Are The Tops of the Martin Custom Shop 000-28 Aged Authentics thin?

[FreDrummer]

I’ve seen the video clip of the Martin employee who headed up the Custom Shop Authentic Series, when discussing what they did differently with this series, he mentions, “we made the tops a little thinner.” I was doing some work today and put a LED inspection light in the body and noticed - even with my shop lights on - the bracing seemed to be casting a shadow on the top. When I turned the lights off, it looked like this:



I’ve been looking at the insides of a couple of my guitars this week (including a D-28 CAA) and didn’t notice anything like this. IDK, maybe luthiers and repairmen who do this for a living see it all the time, but it surprised me.

FWIW, here is a picture of the guitar (on the far right, with it’s big brother at far left).

[guitarman001]

That is a very cool picture

[raysachs]

I’ve read (probably here or on UMGF) that they’re a bit thin, but I don’t think they’re all THAT thin. I’ve been using Diaddario soundhole tuners in all of my acoustics lately. I have a CEO-7 with a top so thin, the soundhole tuner doesn’t begin to grip it - I have to cut up a medium size pick and use that pick material as a wedge to get the tuner to stay on that top. I also have an 000-28 CAA and the tuner grips that top just fine without any additional material. Those tuners have gripped other acoustics that I’ve owned in the past few years (000-28EC, 000-15M, 000-15SM) with no assistance and the 000-28CAA is seemingly not quite as tight a grip as those, but it grips just fine and it doesn’t grip the CEO-7 top at all with out part of a pick wedged in there. So, anecdotally, at least, the CAA and CA tops are maybe a bit thinner than standard tops, but not as thin as some others…

I’ve never taken a caliper to any of them to actually measure, though…

-Ray