A historic Pennsylvania guitar factory

C.F. Martin & Co. is a national treasure, said Barry Wood in USA Today. There are other fine U.S. guitar makers, but “Martins stand out for full, sustained sound.” I recently took a tour of the family-run company’s factory in Nazareth, Pa., where luthier Christian F. Martin, a German immigrant, set up shop in 1838 (the Lehigh Valley’s rolling hills reminded him of home). The first workshop still stands, and there’s a small museum displaying woodworking tools as well as some customized dreadnoughts—the big acoustic guitars that made Martin famous. Watching lumber come to life during the factory tour was the highlight, though. Today’s workshop is “a blend of old and new—the latest high-tech laser cutters and robot sanders alongside craftsmen and women working with tools little changed from two centuries ago. This is where thin sheets of spruce are cut, chiseled, and lovingly finished into instruments of beauty and precision.”