What's happened to my Martin then

[GilmourD]

Ok, have taken some photos. Hard to capture, but hopefully this gives a bit more context?

For reference action was around 2.25mm when I received guitar, so it's risen 0.75mm in 4 months.

Bridge saddle height



No curve at bridge


Slight daylight at edge


High action

Did you happen to use that straightedge running parallel to the strings? Has the guitar formed a little potbelly?

[DaddyDom]

My 2013 00015-M needed a neck reset two years ago and it's well out of guarantee. Then I googled Martin neck reset. Wow, welcome to the rabbit hole.
Look at your fingerboard where the neck joins the body and see if you have what my luthier called a ski-jump heading towards the soundhole. It was very clear when he showed me.
If you have usually trusted your luthier in the past, then I bet he is right this time.

Martin does not make guitars that can only live in ideal conditions. No country has perfect conditions, if they export to the UK, their manufacture must be able to withstand UK weather. Use your guarantee 1000%. Chances are they won't even question it or may replace the guitar.

Good luck,
DD

[sal paradise]

I bought a 2nd hand 000-15m a few months ago with sky-high action.

It’ll be going to my local luthier soon. Will report back here if there’s any fuckery as part of my request to have action slammed.

[welshywelsh]

Ok so I've gotten in touch with the guitar shop and they've said to pop in when I'm next in the area and a tech can get it "back to being superb".

As I'm 3 hours away and I think everyone agrees a setup isn't going to sort it I've replied to this effect. No reply yet, let's hope this doesn't turn into a saga....

[DesmondWafers]

For what it's worth, my D18 has about 1mm of play between the winter and summer months. It may be worth tossing a few desiccants into the case and seeing if it drops after a week or so.

When measuring directly against the front of the bridge, how far from the top is the low E string? Martin uses several different bridge heights depending on the neck angle, so a slightly shallow neck angle combined with a thick bridge can make the ruler-on-fingerboard test less accurate.

[welshywelsh]

For what it's worth, my D18 has about 1mm of play between the winter and summer months. It may be worth tossing a few desiccants into the case and seeing if it drops after a week or so.

When measuring directly against the front of the bridge, how far from the top is the low E string? Martin uses several different bridge heights depending on the neck angle, so a slightly shallow neck angle combined with a thick bridge can make the ruler-on-fingerboard test less accurate.

I've put the D'addario humidity packs in that keep it at 50% humidity for the past 2 weeks and no change whatsoever sadly.

Guitar shop has responded. Will be collected next week and returned to Martin for their appraisal.

[Larry Mal]

Am I correct that you are in the UK? So they'll get the guitar from there and ship it back to Pennsylvania?

I hope they just send out another guitar.

[svan]

There are a few reasons why a guitar might need a neck reset but the normal one is compression in the sides. Essentially, the wood in the sides gets compressed by the pressure from the neck joint and that distorts the shape of the sides causing the angle of the neck to change relative to the bridge.

Unless you build a guitar out of something uncompressable like carbon fibre there is no way to prevent it, and as every piece of wood is different there's not a way to predict when and how much it will happen. My mandolin was sitting in a cupboard under string tension for about 100 years and the neck angle is still basically perfect (though that may be a happy accident from the arch sinking to an equal degree to the sides compressing), whereas a guitar built by a world class luthier I own needed one after about two years.

There is a limit to the amount of compression the wood will do, so usually once the neck reset has been done once it will never need doing again.

I would expect that Martin would repair it under warranty, but things are always complicated by being outside the US so really comes down to how the dealer wants to handle it.

This channel is excellent for understanding why guitars develop problems and from the selection of videos i've watched high quality ways to repair them:

https://www.youtube.com/@twoodfrd

[welshywelsh]

Guitar collected and on its way back to the shop and then onto Martin.

Let's see what happens next...

[øøøøøøø]

Yes, do not be shy about getting this sorted

A neck reset after 40-50 years is normal maintenance, but not after 4-5 months. Not at all

Good luck!

[seenoevil II]

I wonder what the neck relief was. Wouldn't matter that much either way. I feel like a martin's neck shouldn't deflect that much under string tension no matter the humidity.

I'm curious what will become of this guitar should they send you a replacement. Will try repair it and resell it? Or just write it off as a loss and toss it in the furnace?

[welshywelsh]

Guitar due back with me tomorrow.

Martin adjusted the truss rod and gave it a setup and it's apparently all sorted, which is what I thought was needed when I took it to the tech.

Feedback was that guitar and case were "damp". The house is always between 60-70% humidity in winter, sometimes a bit more on super wet days, because I live in Wales, so there's not much I can do about that. I did have a dehumidifier pack in the guitar case but I've been advised that actually, leaving the guitar out so air can circulate will be better.

So yeah, I'll see what arrives tomorrow...

[DesmondWafers]

Good to hear. It's certainly annoying, but I deal with the same issue on my D-18 with two different saddles. Also, while I've found humidipaks to be ok at humidifying, they're pretty piss poor at de-humidifying. I've yet to find a decent dehumidifying solution besides an actual room dehumidifier.

[Larry Mal]

Guitar due back with me tomorrow.

Martin adjusted the truss rod and gave it a setup and it's apparently all sorted, which is what I thought was needed when I took it to the tech.

Feedback was that guitar and case were "damp". The house is always between 60-70% humidity in winter, sometimes a bit more on super wet days, because I live in Wales, so there's not much I can do about that. I did have a dehumidifier pack in the guitar case but I've been advised that actually, leaving the guitar out so air can circulate will be better.

So yeah, I'll see what arrives tomorrow...

Well, keep us posted. This situation is weird because I find it hard to believe that the tech you took it to in the first place didn't think of his truss rod wrench.

Maybe the top bellied more than was known in the Welsh humidity, it gets plenty humid in Pennsylvania, though. 70% in Nazareth right now, it's raining there.

Anyway, it'll probably be good when you get it back, my question will be does it stay that way and you can't keep shipping it back to Nazareth. I think you'll probably need to dedicate some kind of room with a dehumidifier in it, I don't think highly of those packs, I've heard of them over saturating and leaking into guitar cases and bodies, I'd never use them.

[welshywelsh]

Well it returned home yesterday, back at 2mm action height and is playing great.

Just given it another spin today and action is 2.25mm already. Maybe I mis-read the measurements yesterday.... I'm not sure at this point if I'm maybe just being driven insane

I'm dehumidifying room plus have the packs in the case so it's perfect conditions now at 53%.

If the action changes in these conditions I don't know what to do.