Heriitage Guitars

dreadnut · Mar 6, 2018

Here's a local story on Heritage Guitars. My guitar background and my manufacturing background are in conflict here. I certainly get the handcrafted thing, but repeatability in manufacturing processes to eliminate variance is also key to building quality. Scrapping 300 guitars is absurd, you can't sustain things with that kind of reject rates.

Methinks there is more to the story here that likely has more to do with personalities than with procedures.

http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2018/02/changes_at_heritage_guitar_sou.html

fronobulax · Mar 6, 2018

dreadnut said:
Methinks there is more to the story here that likely has more to do with personalities than with procedures.

Interesting. At some point the concept of "hand crafted" comes into conflict with the concept of "production volume".

chazmo · Mar 6, 2018

I don't know if you guys are aware of this, but there were layoffs in New Hartford during the Fender/Guild era. I don't know if Martin's ever let go of employees, but Taylor certainly did in the early days when things were rocky.

Anyway, I only say this just to avoid any "holier than thou" sentiments here.

AcornHouse · Mar 6, 2018

chazmo said:
Anyway, I only say this just to avoid any "holier than thou" sentiments here.

Blasphemer!

chazmo · Mar 6, 2018

I've surely been accused of worse, Chris!

GAD · Mar 6, 2018

fronobulax said:
Interesting. At some point the concept of "hand crafted" comes into conflict with the concept of "production volume".

Absolutely, which is why hand-crafted instruments command a higher premium. But then people don't understand the high price and complain because the Korean import is "just as good".

You know -hypothetically speaking. :emmersed:

dreadnut · Mar 6, 2018

The idea is to utilize machinery to enhance the quality of the parts for guitars built by people. You need consistent, predictably built parts in order to handcraft a great guitar every time. The days of "manufacture 'em then sort 'em out" are over. Scrapping 300 guitars for built-in defects is ludicrous.

Just_Guild · Mar 8, 2018

Yes, there have been many layoffs through the years at Martin. My neighbors cousin runs the production there. Very little “hand crafting” in that shop, except for the full custom side. I’ve been through there many times, it’s a factory, pure and simple, with a large re-work area, and great marketing of the myth. Btw, the only guitar players in the plant are at the end of the line doing set ups before shipping.

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