During my early years in NYC at Gurian Guitars, there was quite a buzz around flat-top conversions of Martin F-style arch tops done by the Silber brothers. The first of these, as I understand it, was of a Brazilian rosewood F-9 which went to David Bromberg. That guitar took the world by storm, and eventually became Martin’s “M” design. I had a very enjoyable and ongoing conversation with David around the usefulness of variations in guitar body depth as a design element of steel string flat tops, this in a time when it seemed that virtually no one gave depth variation much consideration at all. The time of late ’70’s and early ’80’s was a decade when our F-14 was exceeded in popularity only by our H-12. Done with a 25.25” scale length and depth variations from 3 3/4” to 4 3/8”, the guitar is versatility personified. Part of our catalog from the very beginning, it is still very popular.
Our experimentation in that era with varying body depth became one of the basics of design for us, being a major piece of our commitment to function always being at the heart of our work. It’s also noteworthy looking back that the builders I was most inspired by in those days were John D’Angelico, Jimmy D’Acquisto and Tom Ribbecke, all people who varied designs around highly functional elements in service to individual players.