Martin’s Dick Boak on
Eubanks’ Custom D-18V
When Kevin Eubanks wanted an acoustic guitar, he called up Dick Boak at Martin to create this unique axe. Eubanks was looking for a few key features, namely a wide fingerboard
and a big neck. “Kevin wanted a D- 18 with a very wide neck,” says Boak.
“Much wider—more than 2"—than anything we make normally. It was
quite a challenge. I assumed it was because he has large hands, but it
turns out he doesn’t have large hands.”
Boak ended up using a classical fingerboard and an untrimmed
12-string neck blank that he found on a shelf in Martin’s wood-accli-
mating room. According to Boak, the blank was quite old, from the
days before modern machinery, in fact. “It had a very long headstock—
enough to make a 14- or 16-string guitar. It was very wide too, from the
days when necks were hogged out with drawknives.”
After the guitar was put together, Boak heard exactly what Eubanks
had been going for. “The really interesting thing is that the guitar
sounded magnificent! All I could figure is that the extra neck wood
lent more resonance somehow. All of the guitars he’s ordered with wide
necks sound better than their narrow-necked counterparts.”
Eubanks isn’t particular about what amp he plays through, but he always
plugs into this Éclair Engineering DMS- 1 preamp. Photo by Bruce Seifried
