Jackson’s Martin

Jackson Browne is her godfather, and was a close friend of her father, Warren. He gave her his Martin J-40 many years ago, and it was used pretty hard as far as I could tell. Lots of wear, finish crack in the top, binding falling off, lots of oxidation throughout, a non-working under saddle pickup and an add-on sound hole pickup that barely made any sound, busted nut, and action that required hulk-like force to fret a note.

On tear down I discovered that the under-saddle pickup was the coveted Highlander IP1, no longer made. OK – so you can buy a good under saddle PUP for under $200, and that’s what any reasonable person would have done. But I couldn’t help myself. Got out the Dremel and soldering iron and went to work cutting the brass tube and chiseling out potting compound to replace the damaged input jack. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked!

After shaping and installing a new nut, the action was still problematic. Turns out, the under saddle wire for the Highlander is so fat that it requires routing the bottom of the bridge biscuit, but that hadn’t been done so the saddle was way too high. Jackson – who’s your guitar tech??!! And why did you give your goddaughter an unplayable guitar?! LOL. Between this guitar’s history, and my (lack of) woodworking skills, I decided the best thing would be to keep the original saddle, not attempt to cut into a perfectly good Martin, and instead shape a new saddle to offer good action. Meanwhile, without the wire under the saddle, the original saddle delivers factory spec action so that’s always going to be an option for any future setup.

After all that, everything dialed in just right and the action is perfect. Ariel’s happy with it, and I’m happy for the project of it – though this project quickly became a labor of love (as many do) and I spent many unbillable, but high quality, hours on the repair. Give it what it needs. I share soul with many of my projects, this was one of them. If you haven’t read it, Shop Class as Soul Craft.