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Location: Central Massachusetts | It's hard to get the scale from the tour videos.. roughly how many people work at the factory? Of those, how many touch Ovation guitars day-to-day? And how many would typically touch a given guitar as it goes thru the artistic transition from raw materials to finished product?
I think somebody mentioned the 47RI's take about 50 hours to build. Roughly, how long do the standard models take?
Thanks! |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | about a 100 Ovation employees
and I'd say around 60-70 with hands directly on guitars. |
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Location: NJ | Y'have t'take into consideration that everybody doesn't do the SAME thing ALL the time . . .
There's a LOT of "cross-training".
The woman that hand-presses the frets into the fingerboards can also do abalone inlays . . . the guy that carves necks can also sand tops, . . . etc.
I believe the daily output of regular guitars is around 75-85/day.
The 47RI is a rare bird in that everything (except neck carving) is pretty much done in one small, confined area of about 4-5 people. |
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Location: Upper Left USA | I was suprized that they only use two floors. Other businesses use portions of the building as well! |
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Location: boulder | what do you mean by work exactly? I think some sort of look busy.. :eek: :rolleyes:
But I also think almost everyone we saw was working on (touching) actual guitars. There are some machines to make the repetitive, injury causing motions less so, and some machines to hold parts in place while the parts are being glued together (example braces to soundboard), but every station I saw had humans touching, holding, working on guitars in some stage of production. I would think everyone else in R/d , etc touches guitars most every day as well. And the hardest working guys are in repair and they most certainly touch guitars... so that leaves customer service...but some one has to answer all those dang crazy emails about can I have this built, can I have that built... for what it's worth, just my take peace |
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Location: Hicksville, NY | I'm not sure about the Ovation line, but according from the info I got from the tour (and please correct me if I'm wrong), they only build about three Adamas guitars per week. In the Hamer tour, only three guitars per day are built. |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | Gil, I believe they build about 3 of the 47RI's per week. All the other adamas guitars are higher volume than that. Dave |
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Location: NW NJ | Originally posted by Tupperware:
Gil, I believe they build about 3 of the 47RI's per week. All the other adamas guitars are higher volume than that. Dave Dave - do the other Adamas models go through the regular Ovation line, or are they built in the Adamas section we saw on the tour, or someplace else we didn't see? |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | Adamas has a dedicated area apart from the Ovation line. It was the little area we saw on the tour. |
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Location: NJ | I believe the Adamas COMPONENTS go through the "system" (neck/fingerboard assy's., top/brace assy's., etc.). I think it's the final assembly that goes on in that dedicated corner, as the top/bowl marriage is not the normal Ovation procedure . . .
(I could be wrong.) |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | I thinkCliff is correct. I have a photo of rack full of tops - mixture of wood tops and composite tops. Dave |
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Location: NW NJ | Thanks Gentlemen! That's kinda what I thought. |
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Location: Central Massachusetts | Thanks all for the details. I'm fascinated by the process.
Just trying to think of the various "stations" the guitar would go thru:
[list]
[*]wood room - selection, rough shaping, sorting, marking, storage
[*]top construction - planing, joining, sanding, cutting sound-holes, bracing
[*]top/bowl assembly - internal electronics, mating top to bowl, binding
[*]neck construction - laminating, CNC shaping, headstock verneer, fretting, sanding, finishing, binding, inlays
[*]top finish - epaulets, rosettes, sanding, spraying, finishing, buffing, abalone, CNC for bridge and neck
[*]final assembly - attach bridge, saddle, pickup, nut, neck, tuners, preamps, strap buttons, strings
[*]inspection/setup/playtesting
[/list]
I probably missed a few.. but pretty cool to think about all of the talent required to do all of these things! |
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Location: NJ | ysbt. |
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Question for OFC Tour attendees...