krishna
Apr-25-2004, 2:07pm
I was lucky enough to be able this weekend to go and visit #young an upcoming mandolin luthier Brian Dean . Many of you have been to his site, and a few asked me ,since I currently live in Montreal, to pop in there and report back, so here's the report! Brian works out of a shop in his basement, and cozy is a good descriptive term for it. I saw the shop and tools first. He has a great grasp of the structure of wood(he got a degree in it!).He had 2, half finished instruments sitting on the 'one and only ' bench in his shop. Both a mandola and a mandolin were under construction. We discussed #mando construction for the better part of the day, and it was educational for the both of us (I think). He described to me his construction methods, general outlook on mando building, and his consuming passion for building flat top mando family instruments. The 'flat top' verses 'arched top' conversation went on all day. He feels that flat top construction has been sadly neglected on this side of the pond,and is willing to stake his imediate future on continued exclusive (for now) building of such. He had a number of power tools sitting on the floor ( no tables )and he asked if I had seen any pics of Japanese luthiers shops,then went on to tell me about their style of construction.They do most of their work while sitting on the floor he explained, and #finds it comfortable to do this also. He's a very relaxed kind of guy, (American to!) and we shared many laughs throughout the day. After spending some time in his shop, we went to look at his finished mando's upstairs. I was impressed with what I saw. He showed me a mando with #carving on the neck (the one from his website) and described some of the construction techniques he used. The most unique thing that I saw (And was most impressed with) on ALL his mandos, was the way he puts on the back of headstock veneer.He leaves the neck oversixed and routes a binding channel around the BACK of the headstock, that hooks up with a small V shaped channel,(with the tip of the V pointing toward tip of headstock). To clarify,it LOOKS like a very intricit(?) handstop like you would see on a very expensive guitar,but looks much tastier with the inlaid dark red wood that he uses for all his detail work.(If you wish to understand my explanation better, go to his website.) His oval soundholes also get the dark red wood treatment.I played both instuments for a while, and my preferance was for the mandola, BUT I think it was because of the novety aspect of playing that size of scale length.Both instruments sounded good to my "flat top' uneducated ears, and I enjoyed playing both very much. They seemed well balanced, and the mandola had quite a bit of sustain (GOOD thing in a flat top). The visit (at his house) concluded with his taking neck measurements of my Grand Artist and was continued over coffee and croisants at a local cafe. We talked of neck dimentions,fretboard radius caculations ,top graduating, the use of back of headstock veneers,(and how Delectable his veneer looked) and the conversation came back again to "flat top" versus "Arched top". He's not interested in arch tops at all at this point in the game, and he's just itching to learn more about his craft. He's planning on doing it for a living for the next several (forever?) years. I left his place wishing I had the money sitting around for just one more instrument...That mandola just won't leave my mind M.A.S....M.A.S....M.A.S........ PS- I did'nt go there looking for another mandolin either...www.bfolk.com