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I have an old friend down here in Mexico that told me some time back that she had an old guitar
that her grandfather had given her, but wasn't sure were it was. I was curious to see it, but never got the chance until recently when it was rediscovered in an attic. My friend brought it over to my place to see if I could fix it up. When I opened the dusty broken chipboard case, low and behold there was a little Martin 5-18 hiding in there!

A bit worse for the wear, it had been mistreated and neglected, rode hard and put away wet, but it was in sound structural shape. I cleaned it up, replaced the worn out tuners, lowered the saddle a bit, put some new pins in & strung it up. It's has beautiful sweet sound, smooth action. Part of me didn't want to give it back.

I don't see very many fine guitars down here in this neck of the woods, so it was a real surprise to have this one happen along. It's kind of amazing that it was still together after the hard life it's had, 50 yrs. old. Whoever had used it had no idea what they had. How some fine guitars get treated is enough to give
you the blues.

I convinced the owner to give the guitar to her daughter, who was enthusiastic about learning to play it.
I coached her on how to take care of it and hope that it remains in their family as an heirloom. I feel very
fortunate to get to know one of these little guitars and I think I would like to try to build one now.

This is how it looked when it was dropped off:





Here it is cleaned up and ready to go for another round:



As I understand these "terz" guitars are meant to be tuned up 3 half steps. I was a little
bit afraid to tune it up that high, so I tuned it up to the standard E tuning. But when I capoed
it up 3 frets it does have a very nice high sound (not lonesome though) - a lilting ring.
I recommended light or extra light gauge strings, that seemed like the right thing.

Just thought I'd share this,

john

Thanks for the post, John. Looks like a real treasure.

If it's still in good structural shape, it should do fine tuned up those three half-steps. They really sound best that way. That's why they're called terz, German for a musical third.

Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

I just did a neck reset on a 30's 5-17 recently - great little guitars.

A few quick notes though. Those tuners very, very rarely need replacing - usually once cleaned up and lubricated if needed, they will work fine indefinitely. Of course there are occasional exceptions, but I really can't recall the last time I've seen one. In any case, it looks like you replaced them with original style, so if there were no modifications done to the headstock and you kept the originals with the instrument there is no harm done.

Second and more importantly, from the photos it looks to be from before the mid 40's, where the original bridge pins were solid. If the bridge is indeed slotted for solid pins and you used slotted pins for replacement - that's a big big no-no. Death sentence for the bridge plate - that can kill it in a few years. If you used original style solid pins that's okay. But if if the originals were solid and you used slotted ones for replacements, I suggest getting the originals back in there asap.

And as Pat said, if it's okay structurally it should be fine tuned up to G with lights.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Thanks for sharing that John. What a great little guitar !

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

David, thanks for the advice. This is a learning experience for me. To reply your concerns -

One of the original grover tuner shafts (I'm not sure if that's the right name - the rod below the tuner knob) was bent and there were two of the original bushings missing.

I got a set of the same style tuners from Martin (they put their own name on them now). At first I was going to just change the two missing bushings and try to straighten out the shaft(?). But have the two new shinny bushings together with the old ones didn't look good to my eye - so I elected to change the whole works. I did put all the old tuners and parts in the case.

From the serial number - 1958 is when the guitar was made. The pins that were in the bridge were
slotted. I have no idea if they were the original ones, but they were bent and worn - so I put in a set
of Martin plastic slotted pins that I happened to have laying around. But I will follow up on your suggestion of having some unslotted pins tried out. I had mentioned to the young lady that I turned the guitar over to that I would like to see a set of bone pins used, but didn't have any. I'll order a couple of sets of bone - slotted and unslotted and if the unslotted ones work - I have her use them. A few days ago, the guitar went to Oregon.

David, would you recommend that unslotted pins be used - period. It might require a bit of light slotting
on the bridge. If you would recommend that I see if I can make that happen - I kind of have a crush on that little thing - the guitar.

Thanks again,
john

At the risk of stating the obvious, if there are no unslotted pins handy, you can see if they will work by rotating the slotted pins so the slot faces the tail.

Joe

very true!

I honestly wasn't concerned with the issue until David brought it up and by then the guitar was out the door.

j

Hi John -

If the original pins were slotted, it's not as big of a deal. I thought in one of the photos that it looked like the bridge was slotted for solid pins though, which would have been the war/pre-war style. If that were the case, slotted pins in a slotted bridge are very quick to destroy a bridge plate.

Here is a good discussion on the problems of slotted pins in the archives. I believe some of the photos I posted there were actually from a 1935 Martin 5-17.

As to the tuners, what you did is just fine. Sloppy or stuck tuners can typically be repaired, but if they were missing parts, it's great that you had the sense to replace the set with the same style.

Those can really be some great little guitars, can't they?

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.