L
Lazarus
1991
Guitars
- Thread starter musket
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P. Barrie
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OOOH some Martin owners ought be less snobbish. 
Here’s a pic of my Martin, 000-17SM. They were made 2013 - 2015, discontinued, probably didn’t sell well enough. 12fret, Sitka top, Mahg back & sides. In order to have less string tension, I tuned it down so low E string is D, etc. so playing a cowboy chord song in C position is really in Bb Easier on my old thumbs and the guitar.
I actually play my Seagull S6 more, I got it for $199. Cedar top and cherry lam back & sides, sounds good to me with silk and steel Phospher strings (lower tension again), and my fret hand likes something about the wider nut width and maple neck.
Here’s my Gibson ES125 thru a Fender Princeton II (a weird Rivera era concoction, some attempt to compete with Mesa Boogies I think)
Here’s a pic of my Martin, 000-17SM. They were made 2013 - 2015, discontinued, probably didn’t sell well enough. 12fret, Sitka top, Mahg back & sides. In order to have less string tension, I tuned it down so low E string is D, etc. so playing a cowboy chord song in C position is really in Bb Easier on my old thumbs and the guitar.
I actually play my Seagull S6 more, I got it for $199. Cedar top and cherry lam back & sides, sounds good to me with silk and steel Phospher strings (lower tension again), and my fret hand likes something about the wider nut width and maple neck.
Here’s my Gibson ES125 thru a Fender Princeton II (a weird Rivera era concoction, some attempt to compete with Mesa Boogies I think)
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musket
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I wasn't being snobby, just describing a bit of historical Martin subculture talk from the days when I worked there. This is how the workers on the floor talked and maybe still do. Everyone outside the factory says "Double Oh," etc. But when I said it that way on my first day, I was immediately corrected by one of my co-workers in the neck fitting department. It was a very hidebound traditional place back then.
The only Martin I ever owned was that long-ago 1-17, one of their cheapest models from the 1920s.
Nice ES125. All the Rivera-designed amps were cool but the only one to acquire lots of desirability is the Super Champ. The Princeton II and Concert just got lost in the shuffle.
Arty, Martin's failed attempts at classicals would be almost unknown had Willie Nelson not played an N-20. For classical you'd be better off with something South Korean, Japanese or even upper end Chinese, or of course, Spanish. No American manufacturer has ever made an outstanding classical. Guilds are the best of the lot and even they aren't all that impressive. These companies are known and valued for steel strings, not nylon.
Where's the kit guitar?
The only Martin I ever owned was that long-ago 1-17, one of their cheapest models from the 1920s.
Nice ES125. All the Rivera-designed amps were cool but the only one to acquire lots of desirability is the Super Champ. The Princeton II and Concert just got lost in the shuffle.
Arty, Martin's failed attempts at classicals would be almost unknown had Willie Nelson not played an N-20. For classical you'd be better off with something South Korean, Japanese or even upper end Chinese, or of course, Spanish. No American manufacturer has ever made an outstanding classical. Guilds are the best of the lot and even they aren't all that impressive. These companies are known and valued for steel strings, not nylon.
Where's the kit guitar?
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Artyczar
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Musket! I (I, and think Patrick too) were just poking fun/joking. I'm sorry if it hit a nerve and I really apologize. 
I wish I had a Martin. I wanted one since I saw my first one when I was about 25 or so. My friend Doc Lawrence (a musician who also worked with Chuck Plotkin--my band was working with him as well. He was Bruce Springsteen's producer, as well as Bob Dylan and others) and I fell head over heels with his small classical. It was all beat up because he'd had it since he was a child and took it on the road a bunch. It sounded amazing and felt perfect in my hands.
I got my first guitar when I was 8, which was a Yamaha, a kinda pretty classical, and played only that throughout my life. I kinda had it my whole life...well, sort of a little story about that particular guitar. A boyfriend broke it into pieces when I was 19 or 20. (Musket, I think you know who--"Raven"). He was in a fit of rage, drunk, etc. I spent the next several years looking for a used one just like it and finally found the perfect one at a flea market. I had to put about $200 worth of work into it and that was in the 1990s. It sits beside me as I type this. I've had it ever since and have written some 75 songs on it. But I still wish it were a Martin!
I wish I had a Martin. I wanted one since I saw my first one when I was about 25 or so. My friend Doc Lawrence (a musician who also worked with Chuck Plotkin--my band was working with him as well. He was Bruce Springsteen's producer, as well as Bob Dylan and others) and I fell head over heels with his small classical. It was all beat up because he'd had it since he was a child and took it on the road a bunch. It sounded amazing and felt perfect in my hands.
I got my first guitar when I was 8, which was a Yamaha, a kinda pretty classical, and played only that throughout my life. I kinda had it my whole life...well, sort of a little story about that particular guitar. A boyfriend broke it into pieces when I was 19 or 20. (Musket, I think you know who--"Raven"). He was in a fit of rage, drunk, etc. I spent the next several years looking for a used one just like it and finally found the perfect one at a flea market. I had to put about $200 worth of work into it and that was in the 1990s. It sits beside me as I type this. I've had it ever since and have written some 75 songs on it. But I still wish it were a Martin!
musket
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I started writing this just for fun awhile back... maybe a WIP.
The most money you could make working the floor at Martin was as a “master craftsman” of at least five years employment—$3.15 an hour. It wasn’t enough to have been there for at least five years. You had to be evaluated by your foreman before you qualified. There were around two hundred people in the plant, of whom only half a dozen were women. They did all the pearl inlay. Men were not allowed to do this job.
The second lowest job on the totem pole was “cleaning and plugging.” The assemblers did a quick and dirty job of fitting the backs. The brace mortises were sloppy; no attempt was made at a clean fit. So Billy, who was a paraplegic, sat in his chair at his bench with a box of kerfing chips and plugged the gaps, followed by cutting them down level and then giving it all a fast sanding so it looked clean as a whistle when you looked through the sound hole. The mortises for the top braces were left sloppy.
Cutting up truss rod bar stock to length out on the loading dock was even lower, but wasn’t a full time job. It got assigned to whoever wasn’t doing so hot at their regular job. Including me. I did a lot better after two days of that.
The favored cigarette of C.F. Martin & Co was Lucky Strike. At break time (you got a fifteen minute break in the morning and another in the afternoon), all the guys would be out on the loading dock smoking Luckies. On Thursdays, a local woman delivered home-cooked Cornish pasties for lunch, at fifty cents a throw. Everybody bought one. Otherwise you brown-bagged it. Lunch break was only half an hour and the plant was two miles from downtown Nazareth. The workday began at 7:15 and ended at 5:30. So in winter time you arrived in the dark and left in the dark. My apartment was two and a half miles from the factory. I had no car and nobody ever offered me a ride.
After everybody had gone home, C.F. III would make the rounds checking the benches of anybody who used edge tools. If your tools weren’t razor sharp your foreman would know about it and chew you out next morning. You could take a break at any time during working hours to sharpen your tools. Chisels were invariably old Greenlee or Stanley sockets, with only one exception. Walter Lambert, who had been with the company for over twenty-five years and was one of only two people in the plant who could actually build a guitar on his own, made his own chisels out of old files.
Every five years you would get a little pin to celebrate the anniversary. Twenty-five year guys like Walter, Earl Remaley and my foreman Phil Moll got one with a tiny diamond chip. After a year, you were entitled to have a guitar made especially for you, any model you wanted, for the cost of the materials, but it wouldn’t have the logo punched into the back graft or the decal on the headstock. I didn’t stay long enough to get mine and I’ve never seen one.
We weren’t unionized. But we had something called a Rucker Plan—if anybody came up with ideas that increased profits, all the employees would get a bonus at year’s end. Probably the best example of this is the D-35. You would think a rosewood guitar with a three-piece back would cost less than a D-28, but they added fancier binding and charged more, thus making good use of smaller scantlings which would otherwise have gone into ukes or tiples.
Nobody at Martin knew much of anything about old Martins until they hired Mike Longworth, the company’s first official historian, same year as I worked there, 1969. Long time employees like the Remaley brothers never thought of old Martins as valuable vintage items. There was no Martin Museum.
There were no factory seconds at Martin (unlike Gibson). Charlie Shaeffer, the QC inspector and the last stop on the assembly line, had a couple of D-28s with smashed tops mounted above his bench with a sign below them that said, “I Wasn’t Good Enough to Bear the Martin Name” in capital letters.
People in the Lehigh Valley pronounce sentences as questions and tended to drop prepositions. “I’m going down the factory now?”
The most money you could make working the floor at Martin was as a “master craftsman” of at least five years employment—$3.15 an hour. It wasn’t enough to have been there for at least five years. You had to be evaluated by your foreman before you qualified. There were around two hundred people in the plant, of whom only half a dozen were women. They did all the pearl inlay. Men were not allowed to do this job.
The second lowest job on the totem pole was “cleaning and plugging.” The assemblers did a quick and dirty job of fitting the backs. The brace mortises were sloppy; no attempt was made at a clean fit. So Billy, who was a paraplegic, sat in his chair at his bench with a box of kerfing chips and plugged the gaps, followed by cutting them down level and then giving it all a fast sanding so it looked clean as a whistle when you looked through the sound hole. The mortises for the top braces were left sloppy.
Cutting up truss rod bar stock to length out on the loading dock was even lower, but wasn’t a full time job. It got assigned to whoever wasn’t doing so hot at their regular job. Including me. I did a lot better after two days of that.
The favored cigarette of C.F. Martin & Co was Lucky Strike. At break time (you got a fifteen minute break in the morning and another in the afternoon), all the guys would be out on the loading dock smoking Luckies. On Thursdays, a local woman delivered home-cooked Cornish pasties for lunch, at fifty cents a throw. Everybody bought one. Otherwise you brown-bagged it. Lunch break was only half an hour and the plant was two miles from downtown Nazareth. The workday began at 7:15 and ended at 5:30. So in winter time you arrived in the dark and left in the dark. My apartment was two and a half miles from the factory. I had no car and nobody ever offered me a ride.
After everybody had gone home, C.F. III would make the rounds checking the benches of anybody who used edge tools. If your tools weren’t razor sharp your foreman would know about it and chew you out next morning. You could take a break at any time during working hours to sharpen your tools. Chisels were invariably old Greenlee or Stanley sockets, with only one exception. Walter Lambert, who had been with the company for over twenty-five years and was one of only two people in the plant who could actually build a guitar on his own, made his own chisels out of old files.
Every five years you would get a little pin to celebrate the anniversary. Twenty-five year guys like Walter, Earl Remaley and my foreman Phil Moll got one with a tiny diamond chip. After a year, you were entitled to have a guitar made especially for you, any model you wanted, for the cost of the materials, but it wouldn’t have the logo punched into the back graft or the decal on the headstock. I didn’t stay long enough to get mine and I’ve never seen one.
We weren’t unionized. But we had something called a Rucker Plan—if anybody came up with ideas that increased profits, all the employees would get a bonus at year’s end. Probably the best example of this is the D-35. You would think a rosewood guitar with a three-piece back would cost less than a D-28, but they added fancier binding and charged more, thus making good use of smaller scantlings which would otherwise have gone into ukes or tiples.
Nobody at Martin knew much of anything about old Martins until they hired Mike Longworth, the company’s first official historian, same year as I worked there, 1969. Long time employees like the Remaley brothers never thought of old Martins as valuable vintage items. There was no Martin Museum.
There were no factory seconds at Martin (unlike Gibson). Charlie Shaeffer, the QC inspector and the last stop on the assembly line, had a couple of D-28s with smashed tops mounted above his bench with a sign below them that said, “I Wasn’t Good Enough to Bear the Martin Name” in capital letters.
People in the Lehigh Valley pronounce sentences as questions and tended to drop prepositions. “I’m going down the factory now?”
Artyczar
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Ha ha ha! My father was from Bethlehem and I lived in Allentown for some time. The rest of his family was from there. My grandfather was from Fleetwood, etc. Additionally, one of my best friends is from Harrisburg and she talks like she's from Lehigh Valley too for some reason? I often do too. I hate it! It just confuses people.
I may have read some of this writing before maybe. It's great.
I may have read some of this writing before maybe. It's great.
L
Lazarus
The guitar was a gift from my dad to my 16. he really surprised me back then. he died long time ago this is almost the only memory i have, i almost lost that guitar due to lots of reversals in my life. i have been used to play acoustic and classic guitars and before two years i decided to repair and play her again. i bought line 6 spider amp but not playing that much right now.Lazarus, that guitar looks so incredibly cool, I can't stand it! Ha!
Yes, as much as I'd love an old classical Martin, Martin owners are pretty snobby!
Nobody said anything about the kit guitar Hannah and I bought and put together with the raw body.
L
Lazarus
The 1st one is Alhambra spanish high bridge for strong fingers
The 2nd is Martinez amp classic.
The 3rd Yamaha acoustic.
The 2nd is Martinez amp classic.
The 3rd Yamaha acoustic.
musket
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This is #7, from 1978, but it's actually my third steelstring, the previous four having been classicals. Even though I had no intention of building for nylon when I got started, I built more of them than for steel. I built my first, a copy of a Martin 1-28, in 72 at Matt Umanov Guitars in Greenwich Village, then moved to Cambridge and was too busy with my own store and doing repairs to have any time for building. After the store closed, late in 76, I started building seriously.
My own pattern. What would be called a 0000 today, 15 1/2" across the lower bout, a half inch wider than a 000 and an eighth inch smaller than a D. No one was using that term at the time. It's a 14 fret guitar but with a Martin 12 fret width neck (1 7/8" at the nut) at the client's request. Indian rosewood back and sides, European spruce top, Peruvian mahogany neck, Gabon ebony fingerboard and bridge, red abalone rosette. She's got some road wear but no cracks and is still perfectly playable with a dead straight neck and nice low action after 43 years.
Here it is on the bench in my apartment workshop in Cambridge, strung up for the first time, before the lacquer had yellowed. I could never afford to keep one of my own--they were all built to order--so when this one came up for resale ten years ago, when I could still play some, I bought it, and paid a whole lot more than I originally got for it! Now alas I can't play at all. It's as though I never learned.
My own pattern. What would be called a 0000 today, 15 1/2" across the lower bout, a half inch wider than a 000 and an eighth inch smaller than a D. No one was using that term at the time. It's a 14 fret guitar but with a Martin 12 fret width neck (1 7/8" at the nut) at the client's request. Indian rosewood back and sides, European spruce top, Peruvian mahogany neck, Gabon ebony fingerboard and bridge, red abalone rosette. She's got some road wear but no cracks and is still perfectly playable with a dead straight neck and nice low action after 43 years.
Here it is on the bench in my apartment workshop in Cambridge, strung up for the first time, before the lacquer had yellowed. I could never afford to keep one of my own--they were all built to order--so when this one came up for resale ten years ago, when I could still play some, I bought it, and paid a whole lot more than I originally got for it! Now alas I can't play at all. It's as though I never learned.
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P. Barrie
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Musket, I was kind of joking, didn’t think you were being snobby. However, I joined a Martin Guitar owners group on facebook and many of the members are a little snobby.
I love the telling of your days at Martin Co., and I love the guitars you made! Fingerpickers dream! They’re truly beautiful works of Art.
I love the telling of your days at Martin Co., and I love the guitars you made! Fingerpickers dream! They’re truly beautiful works of Art.
musket
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Thanks.
There are many myths about Martins, the most prominent being that all pre-War Martins are magic guitars. This isn't true. I worked on at least a hundred pre-War Martins between 1971-1986, including a dozen or so Style-45 and -42 in various body sizes, and of course, many more from the 40s, 50s and 60s, and I can tell you that only around 20% are really magic. The rest range from very good to excellent, but that isn't the same thing.
I'm not so sure that owning a Martin has quite the same status it used to. Collings has gotten a lot of press, and not without reason. There are definitely magic Collings out there. They've out-Martined Martin in some ways, though Martin's limited edition and custom shop models are still excellent. Dana Bourgeois, for whom I worked briefly in 1994, has also done very well after a seriously shaky first step. These people may not have the numbers, but their instruments are just as good if not better on average than limited edition and custom shop Martins.
And of course there are more "hand builders" than you can shake a stick at now. And people like James Olsen, who pretty much runs a one-man factory, complete with all the elaborate jigs, fixtures, vacuum press and CNC mill you'll see in any big time shop.
My own fave old flat top guitars are actually the very uncommon great Gibsons. Most old Gibsons are nothing to write home about, but every so often you run into one that's totally fabulous. They're put together with spit and library paste. Very shoddy worksmanship compared to Martin. They almost always have mahogany back and sides, except for pre-War rarities like the Advanced Jumbo and Nick Lucas Rosewood Special, but there's just something about them... if you can find one. I would say it's maybe one in a hundred at best of the same model and era (except for the J200, where it's one out of a thousand).
My fave Martins ever were a 1926 00-28 and a 1930 OM-45.
There are many myths about Martins, the most prominent being that all pre-War Martins are magic guitars. This isn't true. I worked on at least a hundred pre-War Martins between 1971-1986, including a dozen or so Style-45 and -42 in various body sizes, and of course, many more from the 40s, 50s and 60s, and I can tell you that only around 20% are really magic. The rest range from very good to excellent, but that isn't the same thing.
I'm not so sure that owning a Martin has quite the same status it used to. Collings has gotten a lot of press, and not without reason. There are definitely magic Collings out there. They've out-Martined Martin in some ways, though Martin's limited edition and custom shop models are still excellent. Dana Bourgeois, for whom I worked briefly in 1994, has also done very well after a seriously shaky first step. These people may not have the numbers, but their instruments are just as good if not better on average than limited edition and custom shop Martins.
And of course there are more "hand builders" than you can shake a stick at now. And people like James Olsen, who pretty much runs a one-man factory, complete with all the elaborate jigs, fixtures, vacuum press and CNC mill you'll see in any big time shop.
My own fave old flat top guitars are actually the very uncommon great Gibsons. Most old Gibsons are nothing to write home about, but every so often you run into one that's totally fabulous. They're put together with spit and library paste. Very shoddy worksmanship compared to Martin. They almost always have mahogany back and sides, except for pre-War rarities like the Advanced Jumbo and Nick Lucas Rosewood Special, but there's just something about them... if you can find one. I would say it's maybe one in a hundred at best of the same model and era (except for the J200, where it's one out of a thousand).
My fave Martins ever were a 1926 00-28 and a 1930 OM-45.
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musket
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Well then, another view of the shop, which was just my living room and spare bedroom. The bench was a full 4' x 8' walkaround, a great luxury. The spare room was for wood storage (sets, necks, fingerboards, bridges, brace stock and soundboards), a dry box, and spray setup.
#2 upright, in for a change of tuning machines at the client's request, a couple of bodies (same size and pattern as #7) and necks ready for sanding out the lacquer, and a cedar top classical chucked into the Ulmia vise, ready for set up and first time stringing.
It was a primitive shop. But it worked. A place for everything and everything in its place. I kept it almost as clean as a surgical operating room. Wood dust is death on a good finish. The only power tools I had were a router, an orbital palm sander, an electric drill and a nice old Walker-Turner 14" drill press. A friend across the street had a nice old Delta 14" band saw, so I used that. And I had a DeVilbiss TGA automotive touch up spray gun and tankless Binks compressor. Everything else I worked "by hand" with chisels, planes, rasps, files and so on.
#2 upright, in for a change of tuning machines at the client's request, a couple of bodies (same size and pattern as #7) and necks ready for sanding out the lacquer, and a cedar top classical chucked into the Ulmia vise, ready for set up and first time stringing.
It was a primitive shop. But it worked. A place for everything and everything in its place. I kept it almost as clean as a surgical operating room. Wood dust is death on a good finish. The only power tools I had were a router, an orbital palm sander, an electric drill and a nice old Walker-Turner 14" drill press. A friend across the street had a nice old Delta 14" band saw, so I used that. And I had a DeVilbiss TGA automotive touch up spray gun and tankless Binks compressor. Everything else I worked "by hand" with chisels, planes, rasps, files and so on.
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musket
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Not that this is guitar-related, but by contrast, two views of my carving workspace, just half of the narrow living room at our old place in Cornish, NH. I changed things around several times, but finally accepted that carving just doesn't lend itself well to a lack of clutter, especially in such a small workspace. I had to do a very thorough job of cleaning up before painting or gilding a piece. The small bench in the first pic is around 150 years old.
On the second bench is a German Ulmia vise, standard for instrument builders but long out of production and now almost impossible to find used. There are Chinese copies but they can't compare to original Ulmia. Even when I got started building, in 1971, they weren't cheap--mine cost $72. I hitchhiked from NYC to Woborn, MA and back to get it from the only then-extant store of Woodcraft Supply, before they became a national chain.
On the second bench is a German Ulmia vise, standard for instrument builders but long out of production and now almost impossible to find used. There are Chinese copies but they can't compare to original Ulmia. Even when I got started building, in 1971, they weren't cheap--mine cost $72. I hitchhiked from NYC to Woborn, MA and back to get it from the only then-extant store of Woodcraft Supply, before they became a national chain.
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Dave Woody
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L04018. Fender Stratocaster.
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