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PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!!!!!

This is some wood i ordered from Ed Dicks.......all wrapped up and ready to ship,

I HAVE LOST MY MIND!!


     PaddyD38770.4540856481

WOW! That's quite a jones you got going there, Paddy! Let me help you...there just too much temptation for one man to handle!

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Wow that is alot of wood, I am thinking Paddy-O-Furniture
Evan

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http://www.NewYorkGuitarRepair.com

You're a sick sick man...


...but who am I to talk?

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

....DUDE. Are you starting a factory, or getting into the resale business yourself? Because, I mean, I thought I was bad!

Paddy,

Don't listen to a single word of it. It's beautiful!!!
(Wish I had half the wood you do)

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Just looking at those mahog neck blanks is getting me excited....

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

this is good we are sharing....... which is very important to recovery, but wait that means no more wood

mattia, i am not quite sure what i am doing really, i dont really want to go into full resale, as then i have to see all my wood go but i am not planning on starting a factory, just figured that if i could make one guitar a month til the end of my life, then hopefully that might be about 1000 guitars...... so then i thought, well i am going to need quite a lot of wood..... then thats when the problem started!!

told you i wasnt all there!!

And i thought i was a sick pup for calling myself " Bear " ! Man! My wife would kill me for 1/4" of that stash!

Paddy, i can relate!

Now, I'll know where to go if I just run out of the essential little bit of timber!



Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Good grief...forgot the wood, I don't want to pay the shipping on that chunk of lead. On the other hand, I am slightly envious.

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

Paddy O Furniture, that takes the cake!   

Ed is a woodman's woodman.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

more props to ed,

he just sent me these photos of Koa billets i asked him to do for electric carve tops...... yummy yummy!!

[QUOTE=Colin S] Now, I'll know where to go if I just run out of the essential little bit of timber!



Colin[/QUOTE]

I'll say....

Paddy: you're not too nuts. Consider that I've completed about 1.8 acoustics (and a bunch of electrics, mind) so far, and at the current build rate, optimistically, I've got enough wood for the next 15-20 years' worth of building, and right now, my biggest problem is a lack of space to store more sets ;-) I only foresee building 2-3 acoustics and 2-3 electrics each year, mind.

Your all crazy. How do any of you afford to have 15-20 years worth of wood at your disposal? At minumum $75/us for back and sides and $40/us for a top, not to mention neck wood, bridge and fretboard wood, bindings, perflings, and brace wood (this doesn't even include hardware) That's like $10,000-$20,000. I make a very good living and I have a hard enough time justifying buying wood for mor than a couple of guitars at a time. Currently I have wood for 2 guitars. THAT'S RIGHT, 2 ACOUSTIC GUITARS. Owww poor me.

Well, I guess I know all the estate sales to hit when you all die from starvation . I mean, how does rosewood cordon blu taste anyway, and can you realy stuff it with cheese, or would you use a nice mix of other exotics.

Good greef.

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Heh. That minimum for back/sides is a touch on the high side, more like the average cost for the sets I've got, taking them all into account (varies from Cherry to Ziricote to plain Walnut to Quilt Sapele). Good quality tops I can get for between 28 and 50 dollars. Bridges? About 1-2 dollars for EIR or MadRose, 3-4 for ebony. Bracewood? 80 cents/lb. Fretboards? Ebony around $10-$15, EIR $4, MadRose $6. Neck wood? Buy boards, maybe 10-20 dollars per neck if you're laminating or using stacked heels, less if you use Sapele instead of Honduran or Walnut. Headstock veneers either come from offcuts, or cost between 50 cents (EIR) and 2 dollars (ebony, MadRose) each. Purflings I bought a few decades' worth from Gurian, 200 bucks in one go, but the amounts made it worth it. I only have about 7 sets of (chrome, mostly Gotoh, and not 510's) tuning machines, all but a few sets spoken for already. For most of the electrics, I ask for cash upfront to buy the hardware; wood I have, hardware is pricey.

I'm in a fairly unique financial position right now; I make a significant amount doing translation work on a freelance basis (it's highly irregular work, but if you're good enough, and you get the jobs, the pay's great), but I'm a fulltime med student (currently in a holding pattern as I await word on when proper work, ie 2 years of clinical internships, begins; word is mid-April), I live cheap (minimal rent, no car, free public transport, and I mostly cycle anyway), my parents pay for schooling and basic cost of living (the former being minimal, the latter being what it is), I don't spend a lot of cash on going out and such, so, yeah, I blow a lot/most of what I earn on tonewood. And I know I won't be able to do that once I get a 'proper' job with longer hours and more fixed costs/mortgages/higher rent/a family/that sort of thing. So I'm building the stash now, while the disposable income's playing nice. The goal, once this initial investment's over (it 'started', properly, about 2.5 years ago, gradually building) is to have a self-financing hobby, really; have the sale (to friends, right now, at cost) of one instrument pay for the materials for the next/tool upgrades if necessary. Someday, maybe. Someday.Mattia Valente38770.8481597222

Well Mattia, You should tell me where your getting your wood than.

I did a quick look through our sponsors web sites. 5 of them to be exact.

The average for comparable products:

Highmountain,Goodman,RC Tonewood, Colonial, AC Woods in that order. All US $

EIR B&S: $84,$90,$55 (only price shown),Hond Mah B&S $50 (cheapest set), Am Wal B&S $45 (cheapest set) This isn't going into the nice stuff like Mac Eb, Zir, Sapple

Top wood: AA Lutz $30, AAA Sitka $75, Lutz $45, Eng fine gr &52.99, AAA Eng $45 Again, noting too high end here.

FB: EIR $8.25,n/a,Eb $16.99, Eb $13.99, n/a

Bridge: EIR $3.25,n/a,EIR $2.75,n/a, Eb $3.50

HS V: Eb $8.75,n/a, EIR $4,n/a, EIR $3.50

Neck Blank: n/a, Hond for 2 $75, Lam Hond/Maple $95, Single $31.99, Hond for 2 $52

Now this doesn't include any shipping or tax if bringing it in from the US or duty if there is any.

Now don't get me wrong, this is what I'm getting use to, but if your telling me that you can get this stuff for less money, well maybe it's cause the shipping from India or the other "exotic" locations is less for you over the pond. But for us here, this is what we get.
Now I know some of these sponsors give an OLF discount, but the nuts and bolts of it all says that to build an acoustic guitar with good (not the highest) materials will cost me about $250 US not including any of my shop costs.

So if we look at Paddy's "one a month till the end of my life = 1000 guitars" that works out to $25,000 US.

So you tell me. Rod True38770.9047916667

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Wow Paddy, can you write me into your will? Or better yet adopt me...I'll even sweep the shop!!

Rod you forgot to add carrying costs

Turnips......hmmmmmm.   Maybe it's the turnips.

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

Indeed...If that wood arrived at my doorstep, I know what my wife would say, "That's sure gonna make one fine coffin, you'd better get busy!"

Seriously though, would it not prove to be a smart investment move now...with the rising cost of wood?

[QUOTE=RichB] Seriously though, would it not prove to be a smart investment move now...with the rising cost of wood?[/QUOTE]

For certain kinds of wood no doubt but in moderation. Like if you can snag some Brazilian, African Blackwood, Madagascar Ebony, certain types of Mahogany, quality EIR is gettin tougher to get ...wow the list is gonna get long!

Thank you Paddy!!! Thank you. You see I thought I was bad but now..... if my wife ever says anything (which she hasn't yet) then I'm going to show her your pictures here.

Rod, Who knows, if we still are building 40 years from now and Paddy is still building 40 years from now we may be kicking ourselves in the butt for not being as savvy as Paddy was "way back then".

If i can just recuperate my tongue from off the shop floor, i won't put it back in my mouth before i clean it! Man, i'm thinkin' about movin' to Europa! Seems that a humongus stash can be gathered in no time! Rod, packup your stash of 2, wife and kids, i'll bring my stash of 2 1/2, wife and teenager and let's go rock 'em Europeans! Wadda u say!

You're not married are you?

Holay!!! I'm a bit speechless... If I had the money, I'd probably do the same thing though... Seriously, who here thinks that our kind of beautiful quartersawn wood is ever going to go down in price...
   If you can, it's definitely a smart move... I only hope you have a nice secure place to stash all that... I have a bit of room in the corner of my shop if you want...

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...