"Opening up" - improving with age - and "Torriefied" etc.

[billgennaro]

Originally Posted by murrmac123

I have my doubts that the tone of pre-war Martins (or post-war either) was achieved by tap-tuning rather than constructing to dimensions.

I could be wrong, of course ...

I believe it was John Greven who wrote that pre-war Martin tops were thinner than those being made today and that they varied a bit in thickness from top to top back then. It is his contention that they were hand made by artisans and that the difference in thickness from top to top was due to the individual properties (stiffness and weight) of each piece of spruce. They may have not been tap tuned though.

Interestingly, he also says that Gibson tops from that era varied in thickness much more than Martin's, apparently because the wood they used varied quite a bit more in stiffness/weight.