Anyone know stores that might take on people as apprentices/trainees for guitar repair work?

riscado

I heard the guys who worked doing repairs at Charlie Chandler had a new store in richmond, could anyone give me the name?

Thanks

octatonic

Nowhere.
Even graduates from luthier schools struggle to get full-time jobs.

riscado

thought as much...

thebreeze

Go for it though.....Life's too short and it's important you do what you want with it.  Your passion will win out in the end.  Contact anyone and everyone who has anything to do with guitars in London - expect rejections but take what you can from any responses and also start your own thing as well.  Social media and the internet really help in this respect.  Go out and find it, that guitar job is out there looking for you.

cbakay

In the basement of hanks guitars on Denmark street is noden guitar..the owner, graham noden, would be your best source. He's a great person and always up for a chat...he must have spent at least an hour and a half explaining things to me, others would just shrug at..

Funkfingers

riscado said:

I'm not sure this will be possible at all

The question you have to ask yourself is this. "Do I feel profitable?"

If you like to eat well seven days a week, full-time guitar and amplifier repair is not the vocation for you. Most people I know in this line supplement the income that it generates with some other form of gainful employment.

WezV

Just go speak to the local shops and take stuff you have worked on, as a starting point.  Mine offer me work every so often, I have never asked.  

But I do turn it down most of the time due to current lifestyle(work, kids etc).  I just let them know I am always up for the occasional weird and challenging repair 

Neil

Just be careful.

Although you say your heart is not in IT it can be a decently paid job.

If you had to deal with other people's guitars and amps all day the shine could quickly go off of that too and you'd be earning minimal money to boot.

Whatever seems interesting as a hobby can be downright boring when made a full time job.

Jack_

I hear PMT often welcomes fresh blood.

tony99

I reckon if you're gonna do it you'll be doing it self employed, big decision mate

Sassafras

Just stick with the IT for another 20 years by which time your spirit will have been broken and your hopes and aspirations will be distant memories.

fretmeister

Go and do this as a start

http://www.baileyguitars.co.uk/courses/

Then you have a skill to put on the CV.

But make sure you have insurance before you start working on customers guitars. At some point everybody will cause unintended damage to a customer guitar.

FelineGuitars

tony99 said:

I reckon if you're gonna do it you'll be doing it self employed, big decision mate

Here in the UK you are always going to end up self employed doing it .

Frankly if you have a good job in IT and it pays well I wouldn't be giving it up.

By all means use the (hopefully) handsome wage from IT work to allow your self a hobby or passion fixing up guitars or building them. 

That way it stays enjoyable. It can get to be somewhat less than enjoyable when you are on less money than a 17 year old stacking shelves in Tesco, struggling to pay rent, can't afford a car, and seriously don't think about a mortgage, raising kids etc.

I've been doing 20 years  full time and on and off for the previous 10 before that, and yes I love it, but for the level of expertise and the skillset that I have developed , in any other industry I might expect to make a much more sensible amount of money.

VimFuego

just a thought, are your IT skills suitable for self employment? Or could you afford to work in IT part time and P/T doing tech work?

Bygone_Tones

Yeah, something as niche as that I think you would have to put the work in and find them, not the other way around. By that I mean try every trick in the book just to get your foot in the door, instead of expecting businesses to put adverts out looking for staff.  

Think about offering to help out on a voluntary basis. Keep your job obviously in the meantime. Then when you have built up enough experience, start looking for paid work or branch out on your own.

axisus

You do realise that you could make the same money selling the Big Issue plus you get to sit around all day?

steamabacus

If Crystal Palace is close enough you could try giving Jon Dickinson at Dickinson Amps / Antenna Studios a call. I know he's taken on people for soldering work (for the amp business) in the past and his guitar repair shop is part of a cooperative based studio setup - he may well be up for something along the lines you suggest. Worth a call.

ESBlonde

Most people wouldn't have time for an apprentice, the hours can be long and not overly well paid. Make yourself known to a few local shops, set up a facebook page and take the work that interests you and you feel comfortable with. Lots of that will be just setups, change electrics etc. You can pass on resetting a 1960s Martin neck (No trussrod) or building and blending in a new headstock on a busted Les Paul until you feel confident (if ever). Refinishing and colour matching are important to some owners and doing that well is an aquired skill set.

Online the videos of Rosastringworks, Stewmac, Dan Erlewine (and his great books) are legendary. Lesser people are the likes of 'Daves world of fun stuff' where he curses and blusters his way through things in a semi entertaining mode and tries to ignor what he calls 'the book'. Crimson Guitars does nice vids on contemporary luthiery.

If you ever have a specific repair to tackle it's worth a search because chances are someone has attempted it in front of a camera before and you can get tips (even if it's how not to go about it).

Finally don't get in the way of or put down the professionals in your area, they need the work as much as you and they may one day save yo ass!

skunkwerx

IT man, and keep the guitar endeavours as a hobby. But I hope you can get more satisfaction though dude, I know the feelings of wanting to work in something you're passionate about.  

riscado

Definitely can't afford to drop IT immediately, so this would have to be something I did as a volunteer. In all honesty I'm not even expecting any pay. I'm expecting to learn. Even though this brings me to another issue which is that I don't feel like taking the spot from anyone who actually does this for a living, just because I'm expecting no pay (that's a whole new can of worms).

I do appreciate some of the comments/advices that some of you have made. They've been great to ponder and put things into perspective.

Funkfingers

riscado said:

taking ... from anyone who actually does this for a living, just because I'm expecting no pay (that's a whole new can of worms).

Guitar and amp repairs are kinda like surgery. The people who do these jobs need to gain experience so as to perform the work to an acceptable standard. At the same time, nobody wants an inexperienced practitioner learning on them.

More importantly, perhaps, if you do not consider your time to be worth charging for, why should anybody else? The average customer does not entirely understand what a repairer does. Consequently, they do not comprehend why repairs costs as much as they sometimes do. In short, customers do not want to pay the true cost of what they have done to their gear. Plus, they do not think that the repairer should ever make any mistakes