2010s Adam Myers D-18-Style Dreadnought Guitar

November 10, 2019

2010s Adam Myers D-18-Style Dreadnought Guitar

A local fellow, Adam Myers (over in Bethel, VT), built this guitar under the tutelage of Scott Conley who builds over around Portland, Maine. Said Mr. Conley builds fancy folk-style guitars and the ones out there on the web for sale seem to mostly be '30s-style dreadnoughts. That's what this one is like, so we can see the influence right up-front.

It's spruce over mahogany and has a lightly-cut top with scalloped, traditional x-bracing. They're bulked-up around the soundhole which is a smart way to reinforce the top at its weakest point. The quality of the wood is excellent and it features an ebony fretboard with a fast, slim-C profile and ~14" radius. The pickguard is a fancy tortoloid-style one and it has a nice, 2-way truss rod with access at the neck block (like on a new Martin).

Playability-wise, this thing is a champ after adjustments. It's fast and aggressive. Sound-wise, it reminds me of many old, nice, Martin dreadnoughts. It's got that lower-end punch and spread but has a bit more of a modern slice to the notes that let it punch-out loud and clear. A lot of lightly-braced dreads can get boomy pretty quickly. While this has that low-end in spades, it's not boomy or indistinct. It's a perfect "bluegrassy" D-18 sound and really pushes some air.

Repairs included: a bridge reglue, fret seating and level/dress, compensation and adjustment of the bone saddle, cleaning, and setup.

Setup notes: action is bang-on at 3/32" EA and 1/16" DGBE at the 12th fret. The neck is straight and the truss rod works. Strings are 54w, 42w, 32w, 24w, 16, 12 "regular lights." I would refrain from mediums -- it doesn't need them to sound good (it's already "all muscle") and it's a lightly-built top.

Scale length: 25 3/8"
Nut width: 1 3/4"
Neck shape: slim C-shape, ~14" board radius
Lower bout width: 15 3/4"
Top wood: solid spruce
Back/sides wood: solid mahogany, lightly-figured
Neck wood: mahogany
Fretboard: ebony, bone nut
Bridge: rosewood, bone saddle & pins
Bracing: x-braced, scalloped

Condition notes: it's fairly clean on the top and sides, but there's a lot of pickwear on the pickguard. The back of the neck's finish has some open-pore/grain lines behind frets 1-3 that you can feel when you're looking for them but don't affect playability. There are a number of small dings on the back and some little white dotting here and there. I cleated a longer hairline crack running from the bottom of the bridge to the endblock on the top -- right along the center seam. There's also a small (penny-sized) grain-split crack (repaired when built -- this happens sometimes when people bend sides) on the sides near the endblock that was too hard to photo but is a non-issue.

It comes with: a Fender-branded, well-used, foam/flight-style case. These are nice and light and give good protection.

A bone nut and 18:1 Grover tuners are nice to see at the headstock.

There are a few wear marks on the fretboard but nothing too obvious. It has small pearl dots on the board and white side dots. The frets are a little wider than normal "medium" stock but have normal "medium" height.