The main difference between a factory-made guitar and a guitar made by one person is the control over every process and what that gives you is that um I’m making this wood work with this wood I’m making the two together to be the best they can be I’m I’m uh flexing a piece of wood to know what I need to do with it to get the sound I want before I before I put it all together um I’m working with a material which is extremely variable I don’t care if you cut 10 tops from the same tree they are going to vary in their response and their quality and so I I will choose five of those tops and I will use them but I need to treat each one slightly differently so it depends on who who’s making the guitar they may uh thin the top differently they may brace the top differently they may sand the top differently at the end um there there’s any number of things you can do but when you make a guitar in a factory first of all the factory guitars cannot come back for warranty work they do but the the the owner of the factory doesn’t want those guitars coming back that loses money so make sure the top is thick
enough nice thick nice thickness so that it won’t have any problems so that’s kind of a priority over sound whereas my priority is sound I have made at least one instrument that the top has failed on as soon as I put the strings on I could see the top was failing so now and that’s that’s a that’s a gift because now I know how close I can work to that line I want to work right up to that line to where the top is going to fail but I don’t want it to fail ever now after 50 years maybe it will but 50 years is is a good run for a guitar so uh I control every Pro I I I look at the guitar at the end I look at the guitar at each stage and I can say oh moving in the wrong direction here go back do it again um oh I need to work on that a little bit more um Factory guitars there there’s there’s nobody to to do that at each stage and if there is someone to do that they’re not the same person there’s not a communication you know between them so um so that’s a little long- winded but um that’s that’s the difference um now having said that imagine that you get a soft piece of wood or a wonky kind of a set to make your factory guitar on and it’s so soft that over building it using this really thick top is just what that top needed so there may be and I say this for your for your uh Watchers there may be a factory made guitar out there one among 10,000 which is perfect which sounds as good as many handmade guitars but it’s chance that made that guitar whereas the handmade guitar the the one person the luor made guitar as they call it um he he striving for that on every instrument whether he makes it or not he’s striving for that
