Mr Faria may well be both a skilled luthier and a person of conscience, over-commited and overwhelmed, trying hard to catch up while also supporting family. He has done good and timely work in the past. Unfortunately, good reputations are easily lost when one cant or wont communicate with the client; and just as I am not getting any work done composing ths, he doesnt get any further caught up on the luthiery by keeping in touch, especially if he has (as I have) to travel to a public facility to get internet access. I have no idea what his actual difficulties are, this is speculation.
It is not at all hard for a small business to get to where he might be; in theory one is supposed to price the product high enough to allow one to hire out the work during periods of vacation or difficulty; but that works far better for small businesses with a few semi-skilled workers using standardized production technology than for a single-man shop doing fussy hand labor hugely dependent on subjective and artistic decisions. Usually the single-man is irreplaceable. The singleman also has a hard time pricing his own labor; even perceiving all of it can be hard. -- Dana Emery To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
