Martin Factory vs. Guild

Brad Little

Senior Member
Gold Supporting
Joined
Dec 19, 2008
Messages
4,611
Reaction score
2,001
Location
Connecticut
Over on the Acoustic Guitar Forum, someone posted a link to pics from a Martin tour: (http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/foru ... p?t=273617). Two thing stood out to me, apart from the Martin memorabilia on prominent display, it reminded me of the Guild factory on steroids, sheer numbers looked to be huge, but for the most part very familiar processes. One big exception, apparently much of the polishing there is done by robots:
https://picasaweb.google.com/1038210673 ... 9349967426
I also noticed that they don't seem quite as concerned about wood storage, none of the spacers that Guild uses in their storage area:
https://picasaweb.google.com/1038210673 ... 6606691074
just my 2 cents.
Brad
 

davismanLV

Venerated Member
Joined
Mar 24, 2011
Messages
19,196
Reaction score
11,813
Location
U.S.A. : Nevada : Las Vegas
Guild Total
2
Hey Brad, good information. But you didn't mention WHY Guild uses spacers when storing the wood. Air circulation, maybe? And if so, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Or is it just a thing? As far as finishing goes, guitars are very difficult things to finish. So many curves and sharp angles. I'm sure machines can do it better without errors. I surely don't blame them on that count..... :wink:
 

AcornHouse

Venerated Member
Joined
May 22, 2011
Messages
10,212
Reaction score
7,206
Location
Bidwell, OH
Guild Total
21
davismanLV said:
Hey Brad, good information. But you didn't mention WHY Guild uses spacers when storing the wood. Air circulation, maybe? And if so, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Or is it just a thing? As far as finishing goes, guitars are very difficult things to finish. So many curves and sharp angles. I'm sure machines can do it better without errors. I surely don't blame them on that count..... :wink:
Stickering wood (using spacers) to allow air circulation on all sides helps to prevent warpage. If one side doesn't get the same amount of air, it can dry slower, leading to warps or cracks. Even dry wood will always be absorbing moisture from the air, or losing it, due to the humidity. Again, the more even this can be, the better. Also, the weight of the boards on top help keep things flat. (Weights are always put on the top boards.)
 

Brad Little

Senior Member
Gold Supporting
Joined
Dec 19, 2008
Messages
4,611
Reaction score
2,001
Location
Connecticut
AcornHouse said:
davismanLV said:
.... But you didn't mention WHY Guild uses spacers when storing the wood. ....
Stickering wood (using spacers) to allow air circulation on all sides helps to prevent warpage. If one side doesn't get the same amount of air, it can dry slower, leading to warps or cracks. Even dry wood will always be absorbing moisture from the air, or losing it, due to the humidity. Again, the more even this can be, the better. Also, the weight of the boards on top help keep things flat. (Weights are always put on the top boards.)
Chris said it better than I could.
Brad
 

fronobulax

Bassist, GAD and the Hot Mess Mods
Joined
May 3, 2007
Messages
24,708
Reaction score
8,836
Location
Central Virginia, USA
Guild Total
5
At least one attendee at LMG III had been at the Martin factory the day before. The comment that I recall is that the Martin tour was much less intimate. People watched processes from galleries rather than on the shop floor in many cases.
 

evenkeel

Senior Member
Silver Supporting
Joined
Sep 19, 2007
Messages
1,539
Reaction score
11
fronobulax said:
At least one attendee at LMG III had been at the Martin factory the day before. The comment that I recall is that the Martin tour was much less intimate. People watched processes from galleries rather than on the shop floor in many cases.
This may be true now but was not the case when I did the Martin tour a couple years ago. You were walking right on the factory floor, could ask questions of the workers. You stood almost shoulder to shoulder with the workers in some locations. It was very intimate. I do remember the auto polishing machine well. It was quite a contrast to all the hand work going on.

In addition to the factory tour, the museum at Martin is also well worth going thru. Very cool stuff.
 

AcornHouse

Venerated Member
Joined
May 22, 2011
Messages
10,212
Reaction score
7,206
Location
Bidwell, OH
Guild Total
21
I lost a lot of respect for Martin the last time I was in the acoustic room at GC and noticed that Martin is making some of their guitar necks out of plywood! :shock: they call it stratabond or something, but it's still basically plywood, using 1/8" inch plys.

YECH! :p
 

fronobulax

Bassist, GAD and the Hot Mess Mods
Joined
May 3, 2007
Messages
24,708
Reaction score
8,836
Location
Central Virginia, USA
Guild Total
5
AcornHouse said:
I lost a lot of respect for Martin the last time I was in the acoustic room at GC and noticed that Martin is making some of their guitar necks out of plywood! :shock: they call it stratabond or something, but it's still basically plywood, using 1/8" inch plys.

YECH! :p


But... but...

Isn't one man's plywood another man's laminate?
 

AcornHouse

Venerated Member
Joined
May 22, 2011
Messages
10,212
Reaction score
7,206
Location
Bidwell, OH
Guild Total
21
fronobulax said:
AcornHouse said:
I lost a lot of respect for Martin the last time I was in the acoustic room at GC and noticed that Martin is making some of their guitar necks out of plywood! :shock: they call it stratabond or something, but it's still basically plywood, using 1/8" inch plys.

YECH! :p


But... but...

Isn't one man's plywood another man's laminate?
Using one (or three) decorative strips in between thicker wood is common to higher end guitars, yes. It's still, mostly solid wood. What Martin is using are 20 or so layers of 1/8" strips, which means you're getting an awful lot of glue, and a whole lot of ugly. :p Also, I bet they're not using premium woods. I'm sure it's nice and stable, but the wood is going to wear quicker than the glue; not something I want to slide my hands along.
My friend, and former student, who works up at my nearby GC, is disgusted by some of the stuff Martin is sending them.
 

Bill Ashton

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 29, 2006
Messages
4,387
Reaction score
989
Location
North Central Massachusetts
Guild Total
4
Maybe I was the one Frono is refering to????

Sirkku and I toured the Nazareth facility on our way home from the Orlando Guitar Show. Briefly, it is Guild on a scale of x50 or x100. The operation is immense. Looking out over the mezzanine to the shop floor, it could be almost any large industry, you could not tell what they were building. The walk through is basically through the "custom" shop area, which is very much like the size of Guild, maybe a little bigger. While you are in fact behind some Lexan panels walking through, I think it probably more for safety and protection than for isolation, as we could speak briefly with the workers, who seemed glad and proud we were walking through.

They make a big deal about the wood...if you want Brazilian Rosewood, it is a minimum of $14K, and you must have special permission from Chris Martin IV and it is kept in a "safe" (someone please correct me if I have this wrong); contrast this to Guild where we could see the billets in the general wood storage (same place as during LMG II?) or Huss and Dalton where they will hand you a BR billet to look at (!!!).

I might characterize the Martin Custom Shop area as about the size of Gibson's Memphis facility...at least in terms of square footage (Memphis is hollow-body electric guitars).
 

kyguild

Member
Joined
May 14, 2009
Messages
402
Reaction score
0
Location
Eastern Ky
My daughter and I took the Martin factory tour the day before the LMG III event. A couple of areas of the workshop were indeed viewed from an elevated gallery where you simply walked in and looked down upon rows of CNC machinery. Other parts of the tour were walking around amongst the workers, watching while they did their work. The tour route in most cases was outlined by yellow tape, to keep folks from getting into harms way, and into the way of the workers. The Martin factory was indeed 10X or 20X the size of the Guild facility (so it seemed to me).

The Martin Custom Shop area of the factory seemed to be much more like the Guild factory. There, you found individual workers dealing with guitar manufacturing on a much more intimate level, like at Guild.

Everyone we saw at Martin appeared to be very consciencous folks who cared about what they were doing.

The last time I had taken the Martin factory tour was in the late 80's, and the contrast between then and now was immense. While the Martin factory was certainly larger back then, than the Guild factory is now, work seemed to be done on a much more personal level back then at Martin than now. (This should be expected I guess, since Martin produces so many more guitars these days). Things were so laid back in the 80's, in fact, that Chris Martin IV was the guy who led our group of around 6-7 through the factory for 1-2 hours, showing us essentially the whole shop.

High quality guitars coming from both facilities, but Guild just seemed to have a much more personal process of guitar construction for normal production guitars than at Martin. Kind of makes me want to spring the extra money for a somewhat "custom" guitar from Martin, just to get the instrument into the small area of the factory where the production process is more personal.

KY



fronobulax said:
At least one attendee at LMG III had been at the Martin factory the day before. The comment that I recall is that the Martin tour was much less intimate. People watched processes from galleries rather than on the shop floor in many cases.
 

fronobulax

Bassist, GAD and the Hot Mess Mods
Joined
May 3, 2007
Messages
24,708
Reaction score
8,836
Location
Central Virginia, USA
Guild Total
5
kyguild said:
Kind of makes me want to spring the extra money for a somewhat "custom" guitar from Martin, just to get the instrument into the small area of the factory where the production process is more personal.

A co-worker who does some serious guitar collecting (and unfortunately does not consider Guilds seriously) has a custom built Martin and one of his favorite moments was at a Martin event where he met the person who built his guitar. Not sure just what steps were involved in personally building the guitar but the individual recognized the instrument and proudly took responsibility for it.
 

markus

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 12, 2007
Messages
1,501
Reaction score
146
Location
Vienna/Austria
Guild Total
8
<slight_veer>
fronobulax said:
kyguild said:
Kind of makes me want to spring the extra money for a somewhat "custom" …
… one of his favorite moments was …
In Germany you can visit a Volkswagen plant and watch them build your (!) Phaeton. Not available for cheaper cars of course …
It's about selling more than just a car.
I think that could work with guitars, too. I could imagine to pay some extra money for getting a guitar built like that. (But not for a car!)
</slight_veer>
Markus :D
 

Scratch

Enlightened Member
Joined
Jan 31, 2007
Messages
6,909
Reaction score
20
Location
Canyon Lake, TX.
Don't have a 'Martin dog in-the-hunt' these days although I've been fortunate to own a few in the past. I'd love to have the old D-35 back... Several Guilds I've owned are/were equal in performance with the Martins. In terms of best bang for the buck; no contest... Guild wins hands down.

To be fair; Martin put Nazareth Pa. on the map by crafting high-quality instruments in one location for nearly 180 years. They take good care of their employees. These qualifiers alone say a lot in terms of Martin's well-earned respect as America's premier production guitar manufacturer. As far as acoustic guitars go, Martin is a living piece of Americana.
 

davismanLV

Venerated Member
Joined
Mar 24, 2011
Messages
19,196
Reaction score
11,813
Location
U.S.A. : Nevada : Las Vegas
Guild Total
2
Scratch said:
To be fair; Martin put Nazareth Pa. on the map by crafting high-quality instruments in one location for nearly 180 years. They take good care of their employees. These qualifiers alone say a lot in terms of Martin's well-earned respect as America's premier production guitar manufacturer. As far as acoustic guitars go, Martin is a living piece of Americana.
I couldn't agree more, Ken...... :)
 

SFIV1967

Venerated Member
Joined
Nov 20, 2010
Messages
18,442
Reaction score
8,956
Location
Bavaria / Germany
Guild Total
8
AcornHouse said:
I lost a lot of respect for Martin the last time I was in the acoustic room at GC and noticed that Martin is making some of their guitar necks out of plywood! :shock: they call it stratabond or something, but it's still basically plywood, using 1/8" inch plys.YECH! :p
Correct, they call it Stratabond laminate. Looks strange but is probably very stable.
What is still strange to me was the use of black Micarta, a unique high-pressure laminated phenolic material, for Martin fingerboards and bridges.
It definitely is cheaper than using ebony or rosewood.
But Martin seemed to have Micarta replaced now with Richlite (made from partially recycled paper and phenolic resin) for fretboards and bridges of certain models.
Here are two shots of the Stratabond necks I found on the internet:
MTND1_heel.jpg
z09omc1etnr.JPG

Ralf
 

evenkeel

Senior Member
Silver Supporting
Joined
Sep 19, 2007
Messages
1,539
Reaction score
11
Scratch said:
To be fair; Martin put Nazareth Pa. on the map by crafting high-quality instruments in one location for nearly 180 years. They take good care of their employees. These qualifiers alone say a lot in terms of Martin's well-earned respect as America's premier production guitar manufacturer. As far as acoustic guitars go, Martin is a living piece of Americana.

Well said. I'd also add they are in the "Want" business, not the "Need" business, making the achievement all the more remarkable.
 

6L6

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2006
Messages
1,921
Reaction score
112
Location
San Francisco, CA
To be fair; Martin put Nazareth Pa. on the map by crafting high-quality instruments in one location for nearly 180 years. They take good care of their employees. These qualifiers alone say a lot in terms of Martin's well-earned respect as America's premier production guitar manufacturer. As far as acoustic guitars go, Martin is a living piece of Americana.

+1

'97 D-45V
'12 D-45
'12 D-18
'12 D-18A
'69 D-12-20

Love 'em all!

But if I could only have one acoustic guitar, it would be my '76 Guild F-50SB.

Bill
 
Top