Post a Picture of Your Bowlback (or any others)

[Eugene]

If detailed images of mine would help in any way, feel free to drop me an e-mail.
Good luck with it,
Eugene

[onthefiddle]

Thanks Eugene! I may take you up on that once I have had a chance to properly inspect the instrument.
The latest two photos that my father sent me show that there may have been some type of finial on the central section of the top of the peghead, and that you were right about the tailpiece. I'll let you know if it has holes for hitchpins beneath when I get back to the UK.

[pklima]

Here's my ugly German mandola... I haven't yet figured out how I want to string and tune it, but I've gotten it into a sufficiently decent shape to post a few photos.

[pklima]

It's really odd to see scalloped ribs on something that has so few of them.

[pklima]

The kidney-shaped soundhole and ugly pickguard... well, at least the inlay is better-executed than most of the German instruments. There's real mother-of-pearl and real abalone, possibly even real ivory and real coral.

[pklima]

Finally, the always popular rear end shot. The fluting of the ribs is very shallow, but I suppose with this few ribs that's the only way it can be.

[Eugene]

I suspect the fluting is a result of natural shrinkage. I love the fingerboard terminus that is shaped to fit around a soundhole...only some other soundhole. I really think the whole thing is kinda groovy, Peter, and should prove good fun.

[Darryl Wolfe]

Here's a cool set of bowlback tuners I recently picked up on ebay. Do the buttons look familiar?

[Eugene]

Risky business, showing such stuff to this lot. Stuff like that is a rare commodity. Prepare for the descent of vultures.

[pklima]

I suspect the fluting is a result of natural shrinkage. #I love the fingerboard terminus that is shaped to fit around a soundhole...only some other soundhole. #I really think the whole thing is kinda groovy, Peter, and should prove good fun.

It is good fun, though I suspect it'll be better with lighter strings and CGDA tuning; the low G course doesn't sound like much.

Fluting through shrinkage is a plausible and interesting idea, but I'm inclined to think the ribs really are fluted. The Germans often make waldzithers and mandokin with semi-flat backs consisting of a few broad staves. Those often display similar shallow scalloping.

[Martin Jonas]

Fluting through shrinkage is a plausible and interesting idea, but I'm inclined to think the ribs really are fluted. The Germans often make waldzithers and mandokin with semi-flat backs consisting of a few broad staves. Those often display similar shallow scalloping.

Indeed. My German Majestic semi flatback has seven staves, with a distinct, though shallow, scalloping. The construction is quite different from a bowl, though, and much easier to build. The staves are all the same width and the seams are all parallel. This type of scalloping isn't really comparable to that on a top-end Martin, say.

Martin

[Plamen Ivanov]

Hello

Eugene and onthefiddle look at the picture below. This one looks very similar to yours. There are some initials on the case - F.M.C. May be some of you both has to try to contact the painter Steven J. Levine.

Good luck!

[Plamen Ivanov]

Oh, and Peter, I don`t find this mandola so ugly...

[pklima]

I don't think that mandola's ugly; even the kidney-shaped soundhole and the fingerboard/soundhole mismatch are charming in their own way. The pickguard inlay, on the other hand... that's just ugly. I've seen far worse, but still...

[onthefiddle]

Thanks for the picture Plami!
The mandolin is a little strange - the body is clearly that of a similair instrument to Eugene's and my own, yet it has a slotted head - which can only mean tuners, as far as I'm aware.
I suppose it would be possible to convert a peghead to a slotted head with tuners - as long as the peghead was thick enough to allow mounting the tuners on it's sides. It would mean major changes to the peghead though - the sides being flattened and the slots being cut.
Or of course - it may have had a new head grafted on, following an accident. I have a nice octave mandola that had the same work done - though not with a slotted head.
Jon

[Eugene]

I would guess that both this piece and Jon's started life as a similar instrument and both were subsequenly modified at a similar date in a similar way. #This wasn't at all uncommon for working instruments made just before some evolutionary step; e.g., there are piles of 6-string guitars in museums that resulted from shortening the pegheads of the last generation of 5-course guitars.

When you do convert your mandolin back to pegs and hitch pins, Jon, Gamut Strings is a ready source of pre-assembled string sets appropriate to the instrument. #Click on "Mandolin strings" followed by "Baroque Neapolitan mandolin strings" (you'll have to forgive the fact that the Neapolitan mandolin did not exist during the proper baroque era). #Be warned, the d of twisted brass takes some getting used to.

[onthefiddle]

The point you made about conversions makes a lot of sense Eugene. In fact nearly all violins of the Cremonese "Golden Period" have been converted from Baroque to Modern setups - including having their necks replaced (or reset and reshaped) and their bass bars changed for longer, deeper ones - to accomodate changes in stringing and technique. Beyond this all their removable fittings have of course been changed. With the rise in interest in "Early Music" there has been some movement towards reversing these changes though. Thankfully much less work is required on my mandolin!
Thanks for the Gamut strings link - I was actually thinking of ordering from Northern Renaissance Instruments in the UK. They wouldn't be so convenient from North America, but their website does have a lot of interesting information, so is definitely worth a look. Have you had a chance to compare wound gut and wound silk for the low octave G string?

[Eugene]

Have you had a chance to compare wound gut and wound silk for the low octave G string?

I have not. #I know NRI tells us tonal balance across courses wasn't nearly the concern for rococo-era musicians as it is for us...but I still like more balance than not. #I have only used wound silk to date, which, I would imagine, is a little more sustaining than wound gut would be: i.e. just a little closer to the brass. #If you do a comparison, I'd be interested in your opinion.

If it's of any interest, the only recording of which I'm aware that uses historic stringing is Richard Walz's Works for Mandolin and Fortepiano (1998, Globe GLO 5187). #Other period-instrument recordings I like are Ensemble Baschenis's The Early Mandolin (1998, Ducale CDL 025), Christian Schneider's Mandoline Galante (1999, Caliope CAL 9274), and Caterina Lichtenberg's Musikinstrumente des Ferdinandeums (1997, Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum). #I believe the former two of these string with wire throughout and use a g course in unison; Caterina used gut throughout on hers.

I found "A Guide to Playing the Neapolitan Mandoline" by Paul Sparks to be very helpful (Tyler & Sparks. 1989. The Early Mandolin. Clarendon Press, Oxford). #Minkoff also bound the Leone, Fouchetti, and Denis methods in one handy volume (1983. Methodes de Mandoline. Minkoff Reprint, Geneve). #Please pardon my presumption if you've already come across all this.

[Eugene]

Struggling to keep this chat alive, here's a nice 1905-1909 Washburn style 225 that I bought a little while ago.

[Eugene]

I love the groovy multi-colored herringbone trim and rosette; I also love all the engraved pearl position markers: way more cool than such an affordable instrument should be allowed to carry. #This bridge was horrific and had been fit to an arched top; given that this top is canted but flat, the bridge has gotsta go. #I've used Ben Wilcox to do this kind of work for me before and wll probably see if he's available to craft a reproduction bridge for this.

[Eugene]

Another cool feature of all but the most spartan Washburns was engraving of the metal hardware. #Unfortunately, two of the tuners slipped and were untunable. #Also unfortunately, this one was fit with the irreparable-in-most-situautions tuners where the worm wheel is peened onto the post. #In trying to re-peen, my local guy ended up cracking one of the brass gears. #The wheel is now pinned to the post, and I am waiting for the now slightly broader gear to be ground down so it can re-mesh with the worm gear.

[Eugene]

Other than the tuners and bad bridge, this is mighty healthy: no cracks or separations, minimal wear, etc. #Odd as it seems to me, Lyon & Healy used celluloid as spacers between the ribs of their bowlbacks.

[Jim Garber]

Another cool feature of all but the most spartan Washburns was engraving of the metal hardware. #Unfortunately, two of the tuners slipped and were untunable. #Also unfortunately, this one was fit with the irreparable-in-most-situautions tuners where the worm wheel is peened onto the post. #In trying to re-peen, my local guy ended up cracking one of the brass gears. #The wheel is now pinned to the post, and I am waiting for the now slightly broader gear to be ground down so it can remesh with the worm gear.

Eugene:
I have the same model Washburn with the exact same problem with two of the tuning gears. Neil Russell has a method of fixing these but I haven't yet gotten around to sending the tuners to him

Jim

[Eugene]

It was Neil who advised my local guy and pinned the gear after it had been damaged. #Neil re-peens (it's much more complex than implied by a single word, but that word is the essence of it), but it's a tricky business and too far will cack the brass gear.

[Joe F]

The card is advertising reed organs, but I didn't know they came in bowlback shape:

eBay