Please Support our Crowdfunding campaign…
The Guitar Making Revolution!
My name is Mark Bailey – I trained with some of the best guitar makers in the world including Trevor Wilkinson, Patrick Eggle, Gary Levinson and Rob Williams. I did my very best to learn as much as possible and now I run my own workshop Bailey Guitars with my amazing team.
Along with making my own range of guitars I also run workshop courses to enable complete beginners to make their own instruments completely from scratch…It is not as difficult as you might imagine – in fact I believe that anyone can make guitars and I think I have proven that over the last 18 years and 400+ students – I always say ‘Most guitars are made in factories and they are not populated by genius luthiers (ask me how I know!)
Last year I launched The Guitar Making Academy – I put all my knowledge into making the best online guitar making courses on the planet and now have hundreds more online students across the world.
The revolution created itself – players needing guitars that either don’t exist or are out of their reach to buy; people who love guitars and wood, and like me at 17, think ” I’d love to have a go”; and guitar buyers dissolutioned with what was available to them – our own models, custom builds and courses have offered a real, exciting and good value alternative to the mainstream.
Why we are crowd funding?
The building (The Bailey Workshop) we have rented for over 13 years has come up for sale – we have a great landlord and he has given us first refusal on the property. It is in a great location, near Ayr on the West Coast of Scotland- good for me as it is quiet and I dont disturb the neighbours at all (sheep mainly) and handy for the students who have come here to build from as far away as Tasmania and Brazil.
This is incredibly exciting as we never thought we would ever get the chance – it really would be a dream come true to secure the workshop in perpetuity!
What We Need
We need to raise as large a sum as possible for a deposit to secure the premises. Any money raised above this will be spent bringing the workshop up to date. Whether we reach our goal or not your hard earned money will be well spent on:
- Securing the workshop premises
- Revamping the workshop – environmental improvements to save power
What You Get
Check out our amazing and unique perks –
- Air Guitar: If you just want to chip in go for one of these – not only will you appear incredibly cool to others but you will also have our eternal thanks! Send us a pic of yourself playing it and we’ll put it in a gallery…
- Online Courses: We’ve come up with some special deals for our crowdfunding campaign. Join the guitar making revolution!
- Order a Guitar: We’re making some special guitars just for this campaign – you will get the best price for ordering early.
- Ultimate Design and Build: Visit the workshop to design and build your own guitar – full VIP treatment!
- My 1st guitar: Own a unique piece of guitar making history! This is the first guitar I made as Bailey Guitars in the double decker bus workshop.
If you do not want to claim any perks you can still back us – just click the big pink button and type in the amount. You will be informed what perks you are eligible for and then you can decide if you want them or not. You can also choose to remain anonymous if you like.
Everyone will recieve free of charge a warm fuzzy feeling that comes only from helping others…
If you would like to get any of our perks as a gift – just let us know.
We’ll be adding new perks every couple of days so watch out for updates!
The Impact
As some of you may know my first workshop was a double decker bus, and my first spray booth an old container lorry. We had a website before we had a computer and lived off the grid for several years – we literally started Bailey Guitars with nothing as I had my only tool case stolen
I don’t need much space for my own work but to run courses and make my on-line videos I do need a larger and permanent space. Also, the building has been in use since before 1850, and whilst I love it, it needs some major improvements (re-organising and environmental) to bring it into the 21st century
For the last 15 years I have used solar panels and made my own wind turbine to generate electricity. I have experimented with solar heaters, trombe walls and looked at ways of cutting energy consumption, as well as trying to source sustainable and reclaimed woods to build with. In 2008 we became small generators connected to the grid, which meant that all the guitars built since then have been made only with renewable energy, placing us amongst the most environmentally friendly instrument builders in the world.
What most guitar players want is a guitar that looks good and plays like a dream – instrument making as an industry is not a very green activity and every year more species of wood are added to the Citees restricted list – for us, being environmentally responsible is as important as looks and playability. In fact you would never know from looking at them
Lets Blow the Lid off it!
A lot of my tools have been hammered by the students over the years and some are now are in need of replacment- it would be awesome to add some new gadgets to the arsenal!
We’ve got this far from practically nothing, thanks to all our customers and players in the real and virtual worlds who have donated tools and workshop equipment and traded money, time and larger items for guitars. Now we have an amazing opportunity to create something permanent here and spread the guitar making revolution even wider – imagine what we could do with your support!
Risks & Challenges
We passionately believe in what we do here and I for one am not ready to give up – I’d like to think that I’ll continue to build and run courses wherever I end up but with your help we could take it to the next level.
The main risk is that we cannot act swiftly enough to secure the premises – if this happens we might lose the advantage of first refusal – that is why we have limited the duration of the campaign to only 28 days – so please don’t wait too long!
Other Ways You Can Help
We understand not everyone is in a position to contribute, but you can still help:
- Get the word out and make some noise about our campaign.
- Share our updates
- Use the Indiegogo share tools!
Thanks!