Time it takes to build a steel?

Johnie King · Post by **Johnie King** » 8 Dec 2019 10:18 am

Ford says they build 88 vehicles per hour.
Seems like pedal steels takes a little longer.
Ford says there Kansas city plant builds a truck a minute.
I visited Zane Beck steel guitar company in the seventies he actually had a steel guitar factory an could Build lots of steels With only two people working. Zane would have 15 guitars at a time on a long benches. Pretty impressive.

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 8 Dec 2019 10:24 am

They also have hundreds of workers working on each car. I worked in an auto assembly plant building Toyota Corrolas and Pontiac Vibes (NUMMI in Fremont CA). We ran a car off the line every 53 seconds. 53 seconds was the time we had to do our part of the assembly on each car.

Ron Shalita · Post by **Ron Shalita** » 8 Dec 2019 11:32 am

I was going to buy a pedal steel from a guy on reverb, and it had only 4 knees on it, so before i bought it I text the guy that builds that particular steel and asked him if he sold kits OR could give the parts to that steel, his answer was I DONT sell kits and it could be a problem with measuring it for the knee levers, my thought was hmmm he doesnâ€™t just pull out a knee and a rod and a nylon tuner to instal a knee lever.. does he measure EVERTIME he needs to install a lever??? What a waste of time! Itâ€™s NO wonder that some of these companyâ€™s take so much time to build a steel.. OR maybe he wanted me to send it too him so he could make more money on it> either way the fella on reverb lost out on the sale because of it, as for me life goes on and i will find something out there that will suit me, but i know that i will stay away from that un-helpful company .. Too bad because he is building some beautyâ€™s and there was another one online same company that had 9 pedals and 9 knees that i would have love to have but will stay away from it also..Ron

Greg Lambert · Post by **Greg Lambert** » 8 Dec 2019 12:49 pm

Ford says they build 88 vehicles per hour.

the only difference that I can think of is that I have never heard of a recall of well built steel guitar.

Ian Rae · Post by **Ian Rae** » 8 Dec 2019 4:18 pm

Steels are not a mass market, as Fender found out.

Johnie King · Post by **Johnie King** » 8 Dec 2019 5:07 pm

There’s just not enough steel guitar sales too set up for production.
We are lucky to have some good small company’s to do a great job building these instruments.

Johnie King · Post by **Johnie King** » 8 Dec 2019 5:08 pm

There’s just not enough steel guitar sales too set up for production.
We are lucky to have some good small company’s to do a great job building these instruments.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 8 Dec 2019 5:26 pm

Greg Lambert wrote:
Ford says they build 88 vehicles per hour.

the only difference that I can think of is that I have never heard of a recall of well built steel guitar.

You just haven't asked the right players!

Please don't be naive enough to believe every one that's built is perfect. I'm here to tell you that just isn't so.

Federal law makes them fix (some) problems on automobiles. There are no such laws to make builders fix design problems with their steels. Some will, some won't.

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 9 Dec 2019 3:46 am

When my friend John Fabian of Carter (RIP) was still with us, he told me that once all the parts are laid out and in front of him , a typical D10 was an approx 8 hour build.

Whats all this mean in the scheme of things ? Who knows.

I've visited other one man shops where the ONE MAN spent most of his time doing something OTHER than putting a Steel together. How long did he take to build a Steel ? I just know it wasn't 8 hours !

Ian Rae · Post by **Ian Rae** » 9 Dec 2019 6:45 am

My first and last build took about 300 hours as I recall, not including the evenings spent planning the next day's work. That was making all the parts from scratch. The actually assembly I could probably have done in a day or two.

Lynette Richards · Post by **Lynette Richards** » 9 Dec 2019 1:13 pm

I did some quick calculations and would say 10 hours. Assembly on a D-10 if the parts are ready is 2.5 hours(that is just here though), but the average # of guitars per month vs # of hours worked comes out to a guitar every 10 hours. That is with making all our own parts and doing all the finishing to the metal and body etc. These are not exact #'s but a general idea.

Greg Lambert · Post by **Greg Lambert** » 9 Dec 2019 1:35 pm

Donny Hinson wrote:
Greg Lambert wrote:
Ford says they build 88 vehicles per hour.

the only difference that I can think of is that I have never heard of a recall of well built steel guitar.
You just haven't asked the right players! Please don't be naive enough to believe every one that's built is perfect. I'm here to tell you that just isn't so.

Federal law makes them fix (some) problems on automobiles. There are no such laws to make builders fix design problems with their steels. Some will, some won't.

I completely understand that. My point was that while some auto makers recall includes thousands of vehicles , only a few steels may have problems from the factory and no need to recall the entire production of the model.

Al Evans · Post by **Al Evans** » 10 Dec 2019 6:25 am

Mike Mantey wrote:...but the average # of guitars per month vs # of hours worked comes out to a guitar every 10 hours.

That sounds amazingly efficient! Good guitars, too. Mine is certainly a keeper!

--Al Evans

Jim Palenscar · Post by **Jim Palenscar** » 11 Dec 2019 8:49 am

I recently figured out the cost of producing a high end D10 from a well known builder and the hard cost was about $2400 w labor of just over 100 hours. 90% of the parts are made in house. This quite obviously is not w CNC equipment and does not include design time nor cost of milling machines, lathes, etc. all of which are needed to produce quality instruments. I believe labor figured out to be about $14/hr. Not exactly the kind of endeavor that allows for funding a retirement plan~~

Gene Haugh · Post by **Gene Haugh** » 11 Dec 2019 10:26 am

This has nothing to do with the question asked, but back in the 1980's the time for building a Sho~Bud - Super Pro was 19 hours. The Factory was Pd. $910.00 for each one we produced. The factory lost money on every one we produced according to Bookkeeping.

Fred Justice · Post by **Fred Justice** » 11 Dec 2019 10:50 am

Jim Palenscar wrote:I recently figured out the cost of producing a high end D10 from a well known builder and the hard cost was about $2400 w labor of just over 100 hours. 90% of the parts are made in house. This quite obviously is not w CNC equipment and does not include design time nor cost of milling machines, lathes, etc. all of which are needed to produce quality instruments. I believe labor figured out to be about $14/hr. Not exactly the kind of endeavor that allows for funding a retirement plan~~

Jim you hit the nail on the head buddy.
Except, 90% of my parts "ARE" made out of house, with CNC machines.
Keeps my lights on and my belly big.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 11 Dec 2019 11:51 am

Greg Lambert wrote: I completely understand that. My point was that while some auto makers recall includes thousands of vehicles , only a few steels may have problems from the factory and no need to recall the entire production of the model.

True...but the comparison simply isn't valid because the numbers aren't even close. Steels are also dirt-simple mechanical devices, and they don't endanger people's lives when they fail. Nobody is building steels like they built cars - not now, not ever. There were a few steel manufacturers that built over a thousand a year, but they're all long gone. Also, the problems we have on steel guitars can usually be addressed by a savvy owner or tech.

There are car dealers with mechanics all over the place, but the steel world is incredibly less small and popular, so any such comparison between the two is apples and oranges. $:\$

Jerry Roller · Post by **Jerry Roller** » 11 Dec 2019 10:00 pm

Mike, you have more than one person involved in building guitars. Is it 10 man hours or 10 shop hours? I know I canâ€™t rebuild even a S-10 in 10 hours.
Jerry

Lynette Richards · Post by **Lynette Richards** » 12 Dec 2019 7:42 am

Jerry Roller wrote:Mike, you have more than one person involved in building guitars. Is it 10 man hours or 10 shop hours? I know I canâ€™t rebuild even a S-10 in 10 hours.
Jerry

This is a good point and was hard to factor in. That is 10 shop hours and 5 employees. I tried to leave that out as it was a subject on how long to build a steel and not run a business. Each person has their own duties to keep things rolling. I can do every job in the shop and if I had to do each part all by myself I would guess around 100 hours. Maybe more.

Bud Angelotti · Post by **Bud Angelotti** » 12 Dec 2019 8:14 am

Time it takes too build a steel?
From scratch building a cabinet and fabricating metal parts? or, from taking parts off of other guitars?
I hate to see double necks turned into singles so they are easier to sell. Especially beloved P/Ps.

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 12 Dec 2019 8:58 am

I bought a used Fulawka out of Canada and I wanted to add some more stuff to it. I contacted Eddie about it and he really hesitated in sending me the parts. I got the impression that each guitar he produced was his baby and he was the only one that should work on it.
I finally convinced him that I was capable of doing the work and we got together on the parts.

Erv

The Steel Guitar Forum

Time it takes to build a steel?

Time it takes to build a steel?

Without mentioning companys