An ancient enterprise must continue innovation and consistent persistence if it wants long-term development. The factory visit is a stepping stone to Martin’s success, letting the world know about Martin and making more people love the guitar. This is the charm of industrial tourism, for enterprises to inject new vitality into the city.
The 183-year-old C.F. Martin Guitar Company is still alive, creating music and wealth and maintaining the highest standards of acoustic guitar.
1. Birth of Legend
The story of Martin Guitar Company begins in 1795, the founder of Martin Guitar Company, Mark, and Co-Listing. Fraedrich. Martin (Christian Fredrick Martin) was born in a local furniture manufacturer’s home; My father was a very skilled carpenter. Christian left home in his teens to learn guitar from a guitarist in Vienna, Austria. When he learned to do the guitar, he returned home to open a guitar manufacturing institute but was strongly opposed by the local union.
Mr.Martin immigrated to the United States in 1833 with his wife and children, opening his guitar-building house in Manhattan’s West End, New York City, the beginning of the Martin guitar legend.
2. Historical development
The Marins were not happy in New York City and moved to Nazareth, Pennsylvania, on the advice of their friends. The Martins found that Nazareth was much like their hometown in Germany, with many German handicraft immigrants. This move is crucial to the development of the Martin Guitar Company.
At Nazareth, Mr.Martin found the guitar style he would make, and those made by Martin had the true standard of this instrument. Today, the Martin factory has become the most important company in Nazareth. Many people in the town spend their lives in the factory, perhaps only for decades. Their lives, family, and factory changes are tightly intertwined.
The Martyns’ guitar production in Nazareth was initially done at their own home. In 1859, the old Martin Guitar factory was officially built. The old factory was continuously rebuilt and expanded until it moved to its new site in 1964.
Martin Guitar Company Historical Pictures
3. Factory visit
The old Martin Guitar Factory is also open to the public, but now it has become a store called About Guitar Making that sells all ages Martin’s new, old guitar accessories to make and repair guitars. A street passing from Martin’s factory is Martin. The home of the Signal family has a visitor service center.
In the Guitar Museum established by Mr.Chris Martin, you see not only the development history of an enterprise but also the century-old history of the guitar, the history of American music, and even the enrichment of human technological progress and social changes over a century.
4. The manufacturing process of making a Martin guitar
In 1964, the factory was officially moved to its current new site. Kristin. F. Martin IV (Chris Martin), now the leader of the Martin Corporation, was appointed chairman and CEO in 1986 after his grandfather died. Today, the Chris Martin name is already a legend. He led the Martin Guitar Company through all kinds of difficulties and continues to grow and grow. The most important thing is always to maintain the quality and stick to the family tradition and honor.
Chris believes that making guitars is always connected to tradition and that warmth and craftsmanship are by no means a gimmick but an irreplaceable power.
The production of a Martin guitar is a very complex process; more than 150 processes, in addition to polishing and cutting, almost all completed by hand; each function is fine to millimeter carpentry, panels, side panels, piano bridge, neck, and other parts, after their exemplary grinding assembly. The factory has more than 600 employees and produces more than 10,000 guitars yearly (some made in Mexico).
Finally, some wood was selected and sent to modern wood processing workshops. Such a clean, neat, orderly wood workshop is rare.
Some wood has been laser-cut into the neck embryo, waiting for further processing.
She has fiery eyes, choosing pairs from piles of wood boards to match the wood texture, direction, and pattern; this process is called bo ok matching to ensure that the backplane pattern is symmetrical, like a book.
Paired panels must be brightly lit to see whether the board has structural flaws.
The transparent plastic panels are designed to help workers spot any flaws in the panels. Pay attention to this wind ear, which facilitates the next production and operation.
The X-type sound beam structure Martin was the first to use for guitar making, and the purpose was to strengthen the panel’s strength so that the panel could be thinner, more vibrating, and more firm. See if your guitar has an X construction.
The famous cutting sound beam (scalloped brace) is worked by hand. This is one of the reasons why cutting beam guitars are more expensive.
The edge. The 28 series is white, while some vintage collections feature slightly yellow ivory trim. It also uses pure wood trim in some series, such as the latest performing artist series (DCPA1, OMCPA1, GCPA1) and OM21 Special et al., elegant.
The aunt smiles and ensures that the guitar has the right neck angle. The wrong angle of the neck will become a fatal quality defect in the guitar’s life. Do you know how to measure and identify the correct angle of the neck?
Martin accounted for the most expensive guitar in the world. On April 2, 2014, at the Genxi auction in Shangdong District, New York, the Martin OM-45 luxury guitar’s final trading price was as high as 2.36 million yuan. A straightforward metaphor is the Rolls-Royce of the guitar.
We listened to the story of financing and listing a few years after establishing too many companies. It is also accustomed to using scale and market value as a measure.
In Martin’s legend, the singularity is that the sound they created is that the traditional European family management model is still effective. In 183, the ups and downs of history are always standing at the forefront of history.
Intersection
Extended Reading:
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