Mandolins/heat/cold

[re simmers]

In the days of my parents and grandparents they picked in the kitchen and living room, around the wood stove. I'm not sure that they worried a lot about humidity & their instruments. Were the instruments of the 20's & 30's & 40's better able to withstand it.......different glue, more aged wood, etc, compared to today's? Or are the instruments that were exposed to too much of that the ones that had to be rebuilt or gone?

Just thinking about this as I picked in the basement where the woodstove heats.

Thanks
Bob

[MikeEdgerton]

No, they really weren't any different. That's one reason why you find more old instruments that aren't playable or need a lot of work that you do pristine ones. Most ended up relegated to attics and such and were ravaged by temperature swings.

[allenhopkins]

Probably fewer than five percent of the instruments made in the 1910's or 1920's survive in anything like playable condition. I recently was reacquainted with a 1960's vintage Autoharp I bought, played for several years, and gave to my sister. She stuck it under a bed and didn't play it; now it's a wreck -- not from abuse, from neglect. Autoharps of course are an extreme case since they're under so much string tension.

Stop to think of it: large American companies in the period, say, 1875 to 1925, turning out thousands and thousands of instruments, which were sold through music stores, mail order catalogs, even door to door. Guitars, banjos, mandolins, violins, a menagerie of weird zither-type instruments, all across the country. Where are they all now? Found now and again in attics, junk shops, antique dealers, yard sales, usually broken and unplayable. We find them now and then, and treat them as treasures, because we love instruments and want them to survive. But it's a small, small minority. If your parents' and grandparents' instruments survived, it's because they appreciated them and took care of them. Most of the mandolins etc. from that era are long gone.

[billkilpatrick]

maybe mandolins are meant to weather - endure - our brief "four score and twenty" and no more - a "one man - one mandolin(s)" sort of thing.

... and in the end, like vikings of old or cadavers on the gangees - with our arms wrapped round our mandolin(s) - we simply drift away with the prevailing tide towards the vastness of an oblivious ocean.

- or maybe our children - or our children's children - ressurect our treasured instrument(s) with an "oh wow!" and flog it on ebay.

"... none of them along the line know what any of it is worth."

[Big Joe]

To a certain extent that helps keep us in business. We do a LOT of restoration on old instruments that have undergone nearly any kind of abuse you can imagine. We see them everyday where the glue has long since given up and the instruments are just falling apart. Fortunately, they can be put back together and given a new life again and can sound and play as good or better than they ever did. For me, an instrument once functional but not essentially destroyed, can have a new life again for a new generation or two or three if I do my job right. It is a great joy to take something considered destroyed and watch it come back to life. A heart surgeon customer or ours likes to come in and see us. He says we do to instruments what he does to people. I like that simile.

They come from every part of the country and every make and model and kind of instruments. Some may not have a cash value as costly as the repair, but it has family value that exceeds any dollar value one can put on it. We love seeing the smiles and tears when one gets their instrument back after considering it dead and they find it fully functional and ready to go again.

The "old days" were not better than the current days, just different. The instruments for the most part were inferior to what we have available today and the amount of quality instruments today is far greater. We have more and better technology, adhesives, finishes, and better skills in many cases if we have learned from our fore fathers properly. Our tools and knowledge is better and our ability to get information on instruments and techniques is much better today than ever before. We can go on the internet and learn in minutes more that was possible in a lifetime about nearly any item. This gives us the ability to care for things better than could be done in the "old days". While we like to think the old days were better, and there were some things that were nice or at least nostalgic, but life is so much easier today than before. Just my opinion.

[Charlieshafer]

I'm in agreement with Big Joe. Seems like every time I have an instrument brought up from down south or out west to Connecticut, there are always minor and predictable issues with the old stuff. I pretty much can always count on letting it sit around here for a couple of winter months, then taking it to one of two different guys for a climate tune-up. Not unusual for a seam to separate.

With the newer instruments, I've never had a problem. Newer instruments can easily split a seam, to, as they are wood, but if you're moderately careful, there's no problem. It could be just as simple as old glue wearing out, but it seems like the luthiers of today are very careful to select wood to stand up to climate and humidity changes. The only species I don;t get is quilted maple. When we use it on cabinets and furniture, it moves more than any species I use up here. I worry a little about a guitar or mandolin with quilted up in New England, but maybe I'm paranoid...

[Jason Kindall]

I just had an old Gibson J45 revived from exactly this kind of life. Lived under a bed or laid against a wall without a case in wood heat, no AC for nearly 40 years.

The top was separated from the block, braces loose from the top, and two cracks. Now after some rehab by a good luthier she's a wonderful piece. Lovely to play, sounds awesome, and chock full of character! :cool:

[Willie]

Do you mean the new mandolin is better than a `24 Loar? I must have missed something here....Willie