The Hub

I’m curious to hear from everyone in the trenches, how they manage repairs they really don’t want to do. At this point I am offering customer work again to a small group of people who know me and have worked with me over the years. I’ve had a few people email that I don’t know, being a little pushy wanting to know price and turnaround time because “I need this by the xxth of the month”. I’ve simply offered them a referral to another sh…

https://northampton.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/NCC/details/Luthier-Instructor_JR3840 The staff and faculty of Northampton Community College share a single goal: to help students transform their lives through education. It's a goal that reaps rewards thousands of times over the course of a career. Employees at Northampton receive competitive compensation and an array of benefits while working on campuses located in a region with a very h…

Hi everyone, I was hoping to get some advice on training opportunities. My background and situation (briefly), I’m a self-taught guitar tech and electric luthier with 3 years experience (after 20yrs office work). I have a job in a high volume guitar shop doing setups and quality checks on outgoing/sold guitars. The store does repair work but I have not been included in this, despite many requests. I do not believe this is due to skill le…

Straight Frets started an expansion into a second city with a second Plek machine at the start of 2024. The initial spot had the wrong landlords that would not honor their HVAC agreement, and subsequently the failing HVAC units made prior to 9/11 never allowed the Grand Opening Event to happen. After bailing out of the wrong spot 7 months later, we are now up and running in a much cleaner location with a brand new HVAC, much closer i…

Hey Everyone! I am on the cusp of starting my own little repair shop from home. For around 8 years I apprenticed for someone who lives about an hour from me and has maintained a busy shop from his home for close to 50 years. The experience was great. I had a never ending supply of stuff to work on and was always watching someone else work on things throughout the day. In the first few years I was going on both my weekend days and would wo…

I have decided to implement a fee for time spent researching and sourcing parts or project management beyond the 30 minutes I currently offer at no additional cost. Anyone else doing this? I'll report back my results for anyone who wants to subscribe to this thread.

Hey all, curious if any of you use a system for managing estimates, invoices, and payments. I have four guys working in the shop so being able to organize workflow is important. We also need to be able scan a credit card when the customer comes to pick up their guitar. Currently (since outgrowing Square Invoices) we are using a free version of Zoho Invoice that can create a trello card for every quote. My guys LOVE using Trello. When th…