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Old 09-26-2012, 05:48 PM
kydave kydave is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: A Louisville transplant in Silicon Valley
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I'll share some information about customs.

I think that some people prefer the sound of mahogany, but dislike that the Martin mahogany guitars are the plain Janes of the lineup. So occasionally Martin has made (and more often customs have been ordered) guitars with fancier appointments, but using mahogany back/side wood).

I suspect that the person the OP spoke to maybe looked at the custom spec sheet re: the D-28 reference. On that, they have to start somewhere with an existing model. It can work out to be more cost effective to do it certain ways than others. So starting with a D-28 and customizing it in the ways you mentioned (including changing wood) might have worked out to be less expensive than starting with a D-18 and adding things.

I'll give a for instance: Years ago, I ordered a 14 fret 00 size guitar in spruce over rosewood. Martin never made that. You'd think that starting with a 00-18 and changing out the mahogany back/sides to rosewood would be the way to go. But on my build sheet, the starting point was "HD-28". Because most of my design was like an HD-28 only in 00 size.
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