Steve Klein M43 Jumbo Acoustic Guitar with Calton Case - Commission Sale

The following passage regarding the M43 model is extracted from Art That Sings: The Life and Times of Luthier Steve Klein by Paul Schmidt, which is also supplied with this guitar.

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Klein also knew that the cost of his instruments distanced them from most players, but he also knew that cost was one of the elements which he literally could not afford to lower. As one financial advisor observed, “Even at these prices, what you’re really doing here is public service.” Thus, the idea for a new model was born:

“I wanted something that was easier to make, which would in turn make it less expensive, and I wanted something that would be more acceptable to the buying public—something that pros would take out on the road so that people would see them with my guitars. Too many of my instruments were, and still are, home guitars — they stayed at home or went to the studio, and that wasn’t doing me any good from an advertising standpoint. For professionals who play acoustic guitar, the straight saddle was going to be a must because nearly all of the contemporary amplification systems were based on using a straight saddle. Also, I wanted to do a new size. I was a little tired of the old design, and I wanted to try something that would be a little more traditionally-shaped. (Vintage guitar dealer and fine player) Larry Wexer was always trying to get me to make a 17-inch (at the lower bout) instrument — he said he didn’t like playing guitars that were bigger than he was (laughs). In addition to the silhouette adjustment, I also wanted a 25 1/2” scale, and I wanted to move the bridge down a bit into the lower bout.”

The M-43 design exhibited a softer silhouette, though it still retained the idea of having both sets of arcs drawn from the same point. The waist was a bit softer and the upper bout was slightly larger — still a Klein shape, but with a different sort of elegance. Klein also retained all of the structural integrity which he had worked so diligently to achieve in his earlier designs:

"I elected to get rid of some of the very complex braces that I’d used in the past — they were great, but time consuming — three of them were multiple wood cores with carbon skins, and one of them was spruce with a rosewood core, and they all had to be glued on in a very specific relationship in order for the design to work. In the M-43 design they were reduced to one wood-core carbon-skinned brace, and it worked beautifully. We also simplified the bracing pattern on the top. The tone bars were very similar to my other designs — we used spruce, but we used one piece of plywood to function as bridgeplate/rosette reinforcement/spruce stabilizer over the neck block plate. That design eliminated the need for the neck support brace which glued across the top, which also enabled me to begin thinking of other ways to drive the upper bout, which was another good reason for making the upper bout a bit larger."

"The bridge on the M-43 is also much simpler than on Klein’s earlier designs:

“We made a straight saddle to accept saddle pickups, and it sure is much easier to make than one of my standard bridges is like making six bridges – two halves, the complex shape, the six saddles, each of which is by itself more complex to make than one straight saddle. I did keep the asymmetry of the overall shape of the bridge in the new design because it is important to the musicality of the instrument."

Klein also designed an off-set sound-hole model M-43. The moving of the sound-hole placement stabilized the top and eliminated the need for the flying brace.

The descriptives that have come from experienced players have been highly favourable. The first three customers of the M-43 were telling of its musicality — Will Ackerman, Bill Frisell, and Martin Simpson."

This particular model was actually made for the latter.