Martin O’ahu HG-28

A reduced-size dreadnought that re-imagines instruments built during the Hawaiian music wave of the 1920s.

July 17, 2025

For the most part, classic Martin guitar models are well-defined, and the company’s history has been thoroughly documented. The company’s “golden era” is generally thought of as coming from the period between the mid-1920s and mid-1940s and has provided the blueprints for the majority of vintage-inspired flattops being built today. While many makers have built variations and combined features, it’s less common for someone at Martin itself to say, “What if we had built this in the 1920s?” But Chris Martin IV himself did just that, and the result is the new O’ahu HG-28. While doing research on guitars and ukuleles that Martin had built during the Hawaiian music wave of the 1920s, Chris came across a late-1920s Gibson HG-24, a rare guitar that is the first documented Gibson slope-shouldered guitar. Similar in shape to Martin’s original dreadnought (first made by Martin for the Ditson brand and later became the original D-28), the guitar has a 14-fret neck instead of the 12-fret neck found on early Martins. Chris’s design wheels began spinning, and he came up with a guitar that might have been: a 14-fret dreadnought, slightly reduced in size, and built with Hawaiian koa back and sides. The resulting Martin O’ahu HG-28 (which Chris Martin discusses in this YouTube video!) is a unique guitar in the company’s lineup, and I recently had a chance to check it out in the Peghead Nation video studio.

Fundamentally, the O’ahu HG-28 is a dreadnought shrunk proportionally that measures about 14⁵/₁₆ inches at the lower bout (a standard dreadnought measures 15⅝ inches) and has the depth of a 000, as well as a short scale and 14-fret neck joint. The koa used for the back and sides of our demo guitar is on the plainer end of the spectrum for this wood, and while it doesn’t have the spectacular flame of some sets, it has very attractive grain patterns that are beautifully bookmatched between the two back- halves. The spruce top is evenly and tightly grained, and combined with the guitar’s herringbone purfling and style-28 black-and-white rosette, it gives the guitar a classic Martin look. The ebony bridge is a version of Martin’s small, rectangular shape, and the guitar’s solid peghead is unusual in that the logo adds “O’ahu” to the standard script “Martin” lettering. The fingerboard has “old-style 18” position markers, and the neck features Martin’s familiar GE-modified low-oval profile and high performance taper.

Of course the O’ahu HG-28 isn’t limited to playing Hawaiian-inspired music, but given the guitar’s vibe, I started by putting it into open-G tuning and improvised on some slack-key themes. I was immediately struck by the guitar’s lively response and great tonal balance. Whether for slack-key or other fingerpicking styles, this is a fabulous playing partner, made even more so by its comfortable 1¾-inch nut width and roomy 2⁵/₃₂-inch string-spacing at the saddle. Of course, the guitar’s reduced body size makes it more comfortable to hold than a typical dreadnought, and you wouldn’t be mistaken in thinking of it as a 000-size guitar with a different shape. In standard tuning, the O’ahu HD-28 continued its friendly and dynamic character. It’s no surprise that it’s not as suited to heavy strumming or aggressive flatpicking as a standard dreadnought, but it has a classic Martin tonality, and holds up well under the kind of strumming you might do while accompanying songs. And its great playability makes lead playing very fun.

Regardless of how it came to be, the O’ahu HG-28 is a great new guitar that may fool you into thinking that it’s a copy of a vintage design. I’d love to see Martin take this small-dreadnought platform into other models, and players who have been looking for a great mid-size guitar with a unique vibe should check this one out!