Formula 82/R™ Acoustic

Dean Markley's newest acoustic string is built the Old-Fashioned way… hand wound on a Round Core. The round core allows total contact between the wrap and the core wire, giving you more power, tone and longer life.

The Experience

Joe had worked in his guitar shop since the Sixties. He’d nailed a sign above the door, that same door he hung himself more than forty years ago: Joe’s Guitar Shop - Repair and Restoration. He didn’t even have a phone in the place, and probably couldn’t find it if he did, for all the sawdust and tools and paperwork overflowing. Even so, he always had a wait list. Players came from all over, up and down the coast, to have him work on their guitars. Big names. Local hotshots. Nobodies. It didn’t matter. He loved the work.

At 72 years young, no one would fault him if Joe retired. He’s more than earned the right. But he won’t. Joe will always carve and glue and bend… and carve and glue and bend… It’s what he does.

I brought my old OO to Joe’s shop one day. It had been buzzing and fighting me, I could see the wear and tear on the fretboard, and I knew what needed to be done.
But Joe had to have the last word on the matter. “Let me take a look,” he said, putting on his glasses and squinting through their lenses. I held my breath.

“Yep.”

“Yep?”

“Yep.”
Joe put the guitar down on the bench and looked up at me. “It’s going to be a Major Repair. Neck reset. Refret. I’ll take care of the fretboard, of course. And a new saddle and nut. That’s standard.” Joe turned away from me without waiting for a reply and reached for a tattered notebook. “Let me look at my schedule,” he said. Joe flipped through at least ten pages before saying, “I can do it in two months. It won’t be cheap.”

“But Joe,” I start to protest, though I know it will get me nowhere. “Isn’t there anything you could do short-term, maybe a little sooner, and… for a little less?”

“Son,” the best luthier in a three-state area said, “These things take time, and these things are worth doing right. I don’t do these things any other way. And one last thing…” Joe took off his glasses and looked me in the eye, “Son, you gotta pay to play.”

I nodded, and Joe put my name in his book.