Because he charges a percentage, some people were reasonably offended by the fact that they would have to pay more for black hardware and a fancy top than a righty would. I took offense to this as well, so I brought it up to Joe.
Here's ZON's official lefty policy...
They charge 10% on top of the BASE PRICE for a lefty instrument... so ANYTHING on top of that is the same as what a righty would pay. A lefty does NOT pay more for a fancy top than a righty does.
So, yeah... it's not as awesome as FREE... it's not quite as cool as a nominal flat fee... but it's better than 15% of the final cost like I've seen some other companies do it.
Some other noteworthy tidbits from our conversation:
- Lefties make up a little less than 1% of their total sales. Joe said he would guess that he makes about one lefty for every 100-125 righty basses they make. He didn't have an exact number, but thought that was close.
- Lefties take quite a bit longer to make in his shop. All of their basses are hand shaped and sanded and are hand cut using band saws and routed using pin routers... it's all old style. No CNC machines. They use "feel" to know when to stop sanding, so he said he needs to completely reverse his thinking when shaping everything. Joe commented that when he makes a lefty he is constantly second guessing himself and rethinking angles and double-checking lines and measurements before cutting in order to retrain his brain to think backwards from the last 100 basses he built before the lefty in his hands right now.
- All of the wiring in his basses is true lefty wiring and uses pots that work both lefty and righty, except for the Polyfusion preamp which is surface mounted and not available in a lefty format.
With all that said, here's some pics from my Legacy Elite 5 that should be finished in the next month or two!!!
