Number of employees at Gibson mandolin division

[Bernie Daniel]

I had the very fortunate experience of seeing the new shop about 2 years ago and back then
there were 5-6 employees all together working on the mandolins. Even though they share the big building
with the Les Paul production and other electric style guitars the Mandolin group is still small and
working separately on Mandolins. Dave and his Crew made my son and I feel at home that day and
it is a day that my son still talks about as it was his 18th birthday.

Thanks for clarifying that -- that is more or less what I thought the situation was with current Gibson mandolin production.

[Mike Black]

Here is a recent picture from Gibson for the Sam Bush 40th Telluride anniversary mandolin.

Not sure if there are more people or not.

[Rex Hart]

I do know that the dealers who actually carry Gibson mandolins are few and far between and not nearly the number there was 10 years ago. In my part of the country we are blessed to have Morgan Music in my hometown, and the nearest dealer that I can think of would be Janet Davis Music in Arkansas! I also wonder why dealerships are so limited. Does anyone have any info on the annual production numbers as compared to Collings, Gil's, etc?

[Ron McMillan]

I am surprised to learn there might be so few people in the production line, but instead of making me less interested, it makes me much more so. David Harvey's stewardship is universally praised, and for the first time ever I am attracted by the prospect of owning an instrument made by a small team in a workshop steeped in a tradition of excellence.

Shame I have no money to test that theory, but maybe one of these days.....

[Bernie Daniel]

I am surprised to learn there might be so few people in the production line, but instead of making me less interested, it makes me much more so. David Harvey's stewardship is universally praised, and for the first time ever I am attracted by the prospect of owning an instrument made by a small team in a workshop steeped in a tradition of excellence.

Shame I have no money to test that theory, but maybe one of these days.....

I would move as soon as I could on that theory because IMO the prices of Gibson F-style mandolins especially new ones will continue to raise in sync with their scarcity. I expect to some extent it will carry down to earlier models from the post F-5L period (circa 1978) to now. Of course the very early Gibson F-style mandolins already enjoy that rarefied air. I doubt those F-5's and F-12's from the 1960's to the mid-1970's are ever likely to do so however.

Just my opinion but I think A-9's and F-9's will be worth a lot more than they currently in the not distant future.

[Verne Andru]

With Gibson there is the pre-flood and post-flood era's to take into consideration. After the flood they turned the mando line to making guitars. Any mando orders were done in the custom shop on a make to order basis. AFAIK they've only recently started devoting more effort to mandolins, but it's been a couple years since I've talked with them.

[DataNick]

Thread Bump:

Talked to the Gibson guy at NAMM last week who said he represents the Custom Shop. He said there are 4 people working on mandolins at the Custom Shop: David Harvey & 3 others. That's why so little mandolin production; it really is a "small shop"/boutique-type environment right now.

[HoGo]

Thread Bump:

Talked to the Gibson guy at NAMM last week who said he represents the Custom Shop. He said there are 4 people working on mandolins at the Custom Shop: David Harvey & 3 others. That's why so little mandolin production; it really is a "small shop"/boutique-type environment right now.

I wouldn't equate small number of employees at Gibson with boutique quality... It's all about time that experienced workers spends doing high quality work. At Gibson this work is cut to bare minimum that gets the product out of the door at acceptable quality (acceptable to them). I just received 2012 F-9 with failed neck joint for repair and after close inspection I can see that the inside of the body has not seen human hand other than gluing the label. It's CNC cut and perhaps just lightly sanded in the center of the bowl as you can see the path of the CNC tooling around the top with ugly steps (1/4" high) 1/2" from the neck block and at lining. No one attempted to smooth out the transition or even graduate the back. I can see filler in the failed neck joint and the edges of back are very high (over 1/4") and inconsistent (outside was just power-sanded). Neck is not set correctly so the bridge goes obviously more than 1/8" closer to the bass side than treble. I guess they pretty much assembled pre-cut parts on their dedicated jigs and sent it to finishing dept. that covered the flaws with filler and dark finish.
If Gilchrist made such simple mandolin he would spend much more time with it or he would work much more effectively so the product quality is up to his standard.
It's all about what quality you let out the door, not number of folks working on it. Old Gibsons had quite higher standards than current production, obviously, even though there were much more workers at factory and larger quantity of product involved.

[DataNick]

Adrian,

That's news to me, and certainly process variation exists in all manufacturing to a degree. I would take my concerns/findings to David Harvey as his reputation has been stellar and for good reason I would gather.

[HoGo]

I inspected A9 several months ago that showed very similar treatment. I didn't look inside but you could see where scroll and points were cut off the CNC pre-cut back as extremely thick edges and I believe even hint of the scroll ridge was left. Filler at the neck joint hidden under muddy brown finish was there as well so I guess that is their standard for those lowest end models. I have nothing against the folks as they just do what their boss tells them to do. Customers want cheap model so they have to save somewhere.

PS: In my previous post it should have been the back that has the CNC'd step, not the top. Owner wants me to rework the mandolin insied and out so I will disassemble it when I finish all recent repairs on my table and will post pics.

[jclover]

I have a new F9 and a flashlight, so I decided to see if Adrian is right. IMO, he is. It is pretty clearly machine routed, has about a 1/4" step near the neck, and slightly less but still very noticable step around the edge of the entire bottom. I compared that to my Eastman 315, and the Eastman looks much nicer. Then I played them. Now I can go back to ignoring this stuff.

[Eddie Sheehy]

At NAMM I spoke to the Custom Shop guy, I actually asked him if David Harvey was there. He said that Gibson had scaled back mandolin production because of equipment losses during the flood. He, Ken, was the only guy there from the Custom Shop, and he only wanted to talk guitars. The 120th Anniversary F5 mandolin that was on display ($20,000) was owned by a customer and Gibson had not brought any mandolins, or David Harvey, to NAMM. Ken said that were only 4 guys making mandolins at Gibson.

[Timbofood]

We all have to admit it, mandolin sales are not what they were (almost) a hundred years ago. Manufacturing is just that, the demand to meet production schedules is still pretty much the same as it was "back then." The place is a factory. Everyone seems to think just because it says "Gibson" it is, start to finish, a Loar period quality instrument. Sadly, that is simply not the case. Back then, the demand was as high as it would ever be, it was what the place was designed for. The demand today is nowhere near what it was then. As far as I know, you cannot meet production schedules without manpower dedicated to the specific demands of mandolin construction.
They are head and shoulders more a a guitar company than it will ever be a mandolin company again. The demands for less costly instruments simply cannot be met by the number of hands "devoted" to the department, can it?
There is an old saw which says you can have it:
Fast,
Cheap or,
Right.
Pick any two.
Here is the perfect example.

I certainly do not mean to demean the work coming from the shop but, you have to meet quotas,more folks want them cheap.
New production quality must be weighed against the demand for price point. If you are paid by piece, you cut corners, if it's by the quality of final instrument you can ask 20K for the hand built anniversary piece.

[Verne Andru]

The demand today is nowhere near what it was then.

I have nothing to back this up but I would think there are far more mandolins sold now than there were back then. What has changed is Gibson isn't the only game in town for "violin constructed" mando's and mandolins are no longer a serious part of Gibson's business. There is probably far more demand, just more companies meeting that demand. Plus the market is global, not just America.

[Timbofood]

You make a very good point, more builders!

[Big Joe]

I cannot speak for what Gibson does now, but at the Opry Mills location the mandolins were rough cut by CNC in another location because we could not run that machine in the mall. They were shaped and graduated by hand in the mall. All assembly, tuning, and finishing was done in the mall. There was never more than a handful of people working on the mandolins at the mall. In the factory area they built not only the mandolins, but banjos and dobros as well. Each instrument used its own people for those instruments. Some overlap may occur in finishing but not in construction. We were never a factory as most imagined and many small builders have as many or more people working on theirs as we did on ours at that period. They were truly hand built. There was no machine that wood was inserted and a mandolin popped out as many have thought over the years. Each instrument was done by hand. The high level instruments got more time spent on them as you would expect, but the guys working on them were very efficient at what they did. Even the lesser expensive models were still hand made.

[Russ Donahue]

Big Joe...
It's good to see your name attached to a post here. Thanks for adding to the thread.

[Bernie Daniel]

I cannot speak for what Gibson does now, but at the Opry Mills location the mandolins were rough cut by CNC in another location because we could not run that machine in the mall. They were shaped and graduated by hand in the mall. All assembly, tuning, and finishing was done in the mall. There was never more than a handful of people working on the mandolins at the mall. In the factory area they built not only the mandolins, but banjos and dobros as well. Each instrument used its own people for those instruments. Some overlap may occur in finishing but not in construction. We were never a factory as most imagined and many small builders have as many or more people working on theirs as we did on ours at that period. They were truly hand built. There was no machine that wood was inserted and a mandolin popped out as many have thought over the years. Each instrument was done by hand. The high level instruments got more time spent on them as you would expect, but the guys working on them were very efficient at what they did. Even the lesser expensive models were still hand made.

And there you have it folks -- got to hear from you Joe!

[bucephalous]

I know this is a little late, but I toured Collings a few weeks ago. It's a world class operation, but was VERY reminiscent of my tour of Gibson in Memphis (which, as mentioned earlier, makes their electrics). Anything with a carved top at Collings is CNC'd. The craftsmanship beyond that is impressive, but it's still a machine cutting the top of your instrument. Then it goes through hours and hours of sanding by people who seem to love and take pride in what they do. I guess I thought Collings was a smaller operation, but you can tell they're building day by day to try and meet the demand for their instruments. It's still very handmade, but like gibson, it is an assembly line. This person handles binding, this person handles the neck, this person handles the set-up. I got the feeling they know how in demand their stuff is and are trying to find ways to maximize their branding (the new waterloo guitars is a good example).

Also, it WAS cool to see/realize that Ellis handles some of their inlays.

I'm going to try and figure out the picture thing and post some.

[Timbofood]

Thanks "Old Horse" interesting information. One point that keeps falling through the cracks is even back in the "Golden years", plates were not hand carved each and every one, they were "roughed in" on old fashioned furniture seat carvers. I see no difference in that and it's modern counterpart, the CNC. The difference as Joe said is in the amount of hand finishing of that carving is done. Adrian has had first hand exposure to what has left the building and sees what he stated, more rough than delicate work. I have no reason to doubt what Adrian said, Nor what Joe has said, it's just the way manufacturing works. Low price, less finesse, more care, more money.
I think Joe Spanns book might offer some information as to how many hands were on board back then too, I have not bought a copy yet so, I can't really say with first hand or second hand knowledge. Maybe Joe will chime in with some of his expertise, one can only hope.

[Chuck Hooper]

being new to mandolins i will say that had it not been for "factory" mandolins,i would not be able to afford to probably afford a "serious" mandolin(one made by a "shop with a couple of individuals who "hand work" every thing.all of the mandolins i presently own(loar 600,eastman 505,jbovier"black top" and a morgan monroe are all "factory" produced in china(bejing i believe) they are manufactured in their hand made "shop".the tone woods are "hand selected,hand carved and graduated",they all have nitrocellulose finishes,quality components etc.to my non trained musical ear they sound really good.these instruments fill a vital demand in a growing market at a cost level that allows more people like me to be able to enjoy learning a new instrument with (and here's the important part)with an affordable product . CNC machines do as good a job as real hand carving.in the world of high end racing bicycles,hand silver brazing of the tubes to the lugs gave way to CNC cut and welded frames that were just as good if not better than the "hand built" italian,belgian,and french frames coming out of hundreds of "family" shops.those that can afford the one of a kind italian guericiotti,or a coicc, can still get it.but the point is that these developments opened up Pro level equipment to a wider market which in a touch of irony increases the demand for the "old school" quality of a one of a kind/work of art as a webber or gibson for us in the mandolin arena. as i see it it is a win-win situation.