I was really excited a few months ago when the book Inventing the American Guitar: The Pre-Civil War Innovations of C.F. Martin and His Contemporaries came out. I was very excited to see it because i had seen other early guitar by C.F. Martin had made in books and in a George Gruhn video (George Gruhn is one of the most simultaneously fascinating and mind numbingly boring people I have ever seen, and one of the foremost dealers of vintage guitars and creepy lizards in the world )

Here's George Gruhn talking about his horrifying snakes

But the early martin guitar's always stood out to me. I really like the Viennesse style with the marquerty covered, clock key necks and the tight waisted friendly looking bodies. I would often visit Robert Corwin's great page on early martin called conveniently enough http://www.earlymartin.com/ and look in wonder and awe of the amazing old world craftsmanship.

So I was all amped up and ready and was first to get it from the library, it made me wish they still stamped those little cards in the backs of library books. The book was very in depth and included great two page spreads of a ton of incredible guitars built by C.F. Martin and other great guitar makers of the period.

here is a lo res google image page from the book

I was really inspired by how different all of the guitars were from one another. Almost nothing seems standard, sizes, shapes, construction, decoration, Martin was a great experimenter.

So I decided to make a little nylon string guitar inspired by some rough dimensions and some of the aesthetics that I found really exciting in these guitars.

Click through this little gallery to see the in process pictures

So the pieces are all coming together for this one. Stay tuned for more updates.