I want to quit the rat race and become a luthier, making instruments by hand the old fashioned way and selling them. Can I make a living doing this?
In my observation the answer is no in all but a few cases. There are lots of folks doing this kind of work, but if you look closely you’ll probably find a lot of sources of supplemental income (working spouses, trust funds, retirement funds, etc.; and income from teaching, writing books, repair work, selling materials and parts, etc.). The basic economic fact is that you are attempting to compete in a market where the dominant products are currently manufactured in highly mechanized, highly automated or off shore facilities with cheap labor (or worse yet, in highly automated off shore facilities with cheap labor!) and that will make it tough to compete with a hand made product. With modern manufacturing techniques and automation it is certainly possible to reduce the manufacturing overhead of even a one person shop. But you’ll still need to deal with the sales and marketing of your instruments. So by paying strict attention to business practices and current technology it may be possibl
