Official Luthiers Forum!

Well-known fellow Buck in the UMGF drew attention to this new kit from Martin today. Thanks to him.

https://www.martinguitar.com/gear-acces ... OOL22.html

As a service to the community, does one of our fellow Martin-authorized colleagues feel at ease to follow-up on this? I have been told by a Martin technical rep about a year ago that they were preparing to set shops up with the proper tools and plates. Now that they have what I see as a guitar owner basic kit out, they might have taken steps to stock independent shops up? Or maybe not?

Not that we have been swamped by SC guitars to set up, but still, we like to be able to work on what our customers are bringing in…


Pierre
Guitares Torvisse

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Pierre Castonguay

Hey Buddy hope you are doing great.

We received our kit last week and Dave who owns the business now decided to purchase one. So we paid for ours. With this said I think there is an expectation with Martin that we, certified warranty repair centers are supposed to buy the kit. We were not offered one at no charge.

We already had the torque wrench we had bought previously and we bought a quality wrench. We have a famous client who gigs with an SC and we see it and him every several months so we tooled up for them. We were talking about this yesterday and we think we have serviced SC's four times now over about two years. Not a lot of them yet.

What we needed and wanted the most were the shims.

This is an interesting neck system and it's engineered so that an advanced player or roadie/tech could adjust their own action even at a gig if necessary. It's rather revolutionary in this regard for a company known to be the historic keeper of the proper dovetail...

As mentioned here some months ago when people mentioned Martin tours had been curtailed lots of R&D and new stuff happening at Martin including an effort to step-up and address the gigging musician who needs on the road serviceability, integral electronics and a neck angle adjust that can be done by nearly anyone with just a little instruction perhaps 20 minutes.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Hey Hesh, hope you’re doing great.

I certainly expect to be paying for the shims. The wrench I have held back until now because I have only seen 2 SCs in the shop since they came out, so I'd sure like to get one sooner or later. Guess I'd buy an adjustable one so I can use use it in other designs as well.

Did you receive a full shim pro package such as what Taylor sends or just the little kit with 8 of them? That's what I really want to know…


Pierre
Guitares Torvisse

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Pierre Castonguay

I think we just received 8 of them. I'm doing OK and better every day but it's slow and I backslide occasionally. Thanks for asking.

I picked up an R7 from Elderly and have a video of the FedEx guy letting it face plant on my front porch last week. Thankfully the 7's had beefier necks and it survived with no break so she hangs in my living room now acclimating for a mouth before I set it up. It's a 2022, 8.6lbs, not a scratch on it and it plays well. I snagged it two hours after it was listed on line and was fortunate to get it. To me it's a player so it will be getting ThroBak SL 101+ pups when I get around to it.

An R6 is next up on the list since I'm an R6 too being born also in Michigan in 56.

Back to the shims Dave thought that maybe we can 3D print the shims and print them on demand. I think that Dave wants a 3D printer

I'm home today, bad weather here the last several days it's been all ice but I'll ask Dave today if the only way to get the shims was the kit and get back to you.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Just spoke with Dave he's in the shop I'm home today. He's calling Martin today and believes that we can get the shims only but we are not yet sure and I should know more later today and will get back to you Pierre. He said he bought the kit because the person he was dealing with did not know the answer to his question and we get dealer pricing on the kit so we paid less and I can't say how much less on this public forum.

UPDATE: Dave called Harry V. at Martin and got the scoop. The shims are available to service centers for a little over $8 each. Martin is still working out when the shims will be covered under warranty and when they won't. Just call your service rep at Martin and you should be able to order a full set or two of them.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Thanks Hesh. I'll get in touch with my favorite Martin tech at the factory.

Being a 1957 model-year myself I'm ashamed to admit I still don't own an appropriate R7. But I do stock a R4 (Oxblood, tribute to Jeff), a R6, a R8 and used to own a real 59. So I'm semi-OK.


Pierre
Guitares Torvisse

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Pierre Castonguay

Yeah I'll say!!! Very cool Les Paul collection!!!

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Fast heads-up on the subject. I've exchanged a few emails with Harry at Martin in the last days because two SCs went through the door this week. So I made my move and ordered a pro-level, shop-worthy torque screwdriver. Now I need those shim sets. Harry will provide the needed sizes as a courtesy move and I appreciate that, but that does not make for a very fast turnaround time for a setup.

Of course Harry is not dictating company policies but I wanted to make sure he would understand why this kit isn't very useful to shops and insisted he would pass the information to management. I don't see how we could be required to buy a whole kit every time we would need say a .016 shim. This is nonsense.

I’m more than a bit flabbergasted that this has not been addressed as of today and that those shims remain unavailable as complete sets.

Is anyone having more luck buying shim sets, apart from the end-user kit?


Pierre
Guitares Torvisse

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Pierre Castonguay

Hey buddy yeah Harry needs a view from the front lines and he will change his opinion when he has one he's a great guy and very reasonable. Show this to John Hall and see what he says. John was instrumental (pardon the pun...) in getting Martin to up what they pay for some warranty repair jobs. He knows them, Martin way better than anyone one else here on the OLF and may have some insight.

As repair shops we need what Taylor did provide us with a supply of shims so that we can flip jobs in a day or so.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Thanks Hesh, I've forwarded the discussion to John.


Pierre
Guitares Torvisse

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Pierre Castonguay

I'll ask him too if he can represent our point of view with Martin that we don't need weeks of delays in ordering parts. That defeats the entire purpose of this neck joint that the action/angle can be changed quickly, even on the fly by an experienced owner/player/tech/roady with the need of a neck reset.

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Ann Arbor Guitars