Joe M Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 I've seen several posts on other sites of pictures taken at Martin's factory in Nazareth. Has anyone ever seen pics taken at Gibson in Bozeman? Sure would like to see them if you have any or know where I could find some. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissouriPicker Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 Here you go....There's 4-5 parts to this. The rest are easily available on YOuTube. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duluthdan Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 What impress me the most was the amount of hands on attention in each step of the process. Its a very labor intensive shop floor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe M Posted July 17, 2015 Author Share Posted July 17, 2015 What impress me the most was the amount of hands on attention in each step of the process. Its a very labor intensive shop floor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe M Posted July 17, 2015 Author Share Posted July 17, 2015 Thanks Picker, I'll take a look when I get home later tonight. The main reason I wanted to see them is I visited the Martin factory this spring and I've been told there's quite a difference in the two factories, in both size and hands-on. Bozeman is a little too far for me to make a visit so this should be the next best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe M Posted July 18, 2015 Author Share Posted July 18, 2015 Well, I just got done sitting through all 8 parts of the Gibson tour. Impressive, to say the least. But, it did raise a couple of questions.....one of my local dealers, who has visited both the Martin and Gibson factories, told me there is much more "hands-on" at the Gibson site than at Martin's. Like I said, I have been to the Martin factory and, using the Ren videos as reference, I can't see any more hands-on there than at Nazareth. In fact, from what the videos showed, I thought there was a lot more at Martin. Also, this same guy said that the people working in Bozeman were really laid back and relaxed compared to the folks at Martin. I don't know how more relaxed you can be than the ones I saw at Nazareth, no one seemed to have any sense of urgency and they were all very friendly, chatting up anyone that wanted to in the tour. So, guess my real question is: Is there anyone here that has been to both factories and can give an accurate description of each? EDIT: In case anyone is interested and doesn't want to sit through all the videos, I found a great still shot tour put up by Music Zoo. http://www.themusiczoo.com/blog/2011/factory-tour-gibson-montanas-acoustic-guitars/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombywoof Posted July 19, 2015 Share Posted July 19, 2015 The only factory I have ever been to was in Kalamazoo and that was long after Gibson had left the building. But that is the place that birthed my guitars. The majority of guitars by both Gibson and Martin are not made by hand but hand finished. I would imagine the same amount of hand work is done at both places. But the way I look at it, guitar building is a precise process and the CNC routers and band saws are precision machines which have simply taken over many of the repetitive tasks of the build. But it does take some of the romance out of the whole thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j45nick Posted July 19, 2015 Share Posted July 19, 2015 The only factory I have ever been to was in Kalamazoo and that was long after Gibson had left the building. But that is the place that birthed my guitars. The majority of guitars by both Gibson and Martin are not made by hand but hand finished. I would imagine the same amount of hand work is done at both places. But the way I look at it, guitar building is a precise process and the CNC routers and band saws are precision machines which have simply taken over many of the repetitive tasks of the build. But it does take some of the romance out of the whole thing. "Romance" often means hard, inefficient work when it comes to building things. Where should we draw the line? A guy cutting out each brace individually with a coping saw? Carving a neck by hand with a whittling knife? Even the finest of custom shops uses as much technology as they can afford, and that's not a bad thing, in general. I guarantee you that if modern tools such as CNC five-axis mills had been around in 1900, both Martin and Gibson would have been using them. To my mind, both of these iconic American companies are doing a great job of producing some of the best guitars in their long, long histories, perhaps more consistently excellent than ever. Both strike a balance between hand work and semi-automation. Based on the videos I have seen, they do a good job of that, and I still see them as largely hand-made products, making efficient use of modern production machinery, the human eye, and the human hand. If you took away a lot of the precision machinery, you might double the cost of the guitars, and they probably wouldn't be any better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombywoof Posted July 19, 2015 Share Posted July 19, 2015 "Romance" often means hard, inefficient work when it comes to building things. Where should we draw the line? A guy cutting out each brace individually with a coping saw? Carving a neck by hand with a whittling knife? Even the finest of custom shops uses as much technology as they can afford, and that's not a bad thing, in general. I guarantee you that if modern tools such as CNC five-axis mills had been around in 1900, both Martin and Gibson would have been using them. To my mind, both of these iconic American companies are doing a great job of producing some of the best guitars in their long, long histories, perhaps more consistently excellent than ever. Both strike a balance between hand work and semi-automation. Based on the videos I have seen, they do a good job of that, and I still see them as largely hand-made products, making efficient use of modern production machinery, the human eye, and the human hand. If you took away a lot of the precision machinery, you might double the cost of the guitars, and they probably wouldn't be any better. Damn straight. I could not agree with you more. That was my point. The CNC machines bring with them a degree of precision never seen in the guitar building world. And if they built guitars today like they did in the 1930s and 1940s, they would cost a small fortune. No doubt, you take any three J-45s made before around 1950 and you will see braces with long tapers, braces with shorter tapers, some bracing that has deep scallops and others which look to have no scalloping at all. The braces in my 1942 J-50 look like they were whittled with a dull boy scout knife. Basically a part was finished when somebody felt it looked close enough. My point about the "romance" had absolutely nothing to do with sound or feel. But every time I look at my J-50 I cannot help but think of the untrained Gibson lady who apparently did not know the top halves were supposed to go together a certain way. Then I think of the guy down the line who saw the guitar and shouted Whoa. Don't care that it is a J-50, we can't have it leave looking like this. Go shoot a burst on that top. But what really distinguishes the guitar is it's very un-Gibson like low end. In the words of the guy who fixed it up it would make any pre-War Martin D-28 run for cover. Just a quirk of this particular guitar. We will never see that kind of stuff again. But it does endear the guitar to me that much more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j45nick Posted July 19, 2015 Share Posted July 19, 2015 Damn straight. I could not agree with you more. That was my point. The CNC machines bring with them a degree of precision never seen in the guitar building world. And if they built guitars today like they did in the 1930s and 1940s, they would cost a small fortune. No doubt, you take any three J-45s made before around 1950 and you will see braces with long tapers, braces with shorter tapers, some bracing that has deep scallops and others which look to have no scalloping at all. The braces in my 1942 J-50 look like they were whittled with a dull boy scout knife. Basically a part was finished when somebody felt it looked close enough. My point about the "romance" had absolutely nothing to do with sound or feel. But every time I look at my J-50 I cannot help but think of the untrained Gibson lady who apparently did not know the top halves were supposed to go together a certain way. Then I think of the guy down the line who saw the guitar and shouted Whoa. Don't care that it is a J-50, we can't have it leave looking like this. Go shoot a burst on that top. But what really distinguishes the guitar is it's very un-Gibson like low end. In the words of the guy who fixed it up it would make any pre-War Martin D-28 run for cover. Just a quirk of this particular guitar. We will never see that kind of stuff again. But it does endear the guitar to me that much more. The downside to the new construction methods is that fewer guitars may end up with unique voices like yours. With vintage Gibsons, finding a stunning outlier is what we dream about but don't often find, The new ones are predictably and consistently good, but maybe the truly great ones are as rare as ever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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