How scrutinizing are you of other builders' work?

[fscotte]

I'll have to admit, I find myself looking for errors, usually high quality pics, and on occasion in person, of other mandolin makers work. Normally just to make me feel better about my own stuff, and some of things I see surprises me. Then I look at some builders like Gilchrist and realize I have a long long way to go. Without naming names, we all do it I'm sure, but it's refreshing to see how others handle the mistakes, alignment errors, peghead angle, binding edges, miters, f-hole placement, etc..

I'm not being critical so don't take this the wrong way. I guess it somehow feels good to know that even 30 years from now if I'm still building, I'll still be making mistakes.

[Tavy]

I wouldn't say critical so much as simply being interested.... as in in "ah yes, I know what causes that, looks like he had trouble with X or Y". Apart from anything else you can learn from other peoples mistakes as well as your own. Unless the mistakes are so grievous that they result in termination of the instrument (or more likely part) with extreme prejudice of course... I think we all have a few of those

[Mandoborg]

I think it's only natural to look at the quality of workmanship on other instruments. I myself always look at the areas that I have difficutly with and see how it looks. The quality of work has skyrocketed the last 20 years or so as well. I've seen quite a few arch-top guitars made by a VERY famous N.Y. builder that I couldn't believe some of the workmanship when I was finally able to see these in person. Sanding marks, misaligned tuning holes, embarassing binding mitres, etc.... Yet these same instruments command 50K and up in todays market. Yet other instruments by the same builder were beautiful. Now when I look at Andrew Mowry and Tom Ellis' work, I think ' no way, this is almost TOO perfect ' Another builder also told me to stop pointing out my mistakes on instruments. the general public would never pick up on them, but they will try to talk you down on the price for the ' error' !!

https://www.facebook.com/jimmy.combra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DUGTTuoRPs

[Timbofood]

I am absolutely the first to,admit I am NOT, repeat, NOT in an way shape or form a luthier or even an accomplished woodworker!
That said, I,have had the distinct advantage to have rubbed elbows with some truly high caliber talents with respect to mandolin construction, banjo builders, incredible cabinetmakers,and some very fine all,around woodworking talent! Where I'm not afflicted with the talent, I do feel myself an aficionado and in some circles maybe an agent provocateur. I enjoy others talents with great enthusiasm across many media.
Yes, I look with terrible critical eye on many artists work, the art of lutherie is no different. As I say, I don't "do" but, I enjoy beauty in so many forms, the grace of line and shape carries such a powerful weight. Excellence is always a joy to behold! When the "look" puts me off, sometimes I close my eyes and feel an instrument, play a bit, there are other senses at work in the instrument world.

[peter.coombe]

Yep, I do the same. I look especially at the areas where I have the most difficulty and try and imagine how the builder does it and of course most have the same problems as I. Some are surprising, with visible sanding scratches or something that looks a bit odd that would drive me insane. I also look closely at vintage mandolins and they also have similar issues. Gilchrist - as close to perfection as I have seen. However, I have a 2000 Gilchrist that I have carefully examined many times. Take it out into the full sun and I can then can see the mistakes, and they are in the same places I tend to screw up. Small mistakes and he is just so damn good at hiding them! Under normal light they are completely invisible.

[HoGo]

I must say that I'm (probably) cured prefectionist and used to see every flaw in every instrument I built and of course in others' as well (but I tried my best not to point them out). It's mostly a curse being able to see the details but sometimes it helps - when my brother was buying a car I could point out several body repairs that the seller tried to hide and inflate the price.
These days my simple rule is ther eare two types of "mistakes" - either simple cosmetic traces of human wokmanship that can be expected on any mandolin from chinese to Gilchrist (of course they will be rather invisible to ordinary musician on higher quality instruments) or the other type is real mistakes that can affect functionality, like poorly fitted joints, bad fretwork or setup etc.
When someone comes in with mandolin for evaluation (before buying it) I don't talk about cosmetics but I will point any potential problems from faulty construction. Or when someone brings mandolin for structural repair and I see other potential problems that I feel should be fixed so I can guarantee that the instrument will play well and not fall apart later (and I would be given the blame as the last person to repair it).

[fscotte]

Yes you guys bring up some good points about cosmetic versus structural mistakes. I think I look at the cosmetic mistakes mostly when scrutinizing other builders. Structural seems too difficult to detect at first.

And speaking of Gilchrist, I have actually saved some photos to computer just so I could load them up in an editor to check his work over a grid looking for alignment and dimensional areas. The guy is unreal in his talent. I don't know if he's using CNC now, but even his earlier work is amazing. And I don't know how he is able to do perfect f-hole binding work with exacting miters too.

[Charles E.]

At this past years IBMA here in Raleigh NC, I spent time in the exhibitors hall and played a lot of mandolins. I noticed "flaws" in most instruments. Given price points, most things were forgivable. However the Ellis F-5 Deluxe I played was stunning in its perfection. I have never encountered a mandolin like that.

[Marty Jacobson]

One thing that was pointed out to me recently by a mandolin aficionado from another part of the world is that the extreme precision available today from so many F-5 master builders is not typical of lutherie in general. Most of the best and most famous instruments have had some cosmetic "flaws"... but is it really a flaw? Not everything has to look like it came out of a Star Wars replicator. I use CNC and my instruments are certainly not perfect. I don't think CNC even gives that much advantage in that, since essentially none of the surfaces visible in the final instrument are cut by CNC, they are touched by scrapers and sandpaper many times since the CNC last touched it.

[Bluetickhound]

I follow just about every builder's (who has one) Facebook page and am consistently amazed and inspired by ALL the work I see. I know I shouldn't single any one builder out but I'm just gonna go ahead and name Andrew Mowry as a prime example. His work is so clean and beautiful it really makes me work harder to get to that level of craftsmanship. I've only been building for a short time so my stuff is still very amateurish but every build so far has been an improvement over the previous so at least I'm moving in the right direction. Visiting websites of builders who don't have FB pages is also time well spent from an inspirational standpoint.

[Larry Simonson]

I think tonal performance is much more important than visual perfection but agree there are some builders out there that excel at both. It is very humbling when I compare my three builds with my Red Diamond.

[Charles E.]

Years ago I came up with the 'luthiers handshake'. Two luthiers meet and grasp each others outstretched hand. Then they lean in holding hands and carefully examine each others hand in minute detail.

[Clinton Johnson]

I hear that the Greeks intentionally built imperfections into their structures (like the acropolis) so that mathematically to the minds eye they would "appear" to be perfect. And that's what I do, I build a HECK of a lot of imperfection into my mandolins so that they will "appear" to be perfect.....yeah that sounds good lol
So far it hasn't worked out to well for me

[pelone]

As a fellow Oregonian I have to brag about Andrew Mowry's highly developed skills in reaching the ultimate if not the penultimate perfectly made, flawless, most cosmetically beautiful mandolin. The degree of precision is just out of sight. dI believe that one could use a jewler's loupe and not find a flaw.

That said---I have purposely left a few small kerf marks in the side of my snakehead head stock just to let folks know that it was hand built.

Like a beautiful face....a flaw only enhances.

[Karl Hoyt]

I really enjoy getting to inspect in minute detail other people's work. Same as many people have said: mostly I'm trying to learn as much as i can about improving my own builds. Usually it confirms for me that I have a long way to go! But on occasion I get to see certain things that that builder has difficulty with as well and how s/he approaches a particular problem. (Like those (*^%(^*%) scrolls on the F5 ). I'm never interested in picking apart someone else's effort to one up them....even if a particular build is pretty rough, there are things they do better than i and I can learn from it. My priorities in luthiery have always been : 1. Sound...2. Playability and 3: aesthetics. An instrument with aesthetic detail issues might be a killer sounding/playing instrument. Case in point. Years ago , when I started building archtop guitars, I had a '47 Stromberg on the bench. If you get out the magnifying glass, there were parts of the build that were not that impressive, but then you pick it up and play it and you understand why they're worth 25k..... Even Stradivarius, if you were to ask him about a particular violin he built, would probably point out the things he wished he did better....... luthiery is a journey, not a destination... and we can learn something from every single instrument we encounter.

[Bluetickhound]

My goal is to minimize the amount of Wabi Sabi as much as possible... I have many moons to go before I get there...

[billhay4]

Andrew Mowry, Austin Clark, Marty Jacobson, and others approach technical perfection as closely as any hand-made instrument can be. However, I would caution that the real tests of an instrument are 1) how it sounds, and 2) how it holds up over time both in construction and sound.
Technical perfection in construction comes a long way down the list in my opinion.
Bill

[fox]

I am very critical of my own work, and I know every tiny inperfectsion, to honest I an often disappointed when folk don't point out any of my misdemeanours.
In some cases I know when someone has spotted something but they don't point it out .. so I do!

[nkforster]

I was at a big trade show a year ago. In chatting to a new aspiring luthier he told me about a very expensive and well-regarded US maker who was their with an instrument. This new maker was very keen to tell me all the things that were wrong about this makers instrument. He felt rather pleased with himself. This well known maker hadn't fooled him, and he'd made mistakes he certainly wouldn't have etc...

I was also interestd to visit the makers stand. But for different reasons. And to be honest, I'm not that interested in other makers work. I expect work to be nice, but I also expect imperfection, and don't get a kick out of finding it, I know what a pain woodwork can be. So no, I never spend time looking and comparing. What I was interested in was what I could learn from this maker. And I already know how to make an instrument.

I approached him - he asked my my name. I told him. In the next sentance he repeated my name. He asked where I was from, and made a nice comment about something related to my part of the world. A second later he repeated my name and asked me about the style of music I played. Then he left me alone to play. After a few minutes he spoke to me again (by name) and talked about something totally unrelated to the guitar - when I complimented the instrument he had a very nice and welll reheased way of handling compliments that acknowledged what I said, agreed with it and thanked me. He established I wasn't a prospective client and yet didn't make me feel awkward. He turned his attention to someone else and allowed me to slip away. As I did he thanked me for trying his work.

What I witnessed was a man highly skilled not just in making very very good instruments (and it was) but also in selling good instruments. He made people feel at ease. He used simple tried and tested tools. He was charm itself. Sadly the young luthier at the show (whom as far as I know is yet to sell anything) missed all this. Which is a great shame.

Picking up on the little mistakes of others doesn't take much skill. Learning what others are doing right is a little more subtle.

nigel
www.theluthierblog.com

[fscotte]

To rephrase that a bit, learning how others make their mistakes look right, is priceless.

[Tom Haywood]

I don't think "scrutinize" equates to looking for mistakes. It means to examine or inspect closely, which I do to any mandolin or guitar I pick up. For me, it is partially intentional and partially the natural result of eyes, hands and ears trained by spending countless hours focused on every part of these instruments. I'm always looking to learn whatever might improve my efforts, and I can usually learn something whether the maker is a recognized master or a Chinese factory worker or a first time builder. Rather than mistakes, I look for how someone approached a task and how well they accomplished it - because it is an accomplishment just to build one of these things. Naturally, I compare how I approach the same task and consider the advantages, disadvantages and difficulties of different approaches. I am quite interested in seeing how other builders cover the inevitable boo boos. I recall playing a new guitar at a bluegrass festival at the tent of a builder who has excellent credentials. When I looked it over, I saw an extremely tiny piece of blue painter's tape at the neck joint buried under a perfect lacquer finish. I figured he saw it after the lacquer was done, but maybe he didn't. Maybe he was confident that a purchaser wouldn't notice it. Once he determined that I was not a buyer, he quit talking to me so I never mentioned it. But it caused me to pay closer attention to the simple task of removing tape. Repair work brings a slightly different perspective. It is fair to ask whether a failure in the instrument or a difficult repair of natural wear and tear is caused by a mistake in the design or the build. Most of the time, though, I can see why it makes sense the way they did it.

[Willie Poole]

I might be a bit different than most and I do like a good looking mandolin but to me it is more important on how it sounds, I do know of four mandolins that looked terrible but the sound of all of them was just great, two of them looked so bad that the builder refused to sell them and kept them as his own to play in the band that he was a member of even though some people wanted them because of the sound they had.... he now builds a lot better looking mandolin than those first two, but they don`t sound any better...

When playing in a dimly lit barroom people can`t see the construction flaws anyway...

Willie

[Spruce]

Technical perfection in construction comes a long way down the list in my opinion.

Yep...
...and, there are several well-known makers who are so flawless, so CNC'd, that the work just flies over my head...
A beautiful flawless blonde F5, for instance...

To me, it's all about that illusory concept of "charm"...

A Loar can be a trainwreck when it comes to workmanship, but man do they have charm in spades...
Same with some famous fiddles...

Hard to define "charm", but I sure know it when I see it...and then hopefully hear it.

[sunburst]

I've avoided this thread so far, but finally succumbed...
When I started building, everything looked great to me. Factory instruments, well made hand made instruments, domestic, imported...
Then I got a job doing finish work for a small manufacturer and got "educated" on the details, trained my eye to see everything and learn to cosmetically fix nearly anything. Once we learn to see, we can spot imperfections in anything. Is a CNC perfect? Nope, closer than the human hand though, and any human hand leaves behind little "mistakes" here and there. Also, as we gain experience we learn the trouble spots and we know just where to look to find things that were missed by the builder.
So, with a little bit of experience gained, I started to notice the flaws in instruments... any instruments. At first it was fun. It felt good to see that the great luthiers weren't perfect. Heck, I could do bindings and finishes with the best of them! I would scrutinize any instrument I picked up and be proud that I could find flaws here and there. I'd slowly examine every square millimeter looking for anything not done to perfection. Things that, of course, I thought I could do better. As I continued to gain experience my eye continued to improve and I became more educated, and I began to see different things. Design elements, flow of lines, proportion, design coherence. As I became more attuned to those things, I sort of lost interest in the little details of "fit and finish" and I began to more appreciate a good, coherent overall design and how well it is executed. Is there a little stray scrape next to the binding where the color got scraped off of the wood? Could be. So what?. Is there little pit or two left in the finish? A slightly off binding miter? Almost certainly. Do I look for it? Not really, not anymore. I've learned that I can inspect anyone's work and find some kind of flaw, usually quite a few. Since those things are inevitable, why bother to look for them? It does nothing for my ego anymore. In fact, I don't really sweat the details as much as I used to in my own work.
If I'm handed an instrument to "check out", I will normally give it a quick look over, get a sense of the overall design and execution, then move on the the sound, the feel, how well it is fretted and set up... the important stuff.
So, if you hand me an instrument to check out, don't expect me to pick it to pieces. What good does that do? If you are an experienced builder you know where all the flaws are and you know I can find them, just as I know you can find the flaws in my work. If you are a new builder you'll have to ask me to examine it and offer "constructive criticism" because otherwise I won't be looking for flaws. If you ask, however, be prepared for true constructive criticism (as well as mentioning the things I see that I think you are doing right). Why? Because I was a new builder at one time, and I found it difficult to get people to give me an honest opinion of the strengths and weaknesses of my work. Players would enthusiastically say "it's great!", and although I would ask them what they found wrong with the instrument, they would say "there's nothing wrong with it, it's great!" I found that other builders, more experienced builders, would usually offer some advice. Usually not much, but that is one or the ways that I improved my instrument; getting advice from experienced builders.
Now, unfortunately, I find myself among the experienced builders and it's time to pass it on. I no longer pick instruments apart, I know I can, I know any experienced builder can, so why bother? If you ask me to, however, I'll point out some of the flaws in your work, or even a top luthier's work (off the record), but not my work! You'll have to find those flaws for yourself! (If you're so inclined...)

[Austin Clark]

^^^
As ever John, you nailed it.