C. F. Martin (the first) is widely attributed to be the inventor of the X-braced guitar, way back in about 1850. The Martin Company applied this bracing pattern to their guitars long before steel strings were ever used on guitars. The Martin instruments of the day were still gut-strung, and it wasn’t until the early 1920’s that Martin began building steel string guitars. The rest, as they say, is history. Martin established the near-ubiquitous tradition of the X-braced steel string, which is still seen today in the vast majority of both factory and handmade steel string guitars.