LMI guitar kits conveniently
provide traditional combinations of materials at a savings to you.
Our serviced
kits
go a step further and service those materials in our shop, doing
the steps that might challenge the beginner or require special machinery.
But these kits are not cake mixes. You need woodworking experience
and a book or two. John Calkin says in the review he wrote for American
Lutherie, “If [the guitar built from the LMI kit] was my only
guitar I would be quite content, and it is probably the finest acoustic
guitar to come out of my shop.” But he also says that our kit
is the kind of kit that “makes high demands on the builder’s
skill in return for an instrument that fulfills all the traditional
expectations for that instrument.” As a testament to our clientele,
we’ve never had a complaint that our kit was “too difficult.”
We should also note here that our kits now include a mortise and
tenon neck, that is easier to work with than the earlier "dovetail"
neck included in the kit Mr. Calkin reviewed. To locate our kits
in the shopping cart, click Mostly Wood up above, and then click
kits in the box that drops down. |
Serviced Guitar Kits from LMI
 Reprinted
below are excerpts from John Calkin’s
review for American Lutherie of our OM style kit B5KOM. American
Lutherie is published by
The Guild of American Luthiers. The Guild (or GAL) is a venerable,
30 year
old lutherie institution that publishes this fine, informational
magazine/journal four times a year. We have picked only complimentary
comments from
the article. To see if John had any criticisms, we suggest
you get a complete
copy by becoming a member at www.luth.org.
“There are all kinds of instrument kits, but they all
seem to fall into two broad categories. Some are designed to make construction
as easy as
possible and may forego difficult joinery and traditional materials.
The other category consists of parts, materials, and construction
methods that
make high demands on the builder’s skill in return for
an instrument that fulfills all the traditional expectations
for that
instrument.
. . . . Luthiers Mercantile International only sells kits in
this class.”
“Surprisingly, the braces are furnished as billets of spruce and
mahogany. The formation of the braces is left completely to the
builder. This gives
the kit maker the greatest amount of latitude in brace size
and configuration, as plenty of stock is supplied, but I thought it might stymie
the beginner. And though the kit comes with a nice blueprint of an OM “in
the Martin style’’, no other instructions are included. I queried
Chris Herrod [the LMI sales manager] about this. He replied that LMI carried
a full line of lutherie books and was always willing to help
customers choose the best instructional material [for the specific kit]. Chris
also said that the kit was designed for the builder who wanted the deepest possible
guitar making experience that didn’t involve starting
completely from scratch, and that at the rate the kits were
selling they
seemed to have touched on the right prescription.”
“Building the LMI kit was a rewarding experience. The quality of
the materials was very high. So little of the meaningful work
is done by LMI that the
outcome rests solely in the hands of the builder. The lack
of instructions bothers me, but in reality any conscientious builder deserves
to
invest in a library of materials to draw upon for advice. Study should
begin before the kit is even acquired.
“The deluxe serviced OM kit currently lists for $465, $107 more
than the deluxe standard kit. The difference is well worth it,
especially for the
inexperienced builder who has limited machinery at his facility.
Granted, it’s still a lot of money, but I sold the magnum for
$2000, a sum that only represented a nice wholesale cost for
such a
fine guitar.
A
talented builder could finance a nice basic shop in just a
few kits, then switch
over to scratch building. Of course, this assumes a ready market
for his guitars.
“If the magnum [the guitar built from the LMI kit] was my only guitar
I would be quite content, and it is probably the finest acoustic
guitar to
come out of my shop.”
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