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Old 05-29-2023, 02:41 PM
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Bob Womack Bob Womack is offline
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New Set Up Day. While Janinep7 was enjoying her new guitar day with her new HD-28, I took delivery of my HD-28 after it was set up by my luthier, Kenny Marshall.

Last week, my wife and I made the journey across the bay to his shop to pick up one guitar and drop off this one. When I asked Kenny to evaluate the Martin, he started by playing it a little. Now, to understand his response, you must understand that Kenny is a life-long, diehard Martin man. After a little playing he looked over at me with a wry smile and said, "You must be living right. This is quite a guitar!" He was impressed by its powerful, responsive bass and by the way the high strings come cross strongly but are not shrill or thin at all. I described the high end as having "authority" and he agreed. He asked me to play one of my recently-composed fingerstyle pieces on the Taylor K14c that he had just refretted and then on the Martin HD-28. Interestingly, both he and my wife preferred the way the song sounded on the HD-28. Though he was fairly impressed with the Martin's factory fretwork ("I can't complain too much."), Kenny found a couple of strings that were higher than the others, the usual hump at the neck joint that could be eased a little by fret dressing, and a little too much height at the nut. He'll handle all these issues and make his twelve cuts with a file on the fret ends to make them more comfortable. I also asked him to install the end pin. It should be ready in a week or so.



A week later the guitar is back from Kenny and I've got to say that the difference in the HD-28 is spectacular. While it had a great voice at the start, it was a little unwieldy to play because of action height. It was delivered with medium-gauge Martin Lifespan 2.0 strings and I liked its sound with them so much that I decided that I wanted to stay with them. I was hoping that Kenny would be able to make the guitar comfortable for me even with the mediums, and boy, did he ever come through in spades. I've spent a couple of days flatpicking and playing fingerstyle and found that this is one of those cases where a guitar was dramatically transformed by a professional setup. You can sometimes forget just how profound a difference that an excellent setup can make. The guitar is far more comfortable to play than it was when it left. It delivers that big Martin dread sound without much left-hand effort.

Kenny remarked that he was surprised how dry the fingerboard was for a new guitar. He oiled it with his favorite product, Roche Thomas Fingerboard Oil, and that made it look far richer than it had. When he's used it on my other guitars I've notice that it lasted a long, long time. He also did a deep polish on the guitar's finish that just made the instrument glow.

Nice work, Kenny!!!

Bob
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Old 05-29-2023, 03:06 PM
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I'm absolutely delighted for you! Enjoy it and play it with joy and in good health.

Now, about that set up for you... :~)
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