12/28/06: My new guitar:
It's an M-18VME Custom, made by the C. F. Martin custom shop.
It was commissioned by Guitar Showcase in San Jose working with Joe
McNamar's regional sales rep.
It's gorgeous and 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'd been guitar shopping for the past
few months, and I've been to several
fine guitar shops from Seattle to
Laguna Beach before I fell hard for this one. I played it
for 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.
Here it is alongside my OM-35.
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Petey, the dachshund
puppy, joins the photo shoot. Petey likes Martin Guitars.
Petey sniffs the ebony tuning knobs.
This photo also shows the
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 (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