Mandolin building cost per hour

[David Horovitz]

OK, so I'm ready for the weekend to start . . .
I was reading that article about Dan Voight on the cafe homepage in which he mentions it takes 300 to 400 hours to make a "good" mandolin. That got me thinking, how much is that an hour?

If I use 350 hours, that's 43.8 days at 8 hrs per day or 6.3 weeks (7 days).

So, for a range of selling prices:

Mandolin # # # # #Cost
Selling Price # # #Per Hour
$2,000 # # # # # # $5.71
$4,000 # # # # # # $11.43
$6,000 # # # # # # $17.14
$8,000 # # # # # # $22.86
$10,000 # # # # # $28.57
$15,000 # # # # # $42.86
$20,000 # # # # # $57.14
$25,000 # # # # # $71.43
$30,000 # # # # # $85.71
$35,000 # # # # # $100.00
$40,000 # # # # # $114.29

I'm not trying to make any particular point, just looking at what the implied cost per hour is at various price ranges. At 300 hours a $2K mando would cost $6.67/hr and a $40K mando $133.33/hr. At 400 hours a $2K mando would be $5/hr and at $40K $100/hr.

I imagine different builders take more or less time than 300 to 400 hours depending on materials used, equipment, experience, technique, attention to details, etc.

[Bill Snyder]

I don't think MOST good mandolins take 300-400 hours to build. I think the 100-150 hour range for an all handbuilt F-style is closer for most builders. You have to remember Mr. Voight has built 2 instruments and from the video I am not sure that his carving technique is as quick as some others.
Using 2080 hours per year (40 hours x 52 weeks) divided by 150 hours yields almost 14 instruments a year. Figuring material and hardware cost at $750(could be a lot of variance in that figure) for a good mandolin how much should that mandolin cost?
I spent several years in residential construction and I considered myself to be a fairly highly skilled trim carpenter. I got $20/hour when I quit trimming houses. I think a skilled luthier should make more than that, say $30/hour or more.
At 150 hours that would be $4,500 for labor and $750 for material/hardware. That is $5,250 + overhead (rent, electricity, advertising, insurance, etc...). Then the dealer (if purchased from one) has to make a reasonable profit. I can see a sales price of $8,000 -$9,000 being reasonable for a handbuilt instrument.
For some of the experienced builders that have an excellent reputation based on the stellar quality of their instruments there is added value. Hence the ability to charge $10,000, $12,000 or more.
Some of the builders use duplicarvers or CNC for the rough carving and cut the number of hours per instrument down and still maintain the quality because the most critical parts of the building process remain. More power to them.
By the way, I get the impression that not many of the builders here are getting $30/hour. They also can't spend all of their work time building because they have a business to run so in order to build enough instruments to make a living they work more than 40 hours/week.
Like it has been pointed out several times you don't build for the money, you build because you are compelled to build.

[Chris Baird]

Thus far my expenses and overhead have accounted for about 80% of my gross income. But, as I get my tooling together I think this figure will come down.
However, the overhead and expenses (after the initial investment phase)are likely to eat up 1/3 of your gross income. Taxes will take 1/3 of that. After all is said and done it comes out as a rather low paying highly skilled job. You've got to love the job, otherwise you're far better off making cabinets.

[SternART]

Chris is on the mark on this one....if you haven't run a small business, you might not see all the time & expenses invested in having a life of building instruments. And it can take YEARS of research and development to understand and control the skills good enough, to consistantly build a stellar instrument. And certainly not 100% of your working hours is actually spent building instruments. With any small business there are dozens of hats to wear. How about sales, answering a zillion questions in emails to mando-nerds like us, phone calls to suppliers, finding great materials, sweeping the floor etc etc. Or expenses.... like traveling to shows, renting booth space, ads in magazines, etc etc.

If I figured out what I make per hour, in my business as an architectural glass artist......I'd be doing something else. You need to love what you're doing & the lifestyle.....luthiery is an honorable profession, but you're about as likely to get rich with a job as a BG mandolin player, as you are being a mandolin luthier.....which isn't saying much. I think it is a cool profession though....and have done my part, spending my hard earned art dollars, in supporting luthiers.....by commissioning instruments. I hope some of them have enjoyed the experience as much as I have.

yeah, im in glass as well, and i have roughly 20 grand in equipment tools etc. i have NO CLUE where i stand with how much money i really made over the years. but i do love what i do!

also we are talking hand built right? because i dont see it taking a big company who can rough cut tops and backs much faster because they have the specialized equipment to do so as many hours as mentioned.

i want to make a mandolin someday, and oy! i didnt think it would be that much time! i am a rank amatuer in the ways of woodworking.

[OlderThanWillie]

Question: #How can a luthier work for a few years and end up with a million dollars?

Answer: #Start with two million dollars.

[amowry]

I average about 250 hours per instrument at the moment. After expenses it works out to below mimum wage in this state.

[mythicfish]

Considering what you would pay other honest and competent tradespeople/artisans, a good, hand-made
musical instrument is one of the best bargains around.
I'm not one to "drop names", but the mandolin I bought from Dale Ludewig last year has paid for itself in more ways than one.

Curt

[Jim Rowland]

I just shipped a custom mando to a client, with a special coloring,Allen tailpiece,good materials and tuners,triple and side bound body etc,etc. Just for kicks I added up my material costs and was shocked at how much money I'd invested..including the crazy shipping costs from several suppliers,case and finishing materials. Turns out I was working for less than a dollar an hour. Luckily,I don't have to depend on that income for support. Like many other nuts out there,a sincere letter acknowledging that all the customers expectations had been nailed is all it took to make my day. I certainly don't recommend this approach to building or any other business,but I'm sure there are many like me doing stuff like this because they enjoy it. I don't advertise and sell to random people I meet along the way.Keeps the pressure off.
Jim

[Duc Vu]

Another way to look at it, 150-200 hours is 4-5 weeks of full time work. How much would you have to pay a skilled craftman (or craftwoman) in any other field to work exclusively for you for that lenght of time?
Mythicfish is right, mandolins are still great bargains!

[sunburst]

I'm only in it for the money.

[Jerry Stapleton]

I found out real fast that I will never make a living building mandolins----just hopefully enough to buy a few more tools and material to build more. But alas! I also found out to late, that Im hopelessly addicted to building those little devils!-----its madness I tell you! madness!

[Hans]

Efficiency is a must in building instruments. A good builder should be able to turn out a high quality "A" mandolin in 100-150 hours depending on the trim level. "F" models will run anywhere from 200-270 hours in my experience. Those figures exclude accidents, disaster, and staining/finishing problems (and don't think that they don't happen). I don't know about building instruments in batches, but I suspect it works out to about the same.
General materials (excluding Caltons, Pegs, Waverlys, and other such luxury items) run around $200-300. Add to that expendable materials (glue, finish, stain, sandpaper etc.) and you can add another $20-50 bucks.
Overhead (electric, heat, instrument and business insurance, garbage, computers, office supplies, you name it) is a major expense, and just think of the cost of health insurance... EEK! Tools...where to I start? I bought one major power tool every year for 10 years, add to that all the "little" ones like drills, routers, even pliers, screwdrivers.
So, even excluding all the business expense, insurance, overhead, etc. an $8000 F style instrument built to the highest standards works out to about 28 bucks an hour GROSS. If you price that same instrument at $5000, that works out to 18 bucks.
Now you might feel that 28 or 18 bucks an hour is a lot of scratch to be making, but now take out all the overhead and insurance and it works out to more like 6-12 bucks, and that's hands on time. Imagine the time to answer questions, do the office end of the business, clean the shop, order materials or drive out to buy supplies.
After all was said and done last year, a $8/hr job looks pretty darn good, but I can't stop the passion.

[grandmainger]

I average about 250 hours per instrument at the moment. After expenses it works out to below mimum wage in this state.

That's a very sad thing to read. Very sad indeed.

[sunburst]

...but I can't stop the passion.

Passion shmassion. I'm still only in it for the money.

[Bill Snyder]

John you need to get your story straight. Here is a quote from you in a thread from last August:
"I'm doing this because I enjoy it, not to get rich, and if I enjoy the hand tool more than the power tool, but it takes 10 minutes longer, well then, I get to do the fun part for 10 more minutes!"
Which is it John - the fun or the big bucks your after? Or maybe its the women.

[Mike Buesseler]

This is an interesting, if only half-serious discussion (we all knew John Hamlett was in this just for the money ).

One problem with applying math to the issue is that you ain't paying for the time anyone puts into your mandolin, you are paying for the product. And, you are paying what you and the luthier agree it is worth. That price reflects much more than the time he/she puts into your mandolin. It reflects the skill, experience, taste, integrity, and a whole lot of other factors besides the number of hours spent building your instrument. On the average, I expect each luthier is paid pretty close to what their work is worth--on the ever-fickle market.

[Hans]

[QUOTE]
...I'm still only in it for the money.

Good luck with that John!

[QUOTE]
...I expect each luthier is paid pretty close to what their work is worth...

Certainly not born out by builder's comments so far...

[Mike Buesseler]

...I expect each luthier is paid pretty close to what their work is worth...

Certainly not born out by builder's comments so far...


I'm not sure what you mean, Hans. There wasn't even a question in this thread, just observations and some calculations. You said yourself that even though your work calculates out at about $8/hr, you "can't stop the passion," which I take to mean you wouldn't trade your job for any other. I wouldn't expect any luthiers around here to say anything else. Otherwise, why keep doing this? With the incredible skills and artistry you each have, surely you could all get higher paying jobs. That passion (love of your work) must be worth a lot to you.

I'm not trying to throw any judgmental stuff in here, nor am I trying to address the "fairness" of any of this. It has just always helped me to understand my own incentives (costs and benefits) of choices I make. (I retired early. It affected my pension check, but I got the time to pursue my passions, which is pretty near pricless to me. )

[Rick Schmidlin]

I have a friend who is a noted guitar luthier.It costs him about $650.00 for a Braz/Ad Guitar .He has made most of his own machines and tools himself.It takes a month from start to finish and the guitar sits alot during the process try from glues and finishs but there is always some little to do.His guitars with the wood retail around $8,000.00, remember this is not what he gets,this includes dealer mark up.He build the guitars by himself and has fifty years of exsperance.He also makes templates and tools for other luthier's. A Mahognay /Engleman guitar cost $200.00 less in wood buttakes the same time, these go for $3,000.What does this all say.If a man puts fifty years of hard work passion and devotion into his product and takes home before taxes $4,000.00 a month, he is making a living not over charging.I don't he thought of breaking it down by the hour.

[Jim Rowland]

The diversity of personal motivations was brought home forcefully to me a while back as I was driving by the huge mansion and grounds located on what is known to the locals as "Hamlett Hill" in Virginia. The dancing girls frolicking near the Olympic size pool and the 6' plus lawn jockey (bearing a remarkable resemblance to Lynn Dudenbostel) spoke eloquently of the thing which all the cognoscente cognoscent....John must be doing it for the money. We understand and forgive you,John.
But seriously folk,it aint in the cards for small output luthiers to make much money. All the points Hans made are valid plus the fact that your net (if there is any)aint your net unless you don't spend the money. If you do spend it,another twenty or so per cent goes for hidden taxes. One of my sons (the one who would never amount to much)makes nearly eighty K a year installing computer systems in convenience stores. I love the boy dearly,but he can't drive a nail.
Jim

[Chadmills]

"cognoscenti cognoscent" - Like it, I may have to borrow that one Jim
Tom

[sunburst]

Jim, I can't believe you drove by without stopping in for a dip in the pool! The guards would have let you in if you had told them who you were, and one of the girls would have gotten you some trunks, a robe and a towel from the pool house.
(You wouldn't believe what I had to pay Lynn to pose for that sculpture, BTW!)

[amowry]

Darn, I thought I had the only Lynn sculpture. This knowledge will reduce its value by a few Gs.

I probably sounded a little too cynical in my previous post. I'd MUCH rather be earning minimum wage in the shop than sitting at my previous desk job where I could have made a respecatble living if I had kept at it. In fact, there isn't a day that goes by when I don't count my blessings. Fortunately there are many types of compensation other than monetary.

[Dale Ludewig]

The last time I saw Mr. Hamlett he was dressed to the nines and chuckling under his breath at the rest of his luthier brethren. For shame, John. Perhaps there were Speedo's (sp?) under those handmade trousers?

The last time I actually took the time to monitor how long it takes me to make an F5 style mando, it was in the area of 120-130 hours. I usually figure an average of about $500 minimum per instrument for basic materials. Plug in Waverleys, fiberglass case, etc. and the cost of materials goes way up. I do indeed raise my prices for those options.

I have over 30 years of full time woodworking experience. My overhead is nothing like someone working out of their garage/ basement/ on site shop. As was mentioned earlier, if you've not run your own small business not out of your home, you may not understand all the stuff involved. I wish I could do it out of my house or such. But the overhead of a separate shop is sobering.

Mention has been made of CNC shortening the time. That is completely dependent on what you use it for, to what extent, and so forth. Not to mention the incredible (and I stress incredible) amount of time and money involved in buying the thing, learning how to use it in the most basic of its functionality, hours and hours of time spent learning how to use software to make the thing run. You've got to run a lot of mandolin stuff through it to pay for it. Way more than I think most people realize. For me, it was more of a health reason than other things. I'll admit that it does allow me to do some things that would be difficult to do by hand; not impossible, but more difficult.......... but how do you define that? There's a lot of difficulty involved in learning how to make it do what you want. Designing stuff like inlay on the computer (hours and hours) and then hoping it all works out on the machine. Not to mention the time of making jigs. I'm making no case for or against the CNC option. Just stating my experience.

Sorry to ramble, but this "hourly calculation" as it can be looked at leaves out so much stuff that is a cost to a luthier. Heck, I haven't even mentioned the amount of time and money it takes to go and exhibit at this place or that. Advertise. Take discounts on your work if you go through a retailer. Yadda, yadda.

The luthiers I know do this because they love the work and they (me included) try to get to a point where you can charge a reasonable price for your work. It takes years and focus. And maybe a day job. Mine is my furniture/ cabinet business.

Hans, it must be some sort of passion. Sunburst, next time I come your way I expect to have a chair and towel waiting for me beside the pool and sculpture!