Martin D-35 re-fret

[Grahame Myers]

As some of you may know, I'm restoring a D-35 at the moment. It was pretty "road-worn" as I started, and had suffered at the hands of assorted repair men all over Europe. It needs a neck re-set, new fretboard, frets, binding, saddle etc

I don't have much experience with Martins (they're quite rare here in Germany, and I'm not sure what was original, and what had been changed over the years). Now that I've strengthened the neck, and made a new fretboard, it's time to re-fret.

So to my question: with a D-35 do I first re-fret, and then glue the neck binding on (so that the frets are narrower than the binding)? or should I glue the binding first, and then re-fret, under-cutting the fret tangs, and filing the fret bevels to be flush with the binding?

I have the Martin book from Walter Carter, and I've studied the pictures, but I'm still not sure: In some of the pictures it looks like they used the first method, and in others it looks more like the second method. Some of you guys here have probably repaired more Martins than I'll ever see, what's the best (authentic) way?

 

Grahame

[Frank Ford]

Martin always puts the binding on first, and then overhangs the frets.

[Grahame Myers]

Thanks Frank! If it's good enough for Martin, it's good enough for me, I'll do it their way :-)

Merry Christmas!

 

Grahame

[mike carne]

Grahame,

Keep us posted on this-we'd love to see the end result.

I'm a big D35 fan-I'M ON MY 4TH! 2 SUNBURST & 2 Naturals.

HNY!

[Grahame Myers]

Well, here we are in April, and the D-35 is finally finished! I got sidetracked with other jobs, and the Martin gathered dust in the corner for three months. This month I finally got down to it, and here is the result. I only did a constructional repair, no work on the finish, (to try and maintain the vintage patina as much as possible), apart from replacing the missing corner on the headstock. See how I managed to rescue the Martin Logo! Apart from that, it got a carbon fiber reinforcement for the trussrod, a neck reset, new fingerboard, complete with new MOP dots, new binding, a refret, a JLD Bridgedoctor, and new bone nut and saddle.

 The customer requested Martin Eric Claptons choice medium strings (13-54) That's a string gauge for real men :-) It plays and sounds great! A few pics:

 

Grahame

[Grahame Myers]

More pics:

[Mike Kolb]

Nice work, Grahame!  The customer should love your attention to detail and the commitment to "making it right".  It'll be interesting to see if (or, rather, when) the Bridge Doctor needs a tightening adjustment at the block.... on the ones I've done, some do in a couple of months and some never do.  

By the way, love the "safety padding" at the bottom of your vise!  There's an idea worth borrowing, if I may? Anyway, the Martin looks great!

[Tim Mace]

Way to go Grahame....

[RETROROD]

Nice work Grahame! How old is that D35?

[Grahame Myers]

It's a '75, and according to Martin, who I mailed with the SN., was originally delivered as a normal blonde top. The sunburst was done later by someone or other sometime in the last 35 years. Neither the present owner, or the guy he bought it from (who owned it for 15 years), knows when, or by whom, the sunburst was done.

The new owner is using it for a gig today, the first gig since I finished it last week. He promised to let me know on Tuesday how it went. I'll be getting it back sometime soon anyway, as he wants to have a preamp system installed. At the moment he's still undecided between an AER system, Fishman Matrix, or an LR Baggs I-Beam, but as soon as he's made up his mind I'll go ahead with the work.

 

Grahame

[Paul Verticchio]

Nice work Grahame!

 

I can tell you from a player's experience that the I-Beam is effectively useless for anything but ultra-low volume solo & very small ensemble work. This is especially true with bass predominant dreadnaughts like the D-35 (or any finely crafted Martin). LF feedback resistance (even with multi-band true parametric EQ corrections) is zilch.

 

If your client needs "reinforced" volume, I'd steer him away from that system.  The bended I-Beam (undersaddle + I-B sensor) works much better for general gig work.

 

Have a great week & best of luck,

Paul

[Grahame Myers]

Paul

Thanks for your valuable opinion on the I-Beam, as a gigging musicion. I confess I've only heard it in action on their test guitar which has all three of their systems installed, and three seperate jacks so you can compare the sound of the three systems. An hour of playing around in a music shop doesn't compare with live gigging .-)

If he lets me decide, I'll recommend that he lets me install a Fishmann Matrix Infinity system: for an under-saddle PU system it has an acceptable sound, without much of a piezo "quack", volume and tone control on the instrument itself, and very unintrusive: you can remove it again with nothing left behind, except for a 2mm hole in the saddle slot which can be filled if the customer is really picky.

Without wanting to start a discussion about the ad-and-disadvantages of different acoustic pre-amp systems, from all the systems I've ever heard, I like the Fishmann system the most overall: No piezo system I've ever heard is really neutral, to the extent of just making the acoustic sound louder, without any coloration at all, as is often claimed, but the Fishmann comes pretty close. And it's uncomplicated for a gigging musician, plug and play apart from a battery change now and again.

In my opinion, the only way to get a really natural sound is to use a good mic in front of the soundhole, but that's a drag at a gig, as you probably know. It forces the player to concentrate on keeping the distance between the mic and the guitar very constant, or have the FOH mixer tearing his hair out :-)

I think that was the real reason for Ovations success at the beginning: not because they sounded natural (they didn't and don't), but because of the freedom of movement the players suddenly had. Most players don't realize how much they move around on stage, till they have to stay still in front of the mic!

 

Grahame

[Paul Verticchio]

My pleasure Grahame.

I agree that it's hard to beat the Matrix Infinity for a good & reliable under-saddle-sensor in a mid-line range.

A very little known, yet excellent, external preamp is the Sansamp Para Driver (around 210 USD) by Tech 21 out of NYC.  It removes all but the slightest "pieziness" from the signal. It also has well centered EQ frequencies (as in: it actually seems to be designed expressly for acoustic guitar)

I still use a HQ condenser mic for my fingerstyle performances but everything else demands a more "controllable" amplification system.  I'm personally a huge fan of a magnetic + undersaddle blend-able system. There's a synergy there that is hard to describe other than saying that they counteract each others weaknesses.

The only affordable factory systems that have impressed me in the past 5 years are the: Takamine Cool Tube system and the Taylor ES, with the Taylor system winning the plug & play award. Of course, the ES is only available on & for Taylor instruments.

 

May you have the very best of luck with this project.

P