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I recently had a Martin 000 MMV brought into my shop for a setup. I was not familier with this model so I did some reseach. They were made for Guitar Center and are solid rosewood. What seemed odd to me was it has no back strip to reinforce the center seam. Are they using some sort of super strong glue to join the two halves of the back? I have never seen a solid back that didn't have a strip. Any thought?

Look at the last 60,000 larrivees.

It is no more necessary on the back than it is on the top. If the back is going to split, it will nearly always be off the glue line.

The only time I would consider it necessary is if you inlay or sandwich a decorative strip down the seam on the outside.

Also look at many of the Martins out there that don't have a back strip. My D-18 doesn't. The Taylor I had before that had a wedge of maple between the two walnut pieces and there weren't strips between those seams, but if you look through the sound hole you could see that there were separate back bracing strips inside.

My Art & Lutherie parlor doesn't have one either, though it's a much cheaper instrument.


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Might be a good time to define terms....

The strip on the inside of the guitar that spans the joint of the two halves is called the back joint reinforcement in some circles... The usually decorative inlaid or butt jointed strip on the outside of the back of the guitar is called a back strip, again in some circles.

Regarding instruments with no "back joint reinforcement" last month I repaired a Larrivee that the joint had failed and needed to be closed and cleated. It's the only one that I have ever seen, Larrivee that is, that had a failure here. But.... our winter has been historic with it's brutality here with very cold weather that just keeps coming so we are seeing many, many dry guitars.

Don't get me wrong I love Larrivees and think that they are great guitars but this one had a joint failure, likely was permitted to get too dry, and in the absence of a back joint reinforcement it came apart.

I've seen this on a few other brands too so as such I'm a fan of using a back joint reinforcement.

"The strip on the inside of the guitar that spans the joint of the two halves is called the back joint reinforcement in some circles.."

"Back graft" in others.....

I don't always use them, but I usually use them.

I call it a back graft and I always use one but I don't think it is necessary. A well made glue joint will very rarely fail unless the guitar dries out, and when that happens all the grafts in the world will probably not save the plate.