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warning to our Members

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 4:22 pm
by tippie53
I seldom will discuss this on the forum but it is time I have to make a statement. Many sites are out there selling prints and templates.

There is a website that is selling blue prints claiming to be Martin prints on the Georgia Luthiers site.

Martin wants to get contact info to shut them down.
They claim the prints are like Martin when they are not even close.

Please do not buy the plans assuming they are accurate to Martin. They are not

Re: warning to our Members

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 7:12 pm
by phavriluk
Thanks for the heads-up. My own experience with that business has been negative. Took my money for a printed manual and then neither delivered nor responded to inquiries. The business doesn't answer the phone (leastways any time I've called). Their merchandise, when I last attempted to purchase some hardware, was out of stock. All that was for sale was their electronic downloads of various stuff. This was a year ago and earlier, so I cannot comment on what happens now, but my experience was that I am not going to try and find out.

Re: warning to our Members

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 2:06 pm
by Phil
I did get one set of plans from them (before I knew better) about 2 years ago for a GS 12 string which I haven't gotten around to building. Good to have a heads up on the accuracy of the plans! Are there places you CAN recommend getting plans from? I can think of Stewmac, LMI, or GAL. Any others?

Re: warning to our Members

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 6:35 pm
by tippie53
there are many you mentioned the ones I use.
Dom Macrostie
does a fair job so if you see his name they are decent.

My best advice is to learn the theory of the brace pattern and design your own or copy off actual guitars.
I have had my tracings off old Martins and Gibson's that came through my shop digitized and offer them as templates.

Re: warning to our Members

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 9:24 pm
by Diane Kauffmds
Unfortunately, I have another warning for our members.

I ran across a plethora of EBay listings for necks, all 24.9 or 25.4" scale. The seller is careful not to say that they're Martin, although I've seen them described as "Martin style".

What really caught my eye were the cheap prices. You definitely get what you pay for.

Some looked odd to me, so I went into several of the listings, only to find problems in every single one. They look like rejects. Some have abnormally wide, or slightly off center, truss rod channels, the worst is cracked and glued for the entire length. Many of the defects are difficult to see, some more obvious.

The seller's name is woodygoodies, and s/he is located in Bethlehem, PA.

Necks can be difficult enough to set for a new builder, without having the additional problem of trying to overcome the problems posed by actual flaws in the neck itself.

Re: warning to our Members

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2017 3:07 pm
by Kevin Waldron
We at "Waldron Instruments, Inc." still make and offer all kinds of instrument templates.

We do not sell plans only templates I think you will find our templates very accurate and reliable although we are careful to say similar to such and such instrument we do not want to be in a position to say "like". Most necessary information will be printed on our templates with a laser.... hopefully all the information for a particular part will be on the template that you ordered for building the instrument.

We through the years have done our homework and try and remain accurate to the models we reproduce although know-one is perfect. I know longer personally am active in the instrument business but do have an individual running our business that is very knowledgeable about what we sell and if questions arise he can always call for clarification. In addition we no longer do custom work or additional instruments beyond what we offer at present as I personally no longer have time to draw instruments. We do in addition have many other offerings in 3D. Most of these will not appear anywhere and you would need to ask if we possibly might have such and such........realizing that 3D is not so much needed for the acoustic guitar market but other instruments such as F-5 Mando, Various Violins, Electric Guitars, etc..

Including a web link to our master file of 2D plans that we have( .....(it is in PDF format and may take a minute to come up...... we may not offer a template for all items shown)

http://www.waldronmusic.com/guitarforsell.php?pid=76

Contact us if we can help.

Blessings,

Kevin Waldron

Re: warning to our Members

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2017 7:01 pm
by tippie53
yes to Waldron Instruments.
Kevin runs a good operation and does indeed provide solid customer service.
all the sponsors here are people that I personally use or personally know.