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My father and I are looking into the idea of starting up a business manufacturing plastic guitars. As part of the whole, starting a serious business venture thing, we'd need to know what we could expect from sales, and GUESS WHAT.
YOU GUYS ARE PRETTY MUCH THE TARGET MARKET.

So, here's the run down on the potential guitars:

• Solid plastic body, either machined or injection molded to a line-specific design (I don't have sketches, this is still really early, there's likely to be a heavy 60s Airline/Tiesco influence in a portion of them, though).
• Both neck through (100% plastic) and bolt on options, though bolt on would likely cost more.
• Electronics all hand wired.
• Ideally with boutique pickups (I'd love some suggestions on who to approach with this concept, if we can get solid estimates).

Because of the process by which these would be made, it would also make it significantly easier to make user spec custom guitars as well.


Now, here's the shit I've got to ask you guys:

• Would you even be interested in this?
• If you are, about how much would you happily spend, knowing that the guitars are hand/boutique built?
• What types of pickups and designs would you like to see?
• Are there any oddities that you'd like to see in smaller runs? (Baritone, extended strings, small scale, etc)

Huge photo.

That answered NONE of my questions!

IEatCats wrote:Now, here's the shit I've got to ask you guys:

• Would you even be interested in this?
• If you are, about how much would you happily spend, knowing that the guitars are hand/boutique built?
• What types of pickups and designs would you like to see?
• Are there any oddities that you'd like to see in smaller runs? (Baritone, extended strings, small scale, etc)

Oh, OK, fine, I'll answer your questions and appease your market researchin' self.

• Yes.
• Difficult to say, but I'm broke. So, less than I'd like.
• Probably something that not many others would be interested in, like Charlie Christians or lap steel pickups or something.
• I think a short scale guitar would be pretty neat.

IEatCats wrote:Now, here's the shit I've got to ask you guys:

• Would you even be interested in this?
• If you are, about how much would you happily spend, knowing that the guitars are hand/boutique built?
• What types of pickups and designs would you like to see?
• Are there any oddities that you'd like to see in smaller runs? (Baritone, extended strings, small scale, etc)

• Yes.
• I mean, I don't know what money is. But like, enough?
• One humbucker, and make the body completely laterally symmetrical.
• Bass VI would be amazing for me.

How...sturdy would this be?

theavondon wrote:

How...sturdy would this be?

Doesn't matter, when you break it, just melt it, send it back, re-mold?

I would love a plastic Ric 480 but Rickenbacker would sue you and you would go out of business

I would be interested, but at like a $500 range depending on what it's actually like, but I have no idea what production costs would be.

IEatCats wrote:Now, here's the shit I've got to ask you guys:

• Would you even be interested in this?
• If you are, about how much would you happily spend, knowing that the guitars are hand/boutique built?
• What types of pickups and designs would you like to see?
• Are there any oddities that you'd like to see in smaller runs? (Baritone, extended strings, small scale, etc)

- If you could convince me that the tone and sustain would be as good or better than that of a wood or aluminium guitar- absolutely
- Depends on the method of production, maybe 1500 or more if it was really really good and came with a case
- Boutique pickups. Personally I'd really love to have a solidbody guitar with just a neck humbucker so an option like that would appeal to me
- Built in knob or infrared sensor that you can hook up to expression or CV inputs on pedals

IEatCats wrote:Now, here's the shit I've got to ask you guys:

• Would you even be interested in this?
• If you are, about how much would you happily spend, knowing that the guitars are hand/boutique built?
• What types of pickups and designs would you like to see?
• Are there any oddities that you'd like to see in smaller runs? (Baritone, extended strings, small scale, etc)

- not after I read some testimonies and see some demoes, but i'm not opposed, just suspicious
- Pfff... that's a tough question. I mean... having it in plastic could reduce the building costs quite a bit, couldn't it? so not a lot i guess
- Filter-trons, Wide-ranges, Jaguar pickups, P90s and Jazzmaster pickups
- I'd be much more interested in a possibility of going full custom

what kind of plastic? that'd be the most relevant thing. and would the body be solid or (semi-)hollow?

Considering the date I'm not entirely sure your serious but whatever, if you can make them coloured see-through plastic then I'm totally in. If you could put crap like marbles or coloured cubes and stuff in the plastic as well that would be amazing. I do have some questions though. In regards to the neck how would the it react to changes in temperature in comparison to wood? A split in wood sucks but it's not the end of the world, I don't know about plastic though. I would also be concerned about weight. What about truss rods? Would they even work on most material without it shattering into pieces or would you have to find some specific and costly plastic that is flexible enough?

In regards to cost if you could make some super basic and cheap ones and some fancier ones that would be nice. It needs to be under $1000 so I'm talking one piece stoptail bridge, a humbucker or two, dots or nothing on the neck and hopefully six in line tuners (I don't like 3v3). Unless you go Fano level of class you are never going to get that much for it (prejudice will win through) and to be honest I would prefer something a bit trashy looking. When it sounds amazing I want it to be a surprise.

For pickups I would like aggressive single coils with attitude. Get silly and do ceramic pickups, beefed up Rickenbacker toaster style things or nasty coil splittable P-90s.

Essentially I want the trashy see-through-pink-with-green-marbles-in-it Dan Armstrong-esque guitar (perhaps with toaster pickups) of my dreams. DO IT! Got me all excited now.

Twangasaurus wrote:Considering the date I'm not entirely sure your serious

i figured it was legit because the date said April 2, but then I realised I'm in a different time zone.
HRMMMMMMM

Psyre wrote:

theavondon wrote:

How...sturdy would this be?

Doesn't matter, when you break it, just melt it, send it back, re-mold?

That's something I'm not sure about yet. Depending on the type of equipment we'd end up with it could very well end up as "send it in and we'll remold one for you for cheap". Having worked in a plastics molding factory, I know that we used to regrind the factory errors and the runners to put back into the molding systems.

theavondon wrote:How...sturdy would this be?

That's something I'm still investigating. Bodies would probably be of a high density plastic to make sure that sustain is good, and the weight is solid as well. The necks are something that I'm still figuring out, but I think that they would be from LDPE or a slightly higher density plastic with truss rods. If this happens, I'm not going to halfass an unsturdy instrument, that's for sure.

backwardsvoyager wrote:- If you could convince me that the tone and sustain would be as good or better than that of a wood or aluminium guitar- absolutely
- Boutique pickups.
- Built in knob or infrared sensor that you can hook up to expression or CV inputs on pedals

Boutique pickups are something I want to try and push for. I'm hoping that if I can get a practical plan going, I can approach some boutique pickup producers and get a deal going for lines.

dubkitty wrote:what kind of plastic? that'd be the most relevant thing. and would the body be solid or (semi-)hollow?

I'm not completely sure what kind of plastic yet. My dad's going to run some of the numbers sometime this week for me, to see what would be the most cost-effective, and I'm probably going to look into having some prototypes molded/cut to get an idea for what would sound/feel the best. Depending on the method of building, semihollow/chambered is definitely an option.

Twangasaurus wrote:Considering the date I'm not entirely sure your serious but whatever, if you can make them coloured see-through plastic then I'm totally in. If you could put crap like marbles or coloured cubes and stuff in the plastic as well that would be amazing.

Dead serious
Oh, definitely. You could get some finishes that aren't possible on a standard guitar, by this method.

Twangasaurus wrote: I do have some questions though. In regards to the neck how would the it react to changes in temperature in comparison to wood? A split in wood sucks but it's not the end of the world, I don't know about plastic though. I would also be concerned about weight. What about truss rods? Would they even work on most material without it shattering into pieces or would you have to find some specific and costly plastic that is flexible enough?

It would probably have very little temperature change. Quality plastics (especially in the size that these would be) would take some SERIOUS heat to warp. The melting point for higher density plastics is around 400f, and warping isn't something that would be forseeable because of that. I mean, unless you're trying to melt it, it would very likely not be bothered.

There's a good chance that they would end up heavy, unless we chambered them. Strap locks would probably be standard if we could swing it in the production.

And like I said above, necks would maybe be LDPE and have truss rods, but it would take some prototypes to really figure out.

Twangasaurus wrote:In regards to cost if you could make some super basic and cheap ones and some fancier ones that would be nice. It needs to be under $1000 so I'm talking one piece stoptail bridge, a humbucker or two, dots or nothing on the neck and hopefully six in line tuners (I don't like 3v3). Unless you go Fano level of class you are never going to get that much for it (prejudice will win through) and to be honest I would prefer something a bit trashy looking. When it sounds amazing I want it to be a surprise.

For pickups I would like aggressive single coils with attitude. Get silly and do ceramic pickups, beefed up Rickenbacker toaster style things or nasty coil splittable P-90s.

Essentially I want the trashy see-through-pink-with-green-marbles-in-it Dan Armstrong-esque guitar (perhaps with toaster pickups) of my dreams. DO IT! Got me all excited now.

Under $1000 is the goal. Ideally the build quality would be enough that it would be able to compete with affordable guitars like the upper squire line, but have boutique parts and custom options for much cheaper than you'd get anywhere else.

IEatCats wrote:Now, here's the shit I've got to ask you guys:

• Would you even be interested in this?
• If you are, about how much would you happily spend, knowing that the guitars are hand/boutique built?
• What types of pickups and designs would you like to see?
• Are there any oddities that you'd like to see in smaller runs? (Baritone, extended strings, small scale, etc)

1) Yes, especially if you can do custom body shapes / colors / etc
2) Basic models 3-500$, complete customs aroun $1K would be totally legit
3) the basics + p-90's and WRHB's would be sick.
4) Extended scale lengths and extended range (7-9 strings) would be amazing.

Custom Chambered 28-30" scale length 9 string in a sick shape would be totally tits!!!

As far as a boutique pickup builder google Avedissian Pickups

Really cool idea and I hope it works out for you!

LEFT HANDED!!!!!!!

Also, I'm down for a sub $1000 custom guitar.
Some of the toughest stuff out there is made out of plastic. I'd gladly play one!