Guitar building for profit
I've been told I was a huge success right from the start.
* I made excellent wages
* My first guitar sounded fantastic
BTW... excellent wages translates to $7.00/hr. That's
$4,000 - $5,000/ year below the poverty level. And so
I kept the job I hated for another eleven years, and I
used that guitar to sing the blues for that eleven years.
Guitars are like bicycles... a passion, not necessarily a profit.
I'm now faster and better. My shop is huge, and well insulated. My tooling
will also allow me to save time and money. I think it may be possible for me
to break the $25,000 wage barrier. That's only a fourth of what I made on
the much hated job, and as was mentioned before, musicians are broke. If
(and that's a big "if") your guitars are spectacular they will beg you to take
payments, and work-off much of the cost by working on your car, painting
your house, etc..
My neighbor down the street is a well respected luthier who sells his violins
and cellos in Japan and other places around the world, and he actually does
quite well. That's because his wife is a nurse. Before they married he lived
in a weed field with rocks and junk scattered about in a run down single wide
trailer (that piece of junk wouldn't ever qualify as a "modular", mobile living
structure", or a "pre-manufactured home"). He was passionate, enjoyed his
work, and probably dreamed of food. Don't want to burst your bubble, but
you will need a marketing edge, and streamlined assembly.
All facts aside, I do hope you pursue your dream, and find it a success.
-Max