Alfesta / Alpha Musical Instruments / Martin D28

Alfesta ST090 This is a steelstring model 00 from the former 

Egmond company. These guitars are very suitable for the blues

style the Gibson LG series are known for. To my ears equal in

sound but maybe not playability. But being an experienced

technician in that field I can deal with that.

The company used maple for sides and back. The soundboard

as well as the rest of the soundbox has been built up with solid

materials. again the neck body construction is rather poor: 

Simply done with two dowels. But the sound is great.

Strangely enough this model is also produced for the classical

guitar player with a Spanish bridge and bracing of the sound-

board. And the same rather small sound hole.

Alpha A690 D28 Copy

In the early eighties I came across several classical guitars of

this brand. They were relatively cheap and were built with

honest materials as solid alpine spruce for the soundboard

and solid mahogany for the sides and back. (model A 100)

Though they didn't appeal cosmetically spoken to everyone

involved in guitar playing, their sound was quite good.

By accident I was googlin' on this brand that was of dutch

origin I was able to buy this Rosewood D28 copy that was

duplicated from a Martin D 28 in most of the details and 
sound! Kolb (german) tuners and German spruce.

Martin also used the Kolb tuners for some time!

The back of this really astonishing sounding guitar with the
same centre inlay as on the Martin D28. Not coincidentally 
at all as Martin labelled these guitars for a while for reasons 
to get some grip of the mid priced market of acoustics at 
that time. For Europe they branded these guitars under the 
Alpha label while the Vega label was used for the USA market. 
These Vega branded examples were a bit more expensive 
than their Alpha labelled counterparts as Martin had some 
extra quality wishes. E.g. for the top they wanted alpine 
spruce from the German Mittelwald.

 This is the spot where all the problems with a proper playing

action start as the neck to body construction is of a poor

quality. I separated the heel from the body and removed a little

material from the heel. From the inside I placed a special screw to

tighten the heel again to the body and at the same moment glued

the heel back in place. A kind of neck reset.

As can be seen the guitar was equipped with unknown tuners

probably of german origin. Later I found these tuners on some
Martin guitars. Kolb tuners. They work well and the interior

workmanship has all the details from a Martin D28.

Most of the Alpha steelstrings I saw have mahogany back

and sides and are reasonable sounding guitars but

not that special. This example could be a one of a kind in
its' sound I just don't know.

Alpha A 688 / Vega  V646 

Presented here is another top of the line Alpha dreadnought.

This one is finished in honey sunburst and the materials used are

spruce for the top and maple for sides, back and neck.

Interior workmanship is very good but again the neck to

body construction is of a poor quality. Of course I was

very curious about its sound qualities and again I must

say: Amazing but only after I removed the scratchplate

that has been mounted with a too soft glue.

The back of this guitar also shows the purfling

between the two halves of the back that is an exact

copy of a martin D28. The inner strutting and even

details of the reinforcement stripes for the sides has

been copied from the Martin D 28. For a short

time Alpha musical instruments produced six

mid priced models for Martin in order to get grip of

this part of the market in the USA. That was

under the VEGA brand.

Curious thing is that the inner heelblock bears

the V646 model number while the label states

it to be an Alpha A688. Probably this is a

transition model as most likely the Alpha cover

glued on the head has been placed over the

Vega brand.

Difficult to see but also on this guitar the heel is coming off

resulting in too high a playing action. This could be one

of the reasons Martin ceased production of the Vega brand

in the USA by Alpha musical instruments from the Netherlands.

This model was in this colour also available with mahogany

back and sides. Anyway under the Vega brand as nr. 445 

(See inside heelblock) second half of the 70 - ies.

Martin D28

These guitars are among the standards in music history.

Dark sounding but with enough brilliance they are really

great strummers. This guitar is from 1978, just after

some strikes that stopped production for a while.

It has been said that Martin guitars at the beginning

of the seventies are not that sought after due to the

heavier bracing that was used in order to be able

to give a lifetime warranty.

Note the volute at the head and the nice inlay on the back itself.

Every Martin has been built allmost flawless. In combination

with the sound that was what made them that big.