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Someone brought me a Martin D28 to look at. Apparently new, bought of Reverb. First question, does Martin honor warranty when guitar is sold ?

The problem is, the action is >.14 low E at 12 fret. High e is .1 at 12 fret. This appears to be a brand new guitar. There is no room to lower action with saddle. Honestly, it looks like a neck reset. I sent him away saying I’d research this.

Hope John Hall chimes in.

Mike

Let me take a SWAG as to why the guitar was put up for sale on Reverb....

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Peter Havriluk

Sounds like a slipped heel. To my knowledge Martin honors the warranty to the original purchaser but I am willing to be corrected on that.

I had a guy bring in a brand new D28 just like that. It needed a neck reset.

He got it from Guitar Center. I called them and explained the situation and he was able to return it and exchange it for another that was OK. I think they would have refunded his money if he had wanted.

Maybe if it was purchased new the seller would refund.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

I's pretty clear -
"C. F. Martin & Co., Inc. (“C. F. Martin”) warrants, on a limited basis,
to the original owner only, this C. F. Martin instrument, factory
installed electronics, and the instrument’s case, against defects
in materials or workmanship only as follows:"

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

The guy spent 2000$ on it. So, no warranty. Ugh. Not like he can sell back to reverb.

OK, what is a slipped heel?

There is no gap between heel and body. This sounds like a straight up neck reset.

This is the problem with glued in necks. Every piece of wood is different and a every guitar reacts different after the initial sting up over the first few months. Some are stable and some need the reset. This is why my future builds will be bolted.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

By your description it does sound like it could need a neck reset. But there are other factors to check too.

Mike there are at least several authorized Martin Warranty centers here that could answer your questions with experience and the backing of Martin. John Hall and Ann Arbor Guitars are two of the authorized warranty centers.

The Martin warranty warrants the guitar to the original purchaser only provided that the warranty is registered (you can do it way after the fact if you are the original purchaser) and for a neck reset the warranty is only against defects in materials and workmanship.

Or in other words the original owner can get warranty service on a neck reset if there is visual evidence of a defect in materials and workmanship. What does this mean? Is there a visual gap in the heel to body joint usually toward the back side of the heel parting with the body? There are other tell tales too but this is by far the vast majority of what honored claims present with these days. We have yet to see one that qualifies. This is a change by Martin over say what they did three years ago which was much more liberal and I don't see how they could have done what they used to do all these years and still survive as a company. It was too generous. They covered a neck reset five years ago for one of our folks who was a kid when he bought his D 35. over 50 years ago..... Incredible customer service from Martin but unsustainable in my view for a proper business.

The instrument may have bee ruined by a previous owner and if it came from Reverb there is no telling what the chain of custody might be and there is no warranty coverage either.

WIth all this said the reality is what does the guitar need now and why? Is the neck angle poor enough for a reset? Sounds like it. I would consider the entire instrument to be suspect for prior massive abuse and would want to go over it for loose braces cracks, fret sprout, lifting bridge. I would also be keen to do some forensics and examine nut slots for having been expanded for very heavy strings.

In my experience Martin's QC is excellent and I do not doubt that this is not a defect but abuse.

Stuff happens to instruments in transit and one of mine jsut spent a week in the supply chain when it was supposed do be here in a day or two.

And lastly to obtain Martin warranty service had the thing been eligible Martin must have the eyes of a authorized, certified warranty center on it and then we speak with them.

What Terry said is how Martin prefers to handle these too, take it back where you got it and exchange it if it was bad out of the gate from Martin. This is for the original purchaser only, no warranty to anyone else.

A slipped heel happens when the dovetail at the heel end of the neck is not fit well or was fitted in too high of humidity. What happens is that the initial neck angle is correct. However over a period of time the wood either shrinks or the glue gived way and the dovetail (the heel inparticular) moves dramatically in a short period of time. If the neck is relatively flat right up the fingerboard extension and then the fingerboard extension points upwards then that is a surefire tell of a slipped heel.

The only fix is to remove the neck, shim it and reset it.

hesh covered it no warranty unless original owner

been seeing more of this than I like to see. I have a 2 year old martin with the top caving into the top. Sometimes the reset issue may be humidity I have seen people add Humidity in summer and wonder why the action is high.

Take a good look and also measure the bridge sometimes they put a high bridge on the guitar from an over set neck. if that is the case the bridge can be shaved to spec. I like to see the bridge about .325 in high often they are .410

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Thanks all, especially Hesh and John

This is a real mess. I'm gonna take more measurements today. And examine the bracing. I do not see how this gets fixed without a next reset. I've done a number of resets. But all were older Martins, not original owners.

John, remind me. How much do those two steel blocks u use weigh? (simulation of string tension on upper bout)

And I'll add that we don't know where the guitar has been, or how it's been treated. There are variables built in, and then the instrument must survive in a world of variables. It keeps us busy.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Owner opted for shaving the Bridge and lowering the saddle. Closer inspection of saddle shows someone already tried to fix it. It looks like I’ll have enough space to lower the action. Straightedge to bridge on untensioned guitar is maybe 1/16 below top of bridge, 1/32 when tensioned

Good plan. As long as you have a decent amount of bridge left you're good to go. 1/16 is not perfect but is definitely ok.

I received advice from John Hall regarding a compression refret saying "put about 10 lb on the shoulder of the guitar and level with that."
So one 5 lb weight each shoulder after installing the frets, and leveled them with that, worked for me.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I use two 5lb weights. Probably got the info from John

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

That should be enough of a neck angle to set it up.

Consider filing in string ramps in the bridge especially for the high e and b and that will let you take the saddle down even lower, another 1/32" or so and still have enough break angle over the saddle crown. I do this frequently when the economics are not there for a neck reset AND when it's appropriate for the instrument.

Bridge shaving is not ideal and kind of frowned upon these days since it was abused in the past with people taking bridges down to nothing and screwing up the instrument. But as John mentioned Martin has various height bridges that they use out of the gate for slightly different neck angles and this one, this bridge sounds tall enough that some height won't be missed.

Borrowed a pic from Frank's excellent FRETs.net to show you one example of string ramps. Martin has these ramps standard on some of the lower end Martins. We use either a Dremel to just a few nut files and it's a quick fix. You can see in the pic how the ramps drop the place where the string leaves the bridge before heading to the saddle. This increases break angle AND lets us lower that saddle additionally.

Combine this with very low cut nut slots, minimum relief and civilized strings that are not extra lights and it sounds like you can set it up to a decent spec.

What's the spec? I would set this one up with nut slots properly cut, relief at a minimal, strings tuned to pitch at the 12th fret 4/64" and 6/64" respectively high e and low e for 12's. For 13's 4.5/64th" and 6.5/64th" respectively. Heavier hitters get higher action, slightly if they want it.

Yep, super low nut slots and if I level the frets I can get away with about .004 relief. You can run the ramps right up to the saddle if need be and get away with as little as 1/64 protruding.

If I was going to do any saddle shaving, which I have done much, I would at least do the math to be able to end up with super low action like 3&5. I love to see the look on people's faces when they play that for the first time. Most have never even experienced that on an acoustic guitar. They'll be back.

Pat

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Pat

I had a customer with a Martin like this, bought used, but like new. He opted for a neck reset, as he should have. The neck nearly fell out when the steam got hot.

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I'm Loofierisming at night now to avoid you know what so I never get to see my customers anymore, for now. I really miss handing them the guitar and watching that look that you describe Pat.

It's really in a nut shell why I do this, make people happy, lots of them.

Do you find that your average customer can also play a guitar with super low action without making the thing buzz like crazy?

Neck resets on new guitars are rare, but we saw enough of them on both production and custom guitars, as well as on supposedly-reset necks, that it appeared to the people in my shop that an understanding of how to generate consistent neck geometry was not a common thing. This seems to be confirmed in just about every serious neck angle thread here, where we end up divided between those that apply a method and those that want a number or universal ROT (e.g., "...just tell me the measurement I need to look for - don't confuse the issue with all those other numbers.")

Martin seems to have more issues with generating consistent neck angles than any of the other larger manufacturers. We were seeing anything between just under 0.300" thick bridges to well over 0.420" bridge thickness to address this neck angle issue. For those guitars with bridges on the thick side, we usually just replaced the overly-thick bridge with a 0.350" repro if it would give us at least 7/16" string height over the top; otherwise a new bridge and a neck reset.

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A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower

I'm confused as to why you would remove and replace an overly tall bridge rather than sand an overly tall one to proper height.

I will add that strange things happen in a production environment that cannot be contained or explained. I spent a good deal of time trying to isolate what/where/who/when/how in regards to neck angle. I can say the rough fitters knew their job and did it precisely. Proper knowledge, skills, tools and jigs, and did their job properly. But the neck angle changed from rough to final fit, sometimes a lot. I tracked thousands s of guitar through every step of production, and wound up shrugging it off as a mystery. So it doesn't surprise me that they wound up with a multiple bridge height solution. It makes sense in that environment....