2007 Martin SWDGT Smartwood Dreadnought Guitar

August 09, 2020

2007 Martin SWDGT Smartwood Dreadnought Guitar

I like the Martin Smartwood series guitars. They don't get enough praise, really. This SWDGT is basically like a same-period D-16GT but with solid cherry back, sides, and neck rather than mahogany. It also has tortoise trim at the binding, rosette, and heastock veneer. Overall it's a great look and -- surprise, surprise -- it sounds just as good as the normal D-16GT models and plenty of standard-series D-18s.

This one's owned by a local customer and it needed that usual "roughly-ridden-player's-guitar" service allotment -- a neck reset, taller saddle (as the original had been shaved-down), and fretwork. Yes, even newer guitars need the neck angle changed if they've been played hard and traveled from place to place chasing music all the time.

Out the other side of work, it's back to normal and playing smooth and fast. Years of love have opened it up, though the cherry back and sides give a slightly more plainspoken, chunkier voice than the airier/brighter mahogany. It's interesting -- a bit between a maple or birch sound and a mahogany sound.

Scale length: 25 3/8"

Nut width: 1 11/16"

String spacing at nut: 1 1/2"

String spacing at bridge: 2 1/8"

Body length: 20"

Lower bout width: 15 5/8"

Waist width: 10 3/4"

Upper bout width: 11 3/8"
Side depth at endpin: 4 7/8"

Top wood: solid spruce

Back & sides wood: solid cherry

Bracing type: x-braced

Fretboard: katalox