Unconventional manufacturing

thermionic

Just stumbled upon this short:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/432937399192426?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V

Winny_Pooh

That's not very good is it... 

maltingsaudio

A, it depends what the finished product sounds like
B, Bet all those guys on below minimum wage
C, tThe resulting guitar will probably make someone very happy 
D 

Tannin

These will be guitars for domestic consumption. I'm not sure where the clip was filmed but I'm guessing India. It's not Sri Lanka because I'd know about a Sri Lankan manufacturer if there was one*, but it might be Bangladesh or Pakistan or somewhere else nearby. Failing evidence to the contrary, I'll stay with India. 

From the look of the tops they were cutting out, it's all laminate construction. This is perfectly sensible for a market where  temperatures can be extreme (in either direction) and humidity equally variable, though often very high. Climate-controlled rooms are not on the agenda, so a guitar has to be as tough as old boots just to survive for a few years. Buyers don't have a lot of coin. In short, these are entirely appropriate instruments to make for this market. The workers won't be earning much, but then the eventual buyers won't be either.  

* I do know of a bespoke builder in Sri Lanka, a two or three man operation near Colombo. One of these days I'm going to commission them to make a guitar for me out of Sri Lankan native timbers. It will be a big step up the quality scale from the sort of thing we see in the video. I'm not expecting it to rival a Maton or a Martin but I'll treasure it as something to remind me of Sri Lanka after I'm too old to travel.

BillDL

I've seen a few other videos of Indian guitar makers mass producing what amounts to truly hand made guitars in that kind of workshop before, and yes they are for domestic consumption.

They are really no different in terms of fairly crude and cheap build quality and finish style from those guitars that were made in East Germany and Czechoslovakia back in the late 50s through to the early 70s. They were made for Eastern Bloc consumption and were branded with a variety of names and found their way into Britain and British colonies like Australia during trade embargos with America, and were imported into Southern African sanctioned countries like South Africa and Southern Rhodesia under different names.  I would guess that the people making them in those Communist countries probably used more machinery and were less adept at using their bare feet in conjunction with their hands though.  While Hofner and a small number of other factories were producing better quality instruments, beginners in some of the countries mentioned could only afford brand names like Gallo that were made in East Germany or Czechoslovakia and brought into the UK branded for Selmer.  There is a photo of John Lennon as a young man holding a Gallo guitar.  I had one of those around the age of 7 or 8 and it would have been no different in terms of build quality and finish to the finished guitars shown being made in India.

I'm hardly surprised at how skillful the Indian guitar builders are at going through all the stages that are seen in any workshop producing hand made guitars, but while using much more primitive tools and methods to achieve the same required attributes, for example junior hacksaw for the fret ends rather than nippers, sticks to apply glue rather than brushes or pads, some kind of flat mallet thing for fretting rather than a proper fret hammer, and so on, all while sitting and holding the guitar without a work bench with clamps.  I think the only piece of mechanisation there was a jigsaw and a spindle sander/router.  I would hazard a guess that the lacquer is solvent based and was being sprayed without masks.  All the other elements were there, like scraping off the tinted lacquer from the body binding with a blade, planing the fretboard to a radius, levelling the frets, buffing the lacquer, etc.  Indian people are so very enterprising and resourceful despite being paid probably 25 rupees an hour.

Tannin

BillDL said:

back in the late 50s through to the early 70s. They were made for Eastern Bloc consumption and were branded with a variety of names and found their way into Britain and British colonies like Australia 

Good effort that - delivering a guitar to the customer 70 years before you manufactured it!

BillDL

I don't follow.  I was comparing guitars knocked together in Communist Cold War countries 50 to 70 years ago to those currently being made in India as depicted in the video.

Tannin

I was laughing at  the bit where you said "Britiish colonies like Australia"! You'd need a time machine to deliver a 1950s- or 1970s-made guitar back to the 19th Century - and even then it wouldn't work because Australia never was a "British colony". It didn't exist (as a nation, a colony, or anything else) until 1901 when six different self-governing colonies, none of them named "Australia", joined together as a federation of states.

BillDL

OK, I see.  Erroneous choice of word.  Commonwealth country or territory would be more accurate, i.e. had the Union Jack emblem on fluttering flags and the bust of Queen Elizabeth on the currency - oh wait, some still do.

thermionic

Ii thought it was interesting that due to economic factors (as has been pointed out) that they did things *very* differently to how we would understand. In particular, I found the way they glued the bracing to the sides first and then gluing the top on fascinating.

Roland

I liked the little efficiencies: Glueing two fretboards on back to back to economise on clamps, and reduce the risk of wood bending whilst wet. Cutting fret wire to length after insertion, which saves time and wire. 

sev112

I worry about the accuracy of intonation from sawing of the frets , but there may have been a template for locations, although the fret markers seemed more approximately drilled ?

but the skills of the individuals are very good.


interesting that the top was put on the braces, rather the braces put on the top, which seemed at least at first to be odd ?

BillDL

Does anybody remember an old documentary from 1987 called Twang, Bang, Kerang?

If you haven't seen it before it's worth a watch if you have an hour to spare, particularly for a laugh at the narrator towards the start with the Oh so BBC-ish accent referring to a guitar body being "grouted out" and referring to "adolescent bedlam" and the need for haircuts.

The documentary covers a very wide diverse area surrounding the electric guitar.  There is a segment starting at the 8 minute mark showing some much older footage of some white-coated technicians in the Burns factory making guitars, and of particular interest is the fretting technique used.  One length of wire hammered into the slot and snipped off before moving on to the next slot, as noticed by @Roland in the Indian "factory".

At the 9:12 mark the old BBC plummy voice gives way to a more modern voice and footage from within the Rickenbacker factory probably around the early to mid 80s before a lot of the grunt work was done by CNC.  At the 10:43 mark you will see that the technician is using multiple lengths of fretwire.  He leaves the ends of about 12 frets dangling before snipping them off and moving the lengths of wire up the neck to start again and do the remaining frets.  It's all very efficient, but obviously couldn't be done on a bound fretboard.

Starting at the 27:35 mark you will see Jimi Hendrix at Monterey with his lighter fluid and matches followed by Dr. Glen Wilson who has always been hilariously determined to interpret phallic symbolism and orgasmic connotations into just about everything.

DavidR

BillDL said:

OK, I see.  Erroneous choice of word.  Commonwealth country or territory would be more accurate, i.e. had the Union Jack emblem on fluttering flags and the bust of Queen Elizabeth on the currency - oh wait, some still do.

Or “…the Antipodes”. Always liked that one. Just means the countries the other side of the world…. to UK. Nothing defines archaic English exceptionalism better! :-)

Great video. 

Tannin

^ I always liked that word. It has a nice ring to it.

Of course, it is only one of dozens of similarly parochial expressions, many of which have become a fixed part of the language. The "Far East", for example! (Or the "Middle East" - equally ridiculous.) On the other hand, "New World" I can live with, it makes historical sense after all. 

And then you get the utterly asinine expreesions from the financial world. "The stock price went south". Huh? That doesn't even make sense from a purely Northern Hemisphere perspective! As for "black swan events" - mate, I'm here to tell you - that is the normal bloody colour.  See for yourself -



    

BillDL

For those that don't use Facebook and can't view the video in the OP, I found one that seems to be of the same guitar making premises, and it reveals that they make the "Hovner" brand 

There are probably quite a lot of similar "factories" in India doing it the same or similar ways.  THIS video doesn't show quite as much of the actual building because it is of the owner? being interviewed.

HERE is a competing manufacturing facility that makes the "Givson" brand.

And lastly THIS VIDEO shows a one-man operation making acoustic guitars.  He has a bench to work on and quite a number of clamps and other tools around.  The thing that struck me about the way he works is how he would probably give his right arm to have some good electric tools and some good quality wood rather than cheap standard plywood and what looks like reclaimed pallet offcuts.  He puts the lid straight back onto the glue jar to make it keep longer rather than risk wasting it.  I wonder what guitars he could make if he did have nicer woods and tools?

GTC

Not only is it handmade - it is hand and feet made.

Soupman

Loved the one-man operation video.
Especially liked the cutting of the string grooves in the nut (tenon saw!), and the permanent markers for fret dots and especially for the edge binding stripe!
See he had a production line going and was happy in his work. What more can you want? 

Is this how luthiers serve their apprenticeship? 

  

DrJazzTap

They don't even have a table to work on! 

As far as I can see the guitars have no truss rods, so the neck will end up like a curly wurly. 

Pure guesswork on the fret and bridge positioning.

No ppe or protection for those workers, poor guys. 

MartinB

I remember seeing someone post pictures from the workshop of a well-regarded sitar maker, and I gather that working on the floor with hand tools is somewhat traditional even with higher quality Indian classical instruments. Though the standard of materials and work was a lot higher in that case.

WezV

Worth noting a lot of traditional Japanese woodwork happens on a floor bench.  It relies on simple, but good quality tools.