Mad Guitars Interview 3 Advice for young luthiers

Do you have any advice to give to future young luthiers? Can you give them advice on training courses? Do you know any specialized schools?

« Go for it! Life is short! »

For me, the Newark School of Violin Making has been very beneficial and a real eye-opener.

Whenever possible, if it can be done in a foreign country it’s even better. After all, the electric guitar was invented by Americans!

Without forgetting that learning another language is always a plus.

Mad Guitars Interview 3 Conseils aux jeunes luthiers — Mad Guitars – Aldo Maillot

The profession of luthier is a trade that requires a significant material investment to start its activity. What would you advise a young guitar maker to buy to start? The minimum required? And, the maximum to be in a comfortable working environment?

The needs are different according to the direction one wants to take.

If you want to do more repairs and restorations, an investment in hand tools is the most important.

If, on the other hand, you want to concentrate more particularly on creation and manufacturing, then machines are indispensable: band saw, planer, sander, sanding machine, column drill…

Technology and computers have become everyone’s daily life, regardless of their profession. Do you use any special tools in guitars making? Can you tell us about them?

Yes, after a long time of working only by hand, I now use software to model my guitars.

Working alone in my company with a production of between 50 and 100 guitars per year, the use of numerical tools like CNC becomes essential.

However, there are still a lot of manual operations and not everything can be done digitally.