All the brace positions are clearly marked on the top and back plates.
This booklet is full of practical advice and tips for your build, so study it well and take particular care to examine the parts list on the back page. Most of the parts are bagged or bundled together like these back braces, so sort through the packaging carefully to find everythingĪlthough the kit doesn’t include a full-sized blueprint or step-by-step instructions, there is a charming and very useful guide booklet penned by Martin’s archives custodian and museum curator, Dick Boak. Many of the parts are quite small and some are hidden away – taped between cardboard sheets for protection. When the kit arrives, you must be sure to sift through the contents carefully, because the box is packed with shredded newspaper to keep things protected. Martin’s fretwire comes supplied in a neat roll so all the pre-radiusing is done for you. The kit binding is black, with an accompanying length of black/white/black purfling. Although I do like herringbone, I hadn’t planned to use it on this guitar, but it’s something I can very easily live with.
The factory has done a very fine job but I have mixed feelings. This kit turned up with fibre strips and herringbone pre-installed. The Rosette is pre-installed and the herringbone is a classy touchīoth my previous Martin kits arrived with the rosette channels pre-cut but unfilled.
This one produces a very encouraging note – 16 cents flat of a G natural according to the tuner app on my phone. I also like the side ears that Martin leave in the waist area, because you can dangle the top from your fingers to test the tap tone. So this should look pretty fine with some finish applied. The top seems to be of higher quality than what came with the previous kits, with fairly straight and tight grain lines and lots of cross silking. The peghead overlay and the V-shaped infill for the tail block join are synthetic, too – probably some sort of shiny black plastic or fibreboard, but it’s hard to tell. Understandably, the rosewood veneer is no longer included and both this kit’s fingerboard and bridge are Richlite rather than wood. My first kit also came with a rosewood peghead veneer, an ebony fingerboard and an ebony bridge. The kit arrives in a box roughly the size of a small combo, and contains all the key bits you’ll need to build your own acoustic The 12-fret didn’t turn out particularly well but, having been dragged from the dry heat of LA through the freezing winters of Chicago to the humidity of New York, that second Martin kit has acquired the tone and road weary grace of a fine vintage acoustic. Since then I’ve built two further acoustics – another Martin 000 kit for my niece and a 12-fret slot head kit from Stewart-MacDonald.
On the plus side, Rod is putting it to much better use that I could anyway… Every time I play it since I handed it on, however, I come away kicking myself for letting him talk me into selling it – it’s matured into a gorgeous sounding guitar. I’m happy to say that it’s still going strong today, and is now in the hands of The Guitar Magazine’s Chord Clinic guru, Rod Fogg. All the way back in 2001, I built my first ever acoustic guitar from a Martin Guitar Kit – long (very long!) time readers might even remember that the process was chronicled in the pages of this very magazine at the time.