Maine-based luthier John Slobod's early career saw him working for Dana Bourgeois and later with Eric Schoenberg and Julius Borges. With credentials like those, it's no surprise that the luthier's vintage-inspired guitars are so in demand. Starting with the template of the venerable pre-war Martin, John's dreadnought design has the best elements of those old guitars—scalloped X bracing, hide glue construction, ultra-light finishes—combined with his years of expert refinement. This special D-18 has a red Adirondack spruce top matched with a set of beeswing mahogany that really reveals its beauty in the right light. Its tone is darker than you might expect at first, not as airy as some mahogany dreads. The commanding bass underpins a fat mid-range and clear trebles, making for a perfect balance that works for fingerpicking as well as it does for flatpicking and strumming.

John says of this guitar:

“Now since that time, Matt's [Arcara] guitars have come toward mine, and mine have gone towards his, at least as far as the dreadnoughts go. Mine have gotten stiffer, and his have gotten looser, and eventually we’ll meet in the middle. This one that I made for you guys has a pretty substantial X brace, the back braces are pretty large, at least by my standards. I kept the back fairly thick; I don’t want a loose back on a dreadnought. And it has some of what I call the "Arcara E string", which you can twang on hard with a pick and it still sounds great. But it’s not super tight – it plays, it’s responsive. It really hit the sweet spot—it’s what I’ve been after for a long time, with a ton of headroom that’s not overbuilt, that’s responsive. The thing that surprised me the most was the low end. It has a really ballsy, great low end for a mahogany dreadnought.”