In 1979, I bought a custom Martin OM (Orchestra Model) 45 guitar from the Music Emporium, then located in Cambridge, on which I spent, quite literally, everything that I had saved from my first five years of work, which amounted to $2300. I’d gone in to look for a Martin D-28, prepared to spend up to $800. Back then, $800 was a large chunk of change, and I sort of girded my loins and my wallet just thinking about dropping that much. Before very long, my eye was grabbed by this gorgeous instrument hanging in a special glass case, with mother of pearl inlay around the edges, on the fretboard, and on the headstock, which was so fancy it didn’t even say “CF Martin,” but instead had a pearl design in the shape of a flower. Within fifteen minutes, it was clear to me that I had no choice in the matter: I was not walking out of that store without that guitar.
Now, thirty two years later, I can only describe my relationship with this thing as alternately complicated, challenging, joyous, heartbreaking, and frustrating. There have been enough good moments to keep me from killing it, or selling it. It can still thrill me, and still drive me nuts.
As it’s aged, it’s developed a variety of problems, some serious, some minor. A common pattern over the years has been that just when I’m really getting into playing it a lot, and enjoying it a lot, and we’re getting along really well, it needs to go to the shop--sometimes for a long, long time. The guy who sold it to me, and who still runs the Music Emporium, recently told me that he had purchased five of these custom jobs back in 1979, and mine seemed to have turned out to be the “problem child.” Nonetheless, in my heart of hearts, I know I’m committed to our continuing to try to work things out together. I’m in it ‘til death do us part.
Two years ago last fall, I began to notice that the guitar’s top was bulging, or “bellying” slightly just below the bridge. A guitar top is an extremely thin sheet of wood, usually spruce, that is braced underneath in various ways to keep it from warping, or “bellying.” The higher-grade the wood, with the least amount of bracing possible, produces the best sound, and it is the top of a guitar that is the most important element in sound quality, depth, and texture. Many people swear that good guitars sound better and better as the years pass, because the wood absorbs the vibrations produced by hitting the strings. It learns the music.
It isn’t all that unusual in an older instrument to have the top bulge slightly--there is an awful lot of pressure on the top, and the best ones are as thin as they can be; but I was bugged by what was happening to my top, because just a year earlier I’d had the Music Emporium’s then-repairmen add to, and strengthen, the bracing beneath it, a fix that should have lasted a long time. With a heavy heart and a bad attitude, I lugged it back to the Music Emporium, now located in Lexington. Joe, who now pretty much runs the place, studied it for a while, frowning all the while, and finally recommended that they ship it off to the new repair shop they were using, owned and run by a guy named Pat DiBurro, in Exeter, New Hampshire. Joe spoke of Pat DiBurro in sort of reverential terms, like he wasn’t just a repairman, but a recognized genius, a guitar-repair prodigy.
Since I’ve got plenty of time these days, and am always looking for adventure, I decided that rather than sending it off to Exeter, I’d call Pat, introduce myself, and see if I could drive up and meet him, and talk to him about what was going on, why it was going on, and what, if anything, could be done about it. I was intrigued by the idea of meeting a prodigy of any kind, and it always feels better to have this problem child of mine in the hands of someone whom I at least have met, rather than a complete stranger.
Exeter is a small, excruciatingly quaint little town just over the border from Massachusetts, best known as the home of Phillips-Exeter Academy. In the center of town there is a bandstand in the middle of a little roundabout, and the short main street is filled with bakeries, bookstores, an old-time hardware store, and a definite old-fashioned vibe. My favorite sight was the old Ioka Theater, which no longer shows movies, but still has an old, classic marquis protruding over the street. On my first trip, one side of the marquis read “Happy Birthday Mom. You da Bomb,” and the other side read “Public Meeting at High School: Budget Presentation.” The lettering was exactly the kind formerly used to advertise movies.
The place I was looking for is located right off the town center, in the basement of an old brick building that may once have been a mill of some kind, right on the bank of the river that runs through town. It would have been easy to miss the modest but classy handcrafted wooden sign reading “DiBurro Guitar Repair” hanging over the door unless you’re looking for it, which I was. Pat DiBurro is the sole owner, proprietor, and employee, and his small shop, while not messy or disordered, is filled with a jumble of guitars, pieces of guitars, clamps, and tools of all kinds. His workbench faces the entrance, so as soon as I entered, lugging my troublesome partner, there was Pat, working away on someone’s guitar.
He’s a tall, friendly guy who seems both intense and casual at the same time, and whose every gesture, comment, and expression seems deliberate. Certainly not overly-talkative, but not withholding. Careful. Thoughtful. Picture in your mind your stereotype of a slightly--but only slightly--eccentric computer genius, which he is not. He’s a guitar genius.
After a little small talk, he said “okay, let’s see what we’re dealing with.” I handed him my guitar, and instantly felt this guy knew what he’s doing more than anyone I’ve ever met. He didn’t handle it gingerly, or delicately, or cautiously, but rather expertly, with supreme confidence. He looked at from various angles, spun it around to look at the back, held it up horizontally and looked at the front and back from one end to the other, all in quick, sure movements. Then he flipped his magnifying goggles down and studied the bridge intently, after which he held a small mirror--the kind that dentist’s use--inside the instrument so he could look through the soundhole and seewhat was happening inside. The whole examination didn’t take more than three minutes, but I could tell that in those three minutes he’d learned everything about my guitar that anyone could possibly know. Didn’t say a word the whole time.
When he’d finished, he looked at me and uttered a sentence that sent a chill down my spine, and still rings in my ears. A sentence that no man my age ever wants to hear, to say nothing of a man who owns an expensive guitar. He said “I think the problem is that your wood is tired.”
I fought the impulse to object, in the strongest possible terms, and instead asked him what he meant. What the hell he meant. He explained that all guitar tops behave differently, and have different lifespans. Some last seemingly forever, and some, like mine--even though it’s made of the highest grade spruce--just sort of wear out after a while, and lose the ability (tensile strength?) to maintain perfect flatness, even with a lot of bracing underneath. When your wood is tired, no amount of trusswork will help. So, he said, I needed a new top, which is a pretty major operation, especially for a guitar with all kinds of fancy inlay around the edges that has to be carefully removed, then replaced.
I was really inclined to have Pat do the work, whatever the cost, rather than ship the thing back to Martin and wait forever for the work to be done in a factory, even a famously high-quality one. Martin does have an impressive lifetime guarantee on its instruments, but I was less concerned about money than about getting the best and most personalized attention for my guitar. Interestingly, he said that he thought Martin still did outstanding repair work, and he had no reservations about sending it to them. The main advantage would be that they should cover at least part, if not all, of the roughly $1800 cost. Though he is a certified Martin repairman, and is reimbursed by the company for his repairs, he said that with a job this extensive, they’d want to look at it themselves, rather than allow anyone else to do the work on their tab. If, for example, they concluded that the problems my top was having were a result of careless maintenance or some traumatic event, they might put up a fuss about covering the work under the warranty.
So we did send it off to Nazareth, Pennsylvania, home of Martin guitars, which ultimately led to a long series of conversations with them, the end result of which was they agreed to cover a thousand dollars, leaving me pay eight hundred dollars. Too long a story to go into, but the guitar was in their hands for over four months, during which time I sulked and fumed and fretted. Part of the reason for the four months is that they have a backlog of instruments they’re working on, but another part is that they are reluctant to ship instruments back from the factory in the winter months, when there is any chance of extremely cold weather, which guitars don’t like.
When I finally got it back, though, it looked and sounded wonderful to me, and I was back in love. To a serious player with a finely-tuned ear, there are subtle qualities and textures that are always lost when an original top is replaced, as the original top is always the best top, to say nothing of the fact that over three decades, some would assert that my top had learned and absorbed the music played on it--even if the music played on it had only been played by a rank amateur. Also, the value of a guitar, at least a good guitar, declines precipitously when a top is replaced. The last serious appraisal I’d gotten a few years back put the value at somewhere between $8,000 and $10,000, but now it is undoubtedly much, much less. Since I don’t have a finely tuned-ear, and since--as I’ve mentioned--I’m staying in this marriage to the end, any loss in sound quality, or resale value, were just theoretical, and I was, for a couple of years, happy as a clam, and had my problem child back in my arms, looking and sounding sweet.
But true happiness fades, and cracks tend to develop in even the deepest relationships. And, speaking of cracks, two months ago, while changing the strings, I noticed--to my horror--that there was a very small crack, running from the bottom of the bridge down to the very bottom of the guitar. It was almost unnoticeable, but upon close examination was clearly not just a crack in the finish, but in the wood itself. This, I thought, shouldn’t be happening in a nearly new top, and gave rise to thoughts of just flogging the thing on eBay, or even pulling a Pete Townshend and just smashing the thing to bits.
Instead, I called Pat, and my guitar and I drove back to Exeter to see what he thought was going on. He performed the same efficient examination I’d seen before, and said that the problem was clearly that the wood had gotten too dry. Keeping a guitar properly humidified is essential to its health, and doing so takes a lot of effort in New England, where everything dries out in the wintertime. I’d been more careful than ever about putting small humidifying devices in the case, but realized that my habit was to take it out to play it in the morning, say, and leave it out of the case until I played it again later in the afternoon, which was enough exposure to dry air that it had gotten thirsty, as Pat said. Some guitars can deal with dryness better than others, but my delicate little flower developed a crack.
On this visit, though, I got into a much longer conversation with Pat about his craft and background, which was really fascinating. He is a man who absolutely loves what he does, and has developed such a reputation for impeccable work that he is able to strictly control what instruments he takes in, and what work he wants to do. One of the very top makers of high-grade guitars these days--arguably, and in Pat’s mind unquestionably, better even than Martin--is a company called Collings, located in Austin, Texas. (As a side note, two months ago I spent a lot of money on a new Collings guitar, undoubtedly a subconscious demonstration to my Martin that it should stop taking me for granted. A little affair on the side, you know.)
Anyway, Pat told me that he’d been very impressed by Collings instruments once he started studying them, and had arranged for a friend in the business put him in contact with the Collings people to see if they’d certify him to do repair work. They met him, talked to his references, and said they’d send him a few guitars to see how he did with them, then make a decision. Instead, he told them that he didn’t want to work on their guitars unless he could spend a full week at their shop, studying the way they build guitars, start to finish. He said he couldn’t really work on an instrument unless he had actually observed every step, every piece, every choice of glue, every detail of construction, every aspect of design. He drove down to Austin, got a room in a motel, and spent ten hours a day in their workshop for a full week. They told him no one had ever done that before. He has done the same thing at the Martin factory, and also at the Taylor factor, another maker of good guitars.
As a result of all of this, the company decided to stop doing all serious repair work at their factory, and instead have anointed Pat as the sole certified Collings Guitar technician and repairman in the nation. He’s also Martin’s go-to guy, as well as Taylor’s. These are the only instruments he works on, and he further regulates his work-flow by having an established policy of only answering his phone every second week. On the alternate week, you just have to leave a message. When I saw him last, I mentioned that his wooden sign, “DiBurro Guitar Repair,” was so faded as to be almost unreadable, and could use a little sprucing up. He said “I don’t know. I wish it was more faded.” Now that’s a true indication of somebody so good that he thinks of ways of getting less business.
To begin to end this, let’s get back to the crack in my top. Pat had the guitar for a little over a month, and called me last week to say it was ready, so I drove upto Exeter a couple of days ago, on a bright, sunny morning. Each time I go, our conversations get more interesting--but always and only about guitars-- and this time he told me in exquisite detail what he’d done to deal with the crack--which is no longer visible at all, even when you look closely.
First, he made sure that it had been completely and properly humidified by leaving it in a special room for three weeks, with a higher than usual relative humidity. Guitars need at least forty per cent relative humidity to be healthy, and mine, as he’d noted, was extremely thirsty. He said he couldn’t work on it until the dryness problem had been solved, so it sat there for maybe two weeks letting the wood absorb just the right amount of moisture to allow him to begin.
The next step was to gently reach through the sound hole, and press up on the top from underneath to open the crack enough to add a glue mixture that he’s concocted, or invented. Then he pressed it back so it was completely flat, and put it in a special clamp that he’s built for just such circumstances, a clamp that both presses down to keep the crack closed, and laterally to press it together.
After the clamping procedure was complete, and the glue was dry, he reached downthrough the soundhole (which is so small it’s hard to get a hand through, let alone a hand that could work on anything), and--operating entirely blindly, and by feel alone--affixed three “spruce cleats,” evenly spaced along the underside of the crack, to pull it, and hold it, together. Finally, he lightly sanded and then refinished the area where the crack had been.
Though I was awestruck just hearing about the process he described, for Pat this was obviously a very minor repair. One he could, so to speak, do with his eyes closed. From my end, observing him simply handle the guitar and imagining him screwing in spruce cleats by feel in a tiny space was, again so to speak, like a pig lookin’ at a wristwatch. I’dactually love to get a close look at and account of what he does with a major repair--say replacing a top--but I guess the good and the bad news is that, if history is any guide, I’m sure I’ll get the opportunity some day.
Pat’s last words to me, offered sweetly and gently and with no hint of condescension, were “Remember, for at least another month we have to really pay attention to relative humidity.” Good advice for all of us.