Considering a custom-made guitar?
You
can buy excellent factory-made guitars. They are uniform,
well-made, sound very good
and are very affordable. My guitars are hand-made from scratch in my
shop. I use a variety
of exotic woods and other components such as carbon fiber
reinforcements and premium tuning
machines - and a lot of time to make an instrument, between 150 and 200
hours. Every guitar
I make is different and has a personality. When I know who will end up
owning it I can work
with the future owner to make it exactly the way he or she wants it.
This goes for the
selection of woods, the rosette, the string length, the shape and
dimensions of the fingerboard,
even the number of strings (like 7-strings), the finish and
the type of sound to aim for.
That is what makes a luthier-built custom guitar different from a
factory-built guitar, and it
makes it more expensive.
Here is how I supply custom
guitars:
Look at what type of guitars I have made and how I make them. If you like what you see go to the Design Your Guitar page and make you selections from a variety of options. Forward your design to me for a quote. I will then send you a price quote and a delivery time either by regular or email depending on your choice. If you accept the quote in writing and send me a deposit for 10% of the quote I will build the guitar according to your specifications (in that case there will undoubtedly also be telephone conversations between you and me during the building process).
Once the guitar is finished I will provide pictures either on the web site (or privately to you if you don't want them to be public). If you authorize shipment of the guitar to you, then you owe me the remainder of the payment before I ship. Once you receive the guitar you have 30 days to accept it. If you do I will take your payment and you will enter the 1-year warranty period. If you don't want to accept the guitar you can ship it back to me and I will return your payment except for the deposit. I you don't ship it back for 30 days after the acceptance period I will keep your full payment.
If there is a problem with the guitar during the Warranty Period you can ship it back to me (at your expense) and I will make the necessary repair and ship it back to you at no charge to you. After the Warranty Period I can make repairs after you contact me and I give you a price quote for the repair. In that case you ship it to me and I ship it back after the repair.