Uncle Joe's Martin
by John Whiteside

Introduction

 

Woodworking, pursued mindfully, opens doors to new experiences, realizations, and, most importantly, to meeting new people. Since I took up guitarmaking a number of years ago, the rewards in all these areas have been unparalleled. One of the very best experiences has been to get to know Pat DiBurro of Exeter, NH. Pat is arguably one of the best acoustic guitar repairers in the United States.

The meeting happened by serendipity. My sister-in-law had come into possession of her deceased Uncle Joe’s vintage C. F. Martin guitar which was in terrible shape. The bridge was broken and the top warped upwards to an astonishing degree. The body was cracked in many places and, of course, it was totally unplayable. She wondered if I could do anything to fix it.

Coincidentally, guild member Brooks Tanner mentioned to me that he had met a luthier from Exeter, NH who had expressed some interest in our Guild Luthiers’ group. So I called Pat and asked if he would be willing to present at one of our meetings. He said yes and thought people might be interested to see a demonstration of re-fretting. Guitars have metal frets that are press-fit into slots cut in the fingerboard. Over time these frets can wear down and require replacement. Pat made the interesting comment that he probably did more fretting in a week than the average builder does in a year, to say nothing of re-fretting. I was curious to see how re-fretting would work. The parts of the frets embedded in the fingerboard (which is often hard, brittle ebony) have tangs (barbs) and it seemed that trying to pull them out would tear out parts of the fingerboard.

Also, I thought it would be interesting to ask Pat to evaluate Uncle Joe’s Martin during the meeting and give a judgment as to what work was needed. He asked for the serial number, looked it up, and we were both surprised and pleased to find the guitar had been made in 1930 and was one of less than a hundred guitars of that model made in that year.

The meeting came around and was well attended by both guild luthiers and also members of our sister organization, the New England luthiers. To put it briefly, Pat’s demonstration had us spellbound (photo 1), including those members who are themselves professional repair luthiers. In his introduction, Pat made a remarkable comment — If you are a guitar maker, sooner or later you will become a guitar repairer.

This seemingly simple comment has really stuck in my mind. Is it true of furnituremakers? Some years ago a lady asked the Period Furniture Group if someone could repair the leg of a Georgian occasional table. The leg had been shattered into fragments during a move. At the meeting when the group viewed it, it was clear that repairing a shattered leg was a completely different proposition from building a leg. In fact, only a handful of members had any idea how to proceed. Fortunately expert restorer Harvey Best stepped forward, and undertook the complex repair to the delight of the owner.

Pat’s comment leads an interesting line of thought. As a builder, do I need to build in such a way that repairs will be easier to make? How many of us build our furniture, that is the pieces we hope will last for 100 years, in this way?

In any event, for the re-fretting demonstration, Pat had brought one of his customer’s guitars that needed a fret job. As we all watched, he heated a fret with a soldering gun and then melted solder over it. The molten solder, he explained, distributes the heat quickly and evenly throughout the fret and in turn to the surrounding ebony, rendering it soft. Then quickly, using a tool called a fret puller, which like a small nipper with the face ground flat, due to the softening effect of the heat he was able to simply pull the fret straight up and out with no damage to the surrounding wood.

The method aside, it was astonishing to watch the economy of motion, the certainty and quiet confidence with which Pat executed this job on what was, after all, an actual customer’s expensive guitar. I have never in my life seen a craftsperson more comfortable with his tools. It was the same with pounding the new frets in with a fret hammer. Each blow perfectly and accurately placed, no hesitation, no wasted movement.

Next Pat examined Uncle Joe’s Martin. Using mirrors to examine the inside, he determined that several braces were loose and the bridge plate was cracked and needed replacement. Outside there were numerous cracks in the back, sides, and also the soundboard. And of course the bridge itself was cracked. Also over the years the neck had angled up, rendering the instrument unplayable, and so it needed a neck reset. Again, Pat had no hesitation, no uncertainty. He looked over the guitar in the manner of one who knew exactly what he was looking for and explained his observations with assurance.

After this meeting, I asked Pat to restore the Martin, but with me watching and taking photographs of the procedures, the idea being to write this article. He readily agreed and I happily spent the next several months visiting Pat in his Exeter shop on a weekly basis, watching both the Martin restoration and also the repair and restoration of many other guitars, and taking over 1000 photographs. It was truly the opportunity of a lifetime. It offered the chance to study a master craftsman for a long time and to learn a great deal about guitar repair.

But there was much more. Obviously Pat plays all the guitars that come into the shop — both before and after repair. I got to hear dozens of guitars, to really hear what they sound like and what distinguished the great from the mediocre. I got to hear the difference between factory models and custom-made guitars. I would always ask Pat what he thought of the sound of such and such guitar and over time venture my own opinions. This amounted to training my ear because by the end of the adventure we were in significant agreement about the sound quality.

To make a long story short, there is little correlation, maybe even a negative correlation, between appearance and sound quality. We played visually gorgeous guitars, their fingerboards dripping with mother-of-pearl inlay, that sounded, for want of a better word, dead. In fact the best sounding guitar of the whole episode, and certainly the most humble looking, was, you guessed it, Uncle Joe’s Martin. Pat says one of the reasons is the quality of the wood and the craftsmanship from those days, but also he speculates that over the course of decades the sap in the soundboard hardens and crystallizes, giving a sound quality that is simply not obtainable with new wood.

But there was even more to be learned than this. Pat is a member of a rare breed — a professional woodworker who works alone, who loves what he does, and who is able to make a comfortable living doing it. How does he do this? Wouldn’t many of us like to know? How many of us have this as a dream? How is such a thing possible?

The rest of this article deals with Pat’s repair skills as evidenced in the repair of the 1930 Martin. Of his skills and experience there is no question. But that is only part of the story. The other part is self discipline, people skills, and business acumen. So first a few words about these.

Take self discipline. During the winter, Pat works seven days a week. As many as two dozen guitars may come through his shop in a single week. Why so many in winter? Because people leave them in over-heated, unhumidified conditions and the tops crack. How to deal with such volume of repairs? — by excellent organization of the workflow. Monday is re-fretting day, Tuesday is neck-resetting day, Wednesday is crack-repair day, and so on. Early mornings are spent refinishing at a separate location, allowing the main part of the day to be spent in the shop greeting customers.

Does the constant flow of customers interfere with the work? Amazingly, no. Pat has trained himself to continue with his work at the same time as he talks engagingly with people. Earlier in his career, working at the big box retailer Guitar Center, his repair station was in the main sales area and so he got used to working and relating to people at the same time. Even today, he travels to guitar clinics, put on by the big name manufacturers Martin and Taylor (for whom he is a factory-certified repairer) in various cities where people bring their guitars for on-the-spot evaluation and repair. You have got to be good at relating to your public in that kind of work.

What about business acumen? For one thing, Pat’s shop is highly customer oriented. It is just off of Water Street in Exeter with windows that overlook the Exeter River. The space is light and airy. Comfortable chairs and a bowl of snacks are provided. The walls are decorated with guitar soundboards. Pat puts his tools away after every single operation, resulting in a clean workspace. Truly his shop is a pleasant place to visit.

Pat would love to build guitars. But he ran the numbers and could not find a way to make a good living doing it. Repair is where the money is. Does that mean he has to work on instruments he himself would not choose to play? Of course. But part of his secret is that he does it cheerfully and happily. By the way, his dream for retirement is devoting himself to making guitars.

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