyway) and then that weird demo. I was thinking maybe it's some ancient Chinese tuning or something

 

[Winky]

no quality control

It's no longer true that quality is "controlled" or "assured" by a bunch of inspections and corrections (or rejections) performed by people in white coats with long checklists. Manufacturing has increasingly been engineered towards error-free underlying processes that don't result in out-of-spec products in the first place. In the video, you see that sort of error-free process in the very repeatable sub-processes using highly engineered jigs and the like. Things like installing the rosette and binding are perhaps an exception, but in that case, training of the operator in terms of what is an acceptable level of quality (and empowering them to say that they messed one up and reject it themselves) would go a long way towards a consistent output.

Basically, if a lot of inspections were truly required, then the processes would be re-engineered until they weren't.

 

[Winky]

Counterpoint to that "mass-produced" video:

A while back, I watched a video where very small (but very You-tube present) manufacturer messed up a very expensive guitar, by installing the kerfing before sanding the back edges of the sides flat (enough). They then proceeded to sand off about half the installed kerfing in one area when they flattened the edges to accept the back. They didn't correct it, but justified it on the grounds that "there's still plenty of gluing surface". This was on a guitar that they would sell for 10s of thousands of dollars. Crafter would never do that.

 

[Winky]

Yeah! I don't understand that demo at the end. They show the guitar being tuned with a clip-on (which seems cheesy, but fair enough, it's gonna be tuned down before shipping anyway) and then that weird demo. I was thinking maybe it's some ancient Chinese tuning or something

I think he hadn't bothered to settle/stretch the strings in, but just tuned them once. We all know how that goes. It would be even worse on a new guitar strung for the first time. I'm not bothered by that demo. Showed that the guitar was complete. That's all.

 

[String Tree]

Made: In a Hurry!

 

[Freeman Keller]

Yeah that's interesting. I was thinking the more impressive engineering went into the machinery. The workers clearly are doing precise work (and I know from experience with a completely different industry that they take tremendous pride in their work) but the setup seems fool proof.

I'm wondering about the quality of the materials themselves, and the adhesives. That would seem to me to be a major factor in the end product, which we don't get from the video.

I love that you picked up on the lower standards for worker protection. That flew right past me

Crafter guitars are medium quality mass produce type PacRim guitars I would say materials are pretty average for the industry - it looks like red cedar for the top and EIR back and sides. Three piece style 35 back with I don't know what the center is. Adhesive is some sort of AR similar to Titebond (which is what most builders use. They imply that doing the glue up in those rotating gizmos by the time the part goes all the way around the glue is cured (I like to wait 24 hours with AR. There was something really funky in the neck joint - its a typical dovetail (with none of the hand fitting that you see at Martin) but when the do the glue up they slop some sort of nasty looking stuff in the cavity under the fretboard extension. The neck has a big bloke under the extension kind of like the Taylor NT joint or the bolt on Art and Lutherie necks. If I really cared I guess I could go back and look at that again. What it does tell me is that I might not want to ever try resetting that neck - it will need it some day but I'm not sure how to do it.

As far as the equipment that is pretty standard manufacturing gear, if you ever tour Taylor you'll see a lot of similar stuff.

Yeah! I don't understand that demo at the end. They show the guitar being tuned with a clip-on (which seems cheesy, but fair enough, it's gonna be tuned down before shipping anyway) and then that weird demo. I was thinking maybe it's some ancient Chinese tuning or something

There was also no attempt at setting up the guitar at all. I can't believe that even with all that cnc every guitar has exactly the right action, relief and all that stuff. They probably figure that GC or where ever you buy it will do the setup for you.

 

[schmee]

Very cool. Tooling, tooling, tooling. You take the error out of the process. It's how Japan learned to build cars better than the rest who had to catch up. The vacuum clamping at about 4:00 is something I hadn't thought about for guitar building.

 

[Buckocaster51]

Not a lot of TLC.

Doesn’t look like wood was graded or labeled if it was. I don’t know how chunks of wood stayed together to be assembled into an instrument.

Those neck joints seem to have much epoxy.

The Headstock “Inlay” reminds me of 70s mandolins and banjos.

All in all very interesting and informative.

 

[trev333]

It's alright to turn guitar making into an industrial process...it's the way of the world...

but?... is there an ever increasing market for guitars?.... how many guitars would Crafter expect to sell to break even with all the tooling that went into it?.. their forward estimates meetings must be interesting.

when we see less and less guitar in popular music.... who is buying all these mass produced guitars?... where do the un-sold ones end up?...

 

[KokoTele]

This popped up in my YouTube feed. It's a well made video, the kind I enjoy regardless of the content, but this one is coincidentally a detailed view of the Crafter acoustic guitar production process:



While watching, I was wondering what the maestros here would make of it. What are the absolute no-gos? The only moment that had me raising my eyebrows comes at about 17:45 when the guy hammers the frets in place. I'm certain there were more steps in the process that just aren't in the video, but as is, yikes.

Almost every modern guitar factory uses these same processes to make acoustic guitars. There are zero "no-gos," though I'm surprised by the use of CA glue for bridges and epoxy in the neck joint. There just isn't much need for it. They're clearly building parts to very consistent tolerances, so there's no need for so much goopy filler in the neck joint. These are cheap guitars, and not intended to last forever and get expensive repairs, like a neck reset.

As for the frets, we aren't seeing the entire process. Notice that the middle of the frets are still high, so either the needed to finish being hammered or they needed to be pressed to finish the job. Martin was also hammering frets in when I visited the factory 15 years ago. I don't know when they switched to a gang press, but it's a relatively recent development.

As for some of the other things people have nitpicked... You gotta spend a lot of money on an acoustic before anyone is tap-tuning the top. I don't know what level you have to get to in a Martin these days before someone tapping the top, but I do know that their scalloped braces on a lot of models are carved by eye to a shape/dimension and not tuned. And a lot of factories are using similar clip on tuners in their final setup.

The only cringe-inducing thing in that video was the out of tune strumming at the end. But Crafter doesn't make their margins by spending on marketing, clearly.