You never know what you’re going to find when you open a box that’s been buried at the back of a shelf in Gryphon’s attic. The late Frank Ford, Gryphon’s co-founder, had lots of connections in the guitar repair community, and from where this was stored and how it was wrapped we know he acquired this D-41 neck before 2005 but we don’t know where or how he got it, or why! The label Frank put on the wrapped neck suggests it was pulled by Martin from a guitar that was returned under warranty. The only sign of its “compression failure (wind break) in mahogany”, as Frank described it, is the hairline shown in our detail photo. There’s no indication the neck was weakened.

We measured the frets and included a length of fret wire of the proper height and profile to replace the missing 15th fret once you’ve glued the neck into a body. (That original fret was removed to allow drilling the hole for injecting steam into the dovertail joint so it could be pulled from the D-41 body.) The neck is mahogany, fingerboard is ebony, headstock facing is East Indian Rosewood, binding is white Boltaron, inlays are abalone.