I am now down to one non-american made guitar!!!!!

[j45nick]

I choose my four Gibson electrics for the same reason, they were/are awesome guitars.

 

 

Matt

 

 

So Matt, what are your four Gibson electrics?

[Aster1]

Really interesting posts and I don't want to derail. I'll post the story of Aster & the nice man from China (a.k.a. Chinaman) in the Lounge forum tonight.

 

Really blew me away with the insight & what "all us America Citizens" are missing.

 

Aster

[stein]

MATT:

 

Of corse everything is cool. I debate this with you now because I think we have the same views but different perspectives. I THINK our views are seeming to be different because of the CONTEXT.

 

My view on China: I think China is capable of a surprising amount of quality right now as we speak. They have had a lot of practice, and they also have a great deal of our tooling and know how to use it. They can make tooling as well. When the bigger picture is concerned, I think if we do not believe they can build with a high degree of quality, we are kidding ourselves. They are also capable of understanding, adopting, and copying high technology.

 

And while there are a lot of SNAKES and bad business practices coming out of China, that is not a reflection on them as a people. It is a big country full of many people that are mostly good, caring, and have a good work ethic.

 

I also understand that to the rest of the world, there is a view of the US that we have a superiority complex that we think we are all good and all we do is help the world. We have a great deal of military might that we USE to project our will. We have had such economic power that we have been able to pretty much call the shots and have our influence onto other nations. What has been the case is a "you need us more than we need you" policy. We, as Americans, are represented by our leaders and businesses, and we have snakes, just like China and anywhere else.

 

So, OF CORSE an American saying "buy American" to another country would have a completely different meaning. AND: to hear an American tell another American to "buy American" I would imagine is like saying "keep the superiority", or as something to help our economic power by using the same ideas and policies that we somehow are the only ones that deserve to make things because we are better.

 

BUT, I stress to you that to us it is exactly the opposite. to us, it is a call to arms to do the right thing regardless of profit. It means to us, "spend a little more to get the money to someone who deserves it". It is an effort to keep the money from profiteers, to maybe consider the IMPACT of where the money goes. (which, is the OPPOSITE of what other nations would have been experiencing from us as far as economic impact).

 

Now, if we are discussing the surprising quality of guitars made by people from other counties, to say "buy American" in that discussion would be like discounting the validity of the appreciation of the GOOD things being discussed about the quality and caring of the subject. It might be seem as an attack on the character of those who have an appreciation for the work and labor of others in regards to a non-American product.

 

In the same way, when one is bringing the subject of "buy American" in an effort to bring awareness to caring about who and where your money goes, to enter the subject of the quality of Chinese manufacture in that context is like a disregard for the reasons of saying it.

[Larry Lion]

I buy American guitars for one reason only: they are the best guitars in the world, and that's the way it should be with everything. The consumer will speak, and eventually, economies will recover, jobs will come back. I remember when Hewlett-Packard brought out its first scientific, made-in-America calculators, back in the 70's. They were three times the price of their competition, but were the best selling calculator in the world - a unique, quality product, that you had to line up to buy. It used to be that way with blue jeans, too. If we blindly buy American, though, we are not encouraging America to be innovative, or to build quality items. American manufacturers have to earn loyalty, just like Gibson, Martin, Rickenbacker have, by making something truly unique, or innovative, or of such quality that shuts out the competition.

 

My 2 cents worth ...

[CaptainCook]

For my part, I buy guitars using my ears. Finally got over chosing a guitar by looking at the name on the headstock, so why should I start looking at the "made in"-label instead?

[Larry Lion]

Captain Cook, I'll bet you the ones that please your ears most are made in one place - America.

[Tarrr]

In the late David Halberstam's book 'The Reckoning' (1986) he wrote about the effects of US corporations battles with labor. In Asia and most of the world, labor has seats on the board of directors of the corporations. Use your imagination of how it could have been here over the last 75yrs.

[onewilyfool]

As a related aside to this discussion, I read an article recently on production practices introduced over the last few years in Bozeman. Apparently, a better organized production path has reduced the actual average construction man-hours per guitar from 15 to 11.5 hours. These hours are spread over about eight days of production, with the total start-to-finish time, including cure time, etc, of about 15 days. That's a pretty efficient operation, I'd say, although it is a bit of a shock to those of use who conceive of a guitar as a lovingly hand-built item.

 

Presumably, custom orders take a bit longer, and that's reflected in the price.

 

Unfortunately, I didn't book-mark the article, but it was about the specific model of time-control and production practices Gibson has introduced.

 

I find that amazing that they are done so quickly. I wonder what Martins are done in??? They are VERY automated with robots finishing etc. Small shop Luthiers claim hundreds of hours on one guitar....

[CaptainCook]

Captain Cook, I'll bet you the ones that please your ears most are made in one place - America.

Well, obviously I just bought a Gibson Acoustic, and I like the "American" sound with few mids and booming lows. However, I played a lot of high price American guitars - including Gibsons - that sounded flat and boring. On the other hand, my local master luthier (I live in south west Germany) makes Gibson-style guitars that are so excellent that customers gladly wait for about four years to get theirs. To me, it's not about the place where a guitar is built but about the person that builds it.

[stein]

I find that amazing that they are done so quickly. I wonder what Martins are done in??? They are VERY automated with robots finishing etc. Small shop Luthiers claim hundreds of hours on one guitar....

Man hours is different...it doesn't mean the guitars are done in 12 hours...lol

 

But, I think also that would NOT include everything, like buying materiels and such. Just the guys building.

 

But, also, regardless, it DOES say volumes about ability and skill. When you KNOW what you are doing, you can get stuff done.

[onewilyfool]

Yeah...I was thinking man hours too....drying the wood, drying the laquer, drying the glue, etc....adds many hours, maybe days to the job, but still that is quick im my eyes.....

[j45nick]

Yeah...I was thinking man hours too....drying the wood, drying the laquer, drying the glue, etc....adds many hours, maybe days to the job, but still that is quick im my eyes.....

 

I've been searching for days for that article on Gibson production efficiency, but haven't found it again. I stumbled on it accidentally while doing research on an unrelated topic. I'm doing this from memory, but the article was about a specific time-management protocol that Gibson had adopted in the Bozeman plant, and how it had dramatically cut production man-hours and the in-plant manufacturing time.

 

Unfortunately, I didn't bookmark the article, but apparently it is a name-branded production protocol used in various manufacturing applications.

 

Drying time doesn't add man hours to the job, but it adds to production days. Something sitting in a room drying doesn't have anyone on the clock watching it or doing anything to it. That's why there is a large difference between construction man-hours and time in-plant from start to finish. The point of the article was that in order to remain price-competitive, Gibson had aggressively applied a proprietary time-management approach, and it was working.

[j45nick]

My link

 

I've been searching for days for that article on Gibson production efficiency, but haven't found it again. I stumbled on it accidentally while doing research on an unrelated topic. I'm doing this from memory, but the article was about a specific time-management protocol that Gibson had adopted in the Bozeman plant, and how it had dramatically cut production man-hours and the in-plant manufacturing time.

 

 

Finally found the article. Turns out it was from 2001, not 2011, so it is not a new thing for Gibson. Presumably, it is a protocol still in use, called Lean Manufacturing.