12/28/06: My new guitar:
Here are some photos I just took of my
new Martin guitar.
It's an M-18VME Custom, made by the C. F. Martin custom shop.
The specs for it were created by one
of the guitar salesmen
at Guitar Showcase in San Jose.
It's not only beautiful, but it has a great
tone --
strong projection, very bright highs
and a growling bass.
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Click here for larger close-up shot
I've been guitar shopping for the past
few months, and I've been to several
fine guitar shops from Seattle to
Laguna Beach. This is definitely not
the guitar I thought I was looking for.
But I fell hard for it and
bought it
yesterday, the first day I saw it. I played it
for almost an hour, then handed it
back to the salesman who
returned it to the glass case where they keep their
high-end acoustics.
A little
later I just had to check it out
some more, and this time it never went
back into the showcase.
I don't know what came over me
;-)
Here it is alongside my OM-35.
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Little Petey, our
youngest (of 4) dachshund, was also a Christmas gift for
our family.
Petey loves music. Actually, he loves everything.
Petey sniffs the ebony tuning knobs.
This photo also shows the wonderful
McKinney-Elliot
Capo that stores above the nut when not in use.
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The top is Adirondack Spruce, with scalloped bracing. The sound hole
rosette
is inlayed with abalone
shell (in Martin-guitar-speak: "style-45 rosette").
The East Indian rosewood headplate is inlaid with an abalone
torch, and the
tuning machines are fitted with ebony knobs. The nut is bone, 1-11/16"
wide.
Another shot of the top. You can
see the microphone from the factory-installed
Fishman Ellipse
Matrix Blend
dual-pickup system which also includes a piezo-electric pickup under the
bone saddle. I installed the same
system last year on my
Martin OM-35, and I really like its versatility and
sound.
The back and sides are flame maple,
stained to match the Spanish cedar neck.
The body binding is tortoise-shell colored, which I tried to show in these 2
photographs.
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Update 1/30/007: I've now slotted the bridge and installed snakewood pins.
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Update 5/5/007: Today I added a buffalo horn/abalone strap button to hold my new Sully Strap:
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Here's an "X-ray
vision" photo of the bracing pattern,
taken with internal flash lighting:
Jay Keller,
December 29, 2006
See our family's other musical instruments here
For more dog pictures, as well as a bunch
of other stuff, visit my home page at
www.jaykeller.com
(Woodworking, beekeeping,
photography, cooking,
music, dachshunds,
more...)
Last revision 8/26/007