Poll – Has your Martin had binding problems?

[sinistral]

Originally Posted by kizz

You are right, I also believe that the problem is being made into something bigger than it is, however, I have sympathy for those it happens to, but I doubt that a Martin rep will come up with an explanation in here, then it would have happened. However, it is rumored that they changed the glue during that period and so we can keep guessing...glue or plastic :-) Right now there are 109 out of 218 voters who have experienced the problem here and we are talking a decade and probably a thousand of Martin owners here...

While it’s not certain, the knowledgeable people who weigh in on this topic (in particular luthiers and industry professionals who post regularly on the UMGF) suspect that it is a combination of glue and plastic. That is, a plastic that shrinks over time (for example, PVC pipe doesn’t shrink over time, or if it does it shrinks a lot less than celluloid plastic) and a glue formulation that isn’t strong enough to resist that shrinkage 100% of the time.

Come to think of it, of my 10 guitars with binding, the binding has only come loose on the back waists of one guitar, so the failure rate so far for me is 5% of all waists (where the separation tends to occur most frequently). Some people have had it occur on all four waists (as reported in this and other threads).

Originally Posted by massimo

I asked this above, with no answers. Maybe some of you can help
How many guitars do Martin make per year approximately? How many in the 2012-2020 period?
What percentage of their guitars have non-wood binding? I guess the vast majority of their models, in all price ranges.

Thomas Ripsam recently mentioned in an interview that Martin makes approximately 40,000 guitars in a year in Nazareth. There is no further breakdown from there that I’m aware of (e.g., Style 15 and other guitars with no binding; Modern Deluxe, Custom Shop and other guitars (e.g., factory-only Cherry Hill guitars, etc.) with wood binding). Just based on what I saw on a recent factory tour (and recorded in the many photos I took), a very high percentage of the guitars in various stages of production had plastic binding. I posted the photos in another thread and someone noted how many of those guitars also happen to be dreadnoughts. 30,000 guitars would seem to be a reasonable estimate of the number of guitars produced per year with plastic binding. Since my 000-18 that had the binding separate was built in 2021, I’m not sure what the relevant period should be. Martin supposedly changed the glue or glue formulation sometime between 2018 and 2020, which makes sense since the number of reports has dropped significantly since 2018 or so. But the newer glue (if there is one) isn’t perfect.

[sinistral]

Originally Posted by kizz

They probably made in the region of 700,000 - 1 million in that period and close to the majority with bindings.

I must’ve been tying when you were. See my post above. Ripsam said that Martin is currently making around 140,000 guitars a year, ~100,000 in Mexico and ~40,000 in the US. The binding issue only relates to the guitars made in the US (I don’t believe that any of the guitars made in Mexico have binding, or if so, it’s a really small number). So the number of potentially affected guitars is smaller than your estimate. Probably closer to 240,000 in 2012 - 2020, but there is a question mark around the end date.

[jimmy bookout]

Originally Posted by kizz

Plastic shrinks when heated, so after 3 times of heating you may have part of the explanation. I still think it's about bad glue. Again, I want to say that I in no way sympathize with Martin in this case, but I also often think about how many people appear in threads like this one who are in some way partly to blame for these binding problems perhaps having left the guitar for a while in the sun or otherwise exposing it to heat or low humidity. It may also have happened in the shipment or it has been repaired badly either at the luthier or at home and I understand that Martin cannot take responsibility for such circumstances.

I imagine 9.9/10 people who pony up the money for a Martin know how to take care of it...
Blaming the customer is what Martin has been doing for the entirety of this debacle.

[kizz]

Originally Posted by jimmy bookout

I imagine 9.9/10 people who pony up the money for a Martin know how to take care of it...
Blaming the customer is what Martin has been doing for the entirety of this debacle.

9.9/10, Wow! What do you base that on?
If you read around here, you will find out how many people knew nothing about e.g. humidity, maintenance, etc. before they read it here. What I am pointing out is that some peoples guitar problems are not necessarily the fault of others, many don´t know how to treat a guitar. Can you explain what Martin is blaming their customers of?

[TheGITM]

Originally Posted by jimmy bookout

I imagine 9.9/10 people who pony up the money for a Martin know how to take care of it...
Blaming the customer is what Martin has been doing for the entirety of this debacle.

Since you cannot have a fractional person, perhaps this is best expressed as 99/100...

And for the binding issue, I think the only significant thing that an owner could do that would possibly create this would be leaving the guitar in a very hot environment (like left in a car) or in direct sunlight.

Other than extreme heat, there isn't much the owner could do to cause the binding to separate the way we've seen. It is definitely a manufacturing issue. Still, not a major one. Just a darn nuisance, IMO.

[massimo]

I see no reason why the results of this poll should be not reliable, so we can draw some conclusions now. I am aware that, due to the way the poll question was formulated, 1 point could refer to someone having had 1 guitar out of 3 affected, as well as to someone (like myself) who had 3/3 (2 built in 2019). So the results should be averaged. But this is not a math excercise of any sort- just trying to get a rough estimate.

Based on numbers kindly provided by earlier posters, there could conservatively be about 270,000 guitars with plastic binding in 2012-2020 (30,000 x 9 yrs). My personal guess is that all of them have had or will have (the younger ones) the separation issue. NOT having it would be hard to understand- given the well known cause of it, it would seem unavoidable. But, let's forget this personal inference. Based on an "optimistic" interpretation of this poll (i.e. estimating somewhat less than 50% of the total) let's say it is on the conservative side to conclude there there must be >100,000 flawed Martins out there, including top-shelf, very expensive models (like my 2012 Custom Shop 00-45). This matches what repair shops have been reporting for years, that they have been literally flooded with faulty Martins. The owners have had variable luck with wait times for repair. Some reported several months. Others reported having had to have repeated repairs. Those outside US were not covered by warranty.

In my opinion this is a scandal, and I am not saying this with a light heart: many, if not most, or all of these guitars do sound great, or even wonderful, and I rank some of my Martins among the very best instruments I own. This poll gives us the dimensions of this problem.

[BoneDigger]

I have never had this issue with any of the maybe 10 or so Martin guitars I have owned, including the two I own now. However, in talking to the two local repair shops, it does appear to be a significant issue. Both have said that they are seeing many Martin guitars with this problem. The dealer said he has had a few separate while still on the sales floor. I think the main issue here is that Martin isn't actually acknowledging the issue or doing anything to make it right.

[fretfile100]

What Massimo said. As I have said in the past , no more Martin’s for me.

[Luckymud]

Originally Posted by BoneDigger

I have never had this issue with any of the maybe 10 or so Martin guitars I have owned, including the two I own now. However, in talking to the two local repair shops, it does appear to be a significant issue. Both have said that they are seeing many Martin guitars with this problem. The dealer said he has had a few separate while still on the sales floor. I think the main issue here is that Martin isn't actually acknowledging the issue or doing anything to make it right.

This has also been my experience talking to different shops when I inquired about getting wood binding replacement. I called one shop and found out they are handling all of the MBPs from another very big name in the area. The smaller shop said they always have multiple guitars needing the binding repair and it is keeping them very busy.

Another shop I called said, "What binding problem? I've never heard of this before." Pause, pause. "LOLOL. Just kidding. We see tons of these."

I actually inquired about trading in my Ceo-7 (with binding problem) to a well known shop that gets some forum love. They gave me a totally reasonable (more than expected) quote. When I mentioned the binding issue, they said, "Oh yeah, no problem we see this so much we actually devised a tool/system specifically to help us expedite the fixes for Martin binding."

So for me the shops really helped underscore how widespread the problem is.

[jimmy bookout]

Originally Posted by kizz

9.9/10, Wow! What do you base that on?
If you read around here, you will find out how many people knew nothing about e.g. humidity, maintenance, etc. before they read it here. What I am pointing out is that some peoples guitar problems are not necessarily the fault of others, many don´t know how to treat a guitar. Can you explain what Martin is blaming their customers of?

You should read THIS thread and the others rather than dipping in mid-way. Do you really believe someone spends $3K (or more) on a Martin just to "leave it in their car"?
Many people with this issue have NOT been treated well (and certainly not quickly) by Martin. Martin's FIRST reply seems to be: "What did you do to the guitar?" See post #148 in this thread as an example.
A Martin owner should not have to "beat them up for 2 weeks to accept the repair". Martin knows d*** well they have a problem and instead of saying "I'm so sorry that your expensive guitar did this", their reply is "What did you do to the guitar?"
It's inexcusable.

Oh yeah, what, specifically is Martin blaming THEIR customers for? Binding seperation caused, not by poor material choice by Martin, but some excuse about the customer mistreating his/her substantial purchase.
No other guitar company seems to have a problem getting plastic binding to stay attached to the guitar.

[BluesKing777]

I can’t see how it is NOT ALL of them made since 2012.

Unless it was a problem at half the Martin Binding stations supplied their own glue mixture or mixed it or...or....no idea? But for all these years? Doesn’t work - must be all. Just hasn’t happened yet. The binding lasted around 8 years on my 3.

The drama with my 3 was the refinish - (professional repairs at luthier) the re-gluing was quick as a flash, but....the finish repairs are tricky. And very hard to restore to the original look!

And of course the guitar value drops when you go to sell it......LOOK at this, everyone says, it has the GASP...binding problem....sold for less than hoped! But glad it is out of my life.



BluesKing777.

[massimo]

Originally Posted by BluesKing777

I can’t see how it is NOT ALL of them made since 2012.

Unless it was a problem at half the Martin Binding stations supplied their own glue mixture or mixed it or...or....no idea? But for all these years? Doesn’t work - must be all. Just hasn’t happened yet. The binding lasted around 8 years on my 3.

BluesKing777.

Exactly my thoughts, as I wrote in my post above. Pure logic. Those unaffected should be rare exceptions confirming the rule, and many of them only need more time to develop the issue. This is why I wrote 100,000 was a conservative figure.

[BluesKing777]

And!!!

Bet the glue WON’T come off properly if you decide to re-bind and re-finish the whole thing!

Something to with Murphy’s Law!

I have watched some Rosa String Works guitar repair videos- he has patience plus...phew......one video with a bridge lifting on one side but the glue will not budge on the other end! Yi yi yi.

BluesKing777.

[kizz]

Originally Posted by jimmy bookout

You should read THIS thread and the others rather than dipping in mid-way. Do you really believe someone spends $3K (or more) on a Martin just to "leave it in their car"?
Many people with this issue have NOT been treated well (and certainly not quickly) by Martin. Martin's FIRST reply seems to be: "What did you do to the guitar?" See post #148 in this thread as an example.
A Martin owner should not have to "beat them up for 2 weeks to accept the repair". Martin knows d*** well they have a problem and instead of saying "I'm so sorry that your expensive guitar did this", their reply is "What did you do to the guitar?"
It's inexcusable.

Oh yeah, what, specifically is Martin blaming THEIR customers for? Binding seperation caused, not by poor material choice by Martin, but some excuse about the customer mistreating his/her substantial purchase.
No other guitar company seems to have a problem getting plastic binding to stay attached to the guitar.

I have certainly read the thread from the beginning and others and commented and if you had read my posts you would also find that I am not defending Martin and I sympathize with people who have the problem and those of us outside the US who are not covered under the warranty, but trust me there are people who treat their guitars badly so I also understand if Martin takes their reservations about it, it may also have happened during shipping as I wrote, but basically we agree and I think you misunderstand the first post you quote me for , the answer at least suggests that. I didn't know the topic was only about $3K+ guitars though. I see the problem, but I also think that it is being made into more than it is, like so much else being online and the poll expresses it very well, it is about 50/50 with less than 120 out of over 120,000 users, of which thousands of Martin owners .

[kizz]

Originally Posted by sinistral

I must’ve been tying when you were. See my post above. Ripsam said that Martin is currently making around 140,000 guitars a year, ~100,000 in Mexico and ~40,000 in the US. The binding issue only relates to the guitars made in the US (I don’t believe that any of the guitars made in Mexico have binding, or if so, it’s a really small number). So the number of potentially affected guitars is smaller than your estimate. Probably closer to 240,000 in 2012 - 2020, but there is a question mark around the end date.

You are probably right, strange if only US guitars are affected and why.