Christian Frederick Martin, the founder of Martin guitars, moved his luthier shop from New York City to Nazareth, PA in 1839. This past week, I had an opportunity to visit that original shop as well as the modern Martin manufacturing plant down the street. While I wasn’t busy staring in awe of my surroundings, I did learn a few things and even snapped a few pictures with my handy iPhone. Although there are quite a few automated processes, plenty of machines to handle big jobs, and even a few robots on the premises, a surprising amount of work is still done by hand at the Martin plant. Everything from final touches on the neck and fret jobs to the fine tuning of the braces still receives personal attention from a real live person. Favorite part: I gotta be honest… seeing Clarence White’s D-28 with the expanded soundhole in the Martin Museum on the premises was pretty amazing.
Stones In The Merrimack 