Worship Musician August 2018 | Page 56

headed out to meet Joel Zingone, our guide for the factory tour. True to Martin’s ‘raise from within’ culture, Joel is a long-time employee who has worked in several key roles over the years. His insights made for an outstanding tour as we traversed the factory floor. First of all, Martin offers guitars in all shapes and sizes at price points from entry level to high-end professional. Noting how much hand crafting we saw on the factory floor, you begin to realize how much labor is actually required to the nearly insatiable hunger for these instruments worldwide. Currently, the Martin staff is right around 400 employees. One of the first things I noticed was how happy the employees are. They were genuinely friendly, greeting us at every turn with smiles that were never forced. While these factory tours must be a little distracting, everyone made time to answer my questions and never made me feel like an outsider. I was equally impressed by how they intermingle the use of good old hand craftsman accident that Martin guitars consistently sound allowed to talk about it yet, but let’s just say I and technology into their production process. the way they do. was smitten these artisans’ work! a sheathed razor blade to scrape the binding I have always appreciated nice inlay work on It was also fun to see how they approach doing to the prescribed thickness. While at another guitars but the Martin custom shop station was the fingerboards and frets. It was insightful to station they were using lasers to cut the tone truly remarkable. We saw a few pieces of fine see how they shape the guitar necks for the wood guitar tops with, well, laser precision! art that will end up being the part of a guitar different models and the see the racks of solid Precision being the operative word, it’s no that will debut at 2019 NAMM Show. I am not spruce guitar tops! 56 August 2018 At one station we saw a woman skillfully using WorshipMusician.com