prairiewind
Apr-30-2004, 7:53pm
Thanks to another cafe member, I received salvaged vintage fret wire to partially refret my recently acquired teens Gibson A-1. It was up to me to select a repair person to do the work. Again thanks to the cafe (builders section), I was able to find Richard Vance Clark in Boone, Iowa, about 3 hours from me, who could do the the work. Richard replaced the first five frets, put on a new bone nut, and set the bridge for correct intonation for less than the quoted price and in less than his estimated time. The mandolin plays like a dream and sounds great. Richard builds guitars of all sorts, banjos, and he's begun to build violins and mandolins. His preference in mandos happens to be x-braced oval holes, both A and F styles. He has a website that's listed under builders. I played both mandos he has featured on his website, and both are nice. The oval hole F with cherry back, sides, and neck sounded open, woody, and loud for an oval hole. Richard's work is quite nice. Sorry if this sounds like an advertisement, but Richard did a fine job of work for me, and I feel that justifies a post here.