In-depth technical specs on vintage Martins?

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steveswan	In-depth technical specs on vintage Martins?	Lead	[-]
(12/06/09 10:06 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Tags : None I've been finding the available technical refrence books and various informational websites woefully lacking in giving us reliable information on the technical specifications (eg. tuners, wood types, dates of use on specific models) of vintage Martins. Lacking a current in-depth reference book, is there any interest in assembling some reference pages here on the site for really specific examinations of these various specifications for hardware and materials. It sure would be great to be able to look at a specific page to see when, for example plastic button octagonal base Kluson tuners were used on what models from this date to that date. Does anyone else see the value in doing this work together?
BHguitars		#1	[-]
(12/07/09 2:32 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Sounds like an excellent idea, Steve! ... and like a really big project. I'd be happy to join if Robert and Bruce and the other friends would do, too. Willi Last Edited By: BHguitars 12/07/09 6:52 AM. Edited 1 times.
Folkway Music		#2	[-]
(12/07/09 8:48 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Agreed, Steve. This would be a very handy resource for all of us - especially us dealers! It would be an exhaustive task to assemble all the particulars though. Anyone very organized with lots of free time on their hands out there? Mark Martin Warranty Repair-Guy, Folkway Music (.com)
steveswan		#3	[-]
(12/07/09 9:08 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	There is a tremendous amount of peer reviewed text information and fantastic photographs already in our old threads and archives. The are probably more than a few among us who are recently retired and technically proficient enough with pushing digital information around to want to sink their teeth into a project like this. Good reliable information that is easily accessed about tuners would be the most obvious example of something that would prevent fraudulent descriptions, intentional or otherwise, or installation of inappropriate replacements that might not be easily reversible. The various tuners found on 1930s and 1940s Martin models can present a real minefield for proper identification and replacement. I'm kind of taking my cue here from the guitar building community. In the last 25 years builders have largely gone from competitors protecting their "secrets" to a true community that helps each member with a very free flow of information on sources and techniques. Maybe in a year or so we will all have an organized body of information of vintage technical specifications to work with. I'm hoping!
Fingerstyle2		#4	[-]
(12/07/09 12:05 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Anyone very organized with lots of free time on their hands out there? In business meetings (I dimly recall), "Who wants to work on this?" is usually the cue for an epidemic of shoes coming untied around the table... My part-time consulting gig may become much more part-time after the first of the year, in which case I may be able to lend a hand on the organizational side. That would include offering up my website as temporary public repository for information as it's pulled together. However, the more technically adept can probably think of a more "Wiki-like" mechanism to allow the knowledgeable folks here to collaborate on a specific topic, add detail, provide photos, etc. There is a need for this and it would certainly be easier to do for Martins than for Gibsons. While I think Longworth, Gruhn, Carter, Washburn, Johnston, and Boak have done wonderful work that many of us have benefited from, I agree with Steve that their products often lack the detail that would take it to the next level of usefulness. The threads here on 30's bridges and dread bracing come to mind as great illustrations of info that exists in this community and is missing from the standard reference books. Even cfhcfh's great site lacks a lot of this detail. David
pickerdd		#5	[-]
(12/07/09 12:20 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've talked about putting together this kind of site for a few years, but work seems to always get in the way. If you want to store the info on the UMGF then all we need to do is post data. If you want a separate web site then we'd have to do something external. A decent front end with either a MYSQL or full blown sql database back-end would be very useful. I spoke to a few vintage guitar dealers 2-3 years ago about this project and they were all very ambivalent about it and felt it almost interfered with their "propriety" knowledge. None of the folks I spoke to were on the UMGF. I was really hoping to include some of the larger vintage dealers such as Gruhn and Mandolin Brothers, etc... to participate, but with the knowledge of the folks who participate on the UMGF it might not be necessary. If we want to do it as a full blown site as opposed to part of the UMGF I can probably offer hosting. I say "probably" because my hosting plan is limited to domain names I personally have registered. What I initially envisioned was an interface to enter data such as manufacturer, model, year, and details as well as facility to upload and display photos. This could be done for not only vintage Martins, but also any model instrument - old and new. That's my 2 cents... David 1939 D-18 1941 00-18H
Metropro		#6	[-]
(12/07/09 1:03 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I was trying to imagine how this information would be organized and I came up with two or three ways to do it. The first would be a timeline method in which the basic specs for a guitar are described. Then a date to mark significant changes. This is basically how Walter Carter handled the situation. For example: 1917: wood for back and sides changed from Rosewood to Mahogany. 1932: back binding changed from rosewood to black. 1936: binding changed to tortoiseshell. etc... The second method would be something similar to the way Martin lists their specs for each guitar. Then changes listed beneath each major category with the date the change occurred. Top wood: Adirondack Spruce 1945: changed to Sitka Spruce Back & sides: Brazilian Rosewood 1970: changed to EIR Tuners: Grover Pickguard: black plastic The final way to organize the data would be by subject. For example, the long threads on vintage tuners or bridges. That would allow a person who wanted to know if a tuner or bridge was correct to identify the sample in front of them and whether it was correct for the year the guitar was made. This has essentially been done in the existing threads. Although it's not well organized. The information is at least there. Assembling this information would be an enormous amount of work. It would be like a third volume of Longworth. I like David's Wikipedia analogy. Perhaps a base entry is made, and then Forum members contribute more information to fine tune each entry with all the minutia we discuss daily. Then a link for each subject (tuners, bridges, pickguards, etc....) would take you to a separate discussion of those topics. Maybe it could just be called Technical Specs and exist a bit like FAQ does. Just a few ideas. Chris
jcsw	Technical Specs	#7	[-]
(12/07/09 2:15 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've been thinking about how to do this for quite some time. It would be a big project and would require lots of man-hours, but if enough people would be willing to do a piece, I'm sure it's doable. I have an appropriately named url that I'd be willing to donate, that could easily be linked through this site (if a separate site is deemed appropriate). The biggest part is enlisting the knowledge of those luthiers with the knowledge and/or access to the vintage instruments. If anyone is willing to spearhead this project, just let me know what I can help with. Jimmy www.caldwellguitars.com
SColumbusSt		#8	[-]
(12/07/09 2:48 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Sounds like a great idea! I'll second David's recommendation for creating the database on a wiki platform. A wiki would allow everyone to add to and subtract from the document. At the initial stage, volunteers could be assigned specific areas to cover. These areas could be models, tuners, woods, etc. After the volunteers have completed their portion, the wiki is open to everyone to add their knowledge or correct errors. In this way, it would be a collaborative document and not put too much of the onus of work on any one individual. There are plenty of free wiki sites out there. I created one on wetpaint.com about vintage Martins (it seems I manage to work something about guitars into all of my assignments) for a class this semester: http://vintagemartinguitars.wetpaint.com/ Some of the things I posted in this wiki are certainly open to interpretation or argument (or are just plain wrong). My professor does not know squat about guitars and I just had to prove that I could create a wiki so keep your comments to yourself . As you can see, it is extremely easy to add pictures and videos to wetpaint. The great thing about it is anyone with a wepaint account (which is free) can edit my wiki and the edited information is clearly identified. Keith
steveswan		#9	[-]
(12/07/09 6:31 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'd like to see more specific information for each brand and type of hardware than just lists of spec changes. For instance, if there were pages devoted to tuners divided by decades (1920s, 1930s, 1940s, etc.) they could be divided by slot head vs. solid head and strip tuners vs. single units. Strip tuners from slothead guitars and from the various Gibson models seem to be consistent areas of mystery for a lot of people. Sections showing photographs and measurements of how Grover G-98s developed and changed all through the 1930s and what standard models they appeared on, then the same thing for Grover G-93s and so forth. Similar ways of grouping bridge pins and endpins as they appeared on standard models could be shown. We probably have most of these beautiful closeup photographs of all kinds of hardware already here in recent threads or archived older threads.
basilking		#10	[-]
(12/07/09 7:20 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	One of our UMGF-member luminary luthiers has encountered something inside my '33 OM-18 he describes as "something I have NEVER seen on ANY Martin, vintage or otherwise", though he also says, "...it appears to be totally original to the vintage ..." . I've asked him to take pix if he can while it's apart, will try to get them to whomever appropriate. I think this collation of data is a great idea.
Fingerstyle2		#11	[-]
(12/07/09 7:49 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	One of our UMGF-member luminary luthiers has encountered something inside my '33 OM-18 he describes as "something I have NEVER seen on ANY Martin, vintage or otherwise", though he also says, "...it appears to be totally original to the vintage ..." . I've asked him to take pix if he can while it's apart, will try to get them to whomever appropriate. So it will be secret until revealed at the end of the multi-month, yet-to-be-organized, in-depth technical specs initiative?
jloden		#12	[-]
(12/08/09 9:12 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I think this is an excellent idea and very valuable to the community. I can't contribute specs on vintage guitars since what I know about them probably fits on the back of a postage stamp! However, I can provide technical/software/programming/sysadmin help if needed. A wiki approach would be a great idea for allowing easy collaboration. IMO it would be most useful to organize the data in such a way that it is searchable through multiple different avenues. For example, being able to look at specifics for a given model guitar - tuners, bridge, bracing, binding, etc. is useful in some contexts, such as identifying a correct set of tuners. However, in other cases such as dating a guitar, it may be more useful to be able to look at a timeline of when certain materials were used or techniques changed. If we have to pick one due to technical constraints, I'd guess that grouping by subject ("tuners", "bracing") and organizing as a timeline is the most generally useful. I also have to agree with some of the other posters about photos being incredibly helpful especially for those of us with less experience. You know what they say about it being worth a thousand words. It's either add more photographs or the descriptions in guitar identifying guides like Gruhn need to be a few thousand words longer
basilking		#13	[-]
(12/08/09 12:51 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	So it will be secret until revealed at the end of the multi-month, yet-to-be-organized, in-depth technical specs initiative? No intent to be ultra-mysterious, David. Just want to wait til the guitar's back home and I can take better pix than I currently have. Hope to see it soon.

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In-depth technical specs on vintage Martins?

In-depth technical specs on vintage Martins?