Monday, April 10, 2017

Martin Guitars: Where lo-tech meets hi-tech

    Last week, our Upper School woodworking students toured the C.F. Martin Guitar & Co. factory in Nazareth, PA. I went along as an additional chaperone but by visit's end had learned a lot about how traditional craftsmanship and cutting edge technology can work together.
    The Martin Guitar story starts in 1833 in New York City. By 1838, the company had relocated to Nazareth, PA. Though the site of the original manufacturing facility has changed, the company remains rooted in the same community all these years.
    The Martin Guitar company makes a few products including guitar strings, ukeleles and electric guitars, but their business is built around hand-producing acoustic guitars. They are world renowned for the quality and craftsmanship of their acoustic guitars. In their marketing materials, they emphasize that all their guitars are handmade and that each guitar is either produced adhering to the highest specifications of craftsmanship or it is destroyed.
At an individual work station, a craftsman files a guitar neck.
    The factory is quite large but is actually designed as a series of individual workstations. Factory employees (there are about 500 in total working in the Nazareth facility) work on one facet of guitar production and then various pieces are assembled by other employees specializing in that skill.
A part of the factory where wood is sorted and initial cutting is done.
    Acoustic guitar making can be painstakingly detailed. As workers inlay design elements, adjust bridge heights and glue soundboards, a visitor repeatedly sees intense concentration as the worker completes his or her tasks.

     Midway through our tour, we began to hear about how digital technologies were incorporated into production.  There are, for instance, laser cutters that can be programmed to cut guitar necks and bridge inserts to phenomenally fine tolerances. Still, after laser cutting is completed, someone will take each cut piece, hand inspect it and then sand it as needed. Similarly, robotics are employed in the polishing process, though hand polishing will always follow.  When a guitar is polished by a robotic arm, the machine follows the programmed instructions to move the robotic arm to the spinning polisher in ways that exactly fit the form of the particular guitar model being polished.

A robotic arm programmed to manipulate the guitar onto a spinning polisher.
     The Martin Guitar factory is a bit of an anomaly in today's world. It makes a concerted effort to retain old world craftsmanship in producing some of the finest acoustic guitars made today. But it also reminds the visitor that today's digital technologies can far more efficiently complete certain production tasks. It is this marriage of old and new that satisfies some very fine guitarists including Jorma Kaukonen, Rory Block, Father John Misty and Sturgill Simpson.
     I want to thank faculty members Bob Ort and Cos Arnett for scheduling the trip. It was clear everyone learned a lot about fine woodworking in the 21st century.
     This post seems incomplete without a Martin Guitar demo by a world class player. Below, Billy Strings plays a 1935 Martin D-18. Still sounds great!

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