I have arranged to tour the Martin factory Friday. It's their behind the scenes, more private tour they do. Anyone done this? Anything I need to be sure to do or avoid while ther (other than credit overload)? Being a new guitarist I am not aware if I am a "Martin" guy, a "Taylor" guy, a "Larrivee" dude, whatever. Just think it will be a nice time seeing wood turned in to instruments and try a few models I am interested in (00-18, 00-17, 000-28ec, etc.).. let me know if others have done this and have thoughts
Thanks!
Phil
OK, I wanted to check back in and say the tour was very cool. we toured the wood saw mill and prep areas then through the entire build area. The place has that great earthy Mahogany smell. Very woody but not like your pine smell wood shop. There is a lot of machine use from CNC machines for the necks and tight fit parts to robots for some repetitive and polishing work but there is still a lot of hand work on these all through the build process. Of course there are the Custom shop units and Authentic units that are all hand built also. We then spent some time in the Museum and checked out some of the guitars they keep out to play if you are interested. All for $25 a piece and they gave us each a Martin hat (or you can say we got a $25 hat and free tour, whatever). I highly suggest this trip if you are in the area. I am going to try to find a place to plop a few pictures we took.
http://s629.photobucket.com/user/prroach/Martin%20tour/story some photos from the tour
phil
Very cool; thanks for sharing! I knew a guy who did that tour and ended up buying a D-28 there. I don't think he got the hat though. :lol:
Now you need to head a little east in MD and see the PRS factory. ;-)
"Everybody got to elevate from the norm."
We used to get a deal buying it from the factory.....That's gone I believe.....
Too bad, I always wanted to go and getting a deal would seal it....
The price at the factory is map. This is likely due to the agreement they have with dealers. All sales are attributed to a dealer and since that dealer had no say in the deal it would be rather unfair to negotiate less at the factory cutting the dealer margin. Why not negotiate a deal direct with the dealer? I thought there was a factory delivery program so you get best of both, a best price and a factory delivery. Of course you would need to know prior to visiting.
Phil
