Anniversary of the damage to Monroe's Loars

**Scott Tichenor** · Nov-13-2008, 7:12am

Today on this day in mandolin history: November 13, 1985, Vandal damages two of Bill Monroe's Loar mandolins with fireplace poker (see images), subsequently repaired by Charlie Derrington.

**MikeEdgerton** · Nov-13-2008, 7:26am

Seriously, has anyone got a picture of the poker?

**AlanN** · Nov-13-2008, 7:37am

As in the piece of hardware or the person who held the piece of hardware?

Hard to fathom 23 years have gone by since then.

**Steve Ostrander** · Nov-13-2008, 7:41am

Another argument for not leaving your mando out of the case...

**MikeEdgerton** · Nov-13-2008, 8:28am

Originally Posted by AlanN

As in the piece of hardware or the person who held the piece of hardware?...

As in the hardware.

I imagine this highly motivated vandal would have just opened the case, and maybe she did.

**JEStanek** · Nov-13-2008, 8:34am

This may be more of a warning about how you treat others and who you hang out with than keeping an instrument in the case! I'm more impressed with Charlie's labor of love in fixing it (both smashed instruments) than shocked at the damage inflicted or why it happened.

Jamie

**pocketbones** · Nov-13-2008, 8:40am

did Monroe write the classic tune, "I'm Using My Bible For a Blackjack" ?

**woodwizard** · Nov-13-2008, 8:48am

Is it true nobody knows where the second repaired Loar got off to? I've heard that.

**Steve Cantrell** · Nov-13-2008, 9:09am

I agree with Jamie about Charlie. What skill this guy had to put that back together. Amazing.

**evanreilly** · Nov-13-2008, 12:31pm

She even lined them up next to each other before smashing them. Bill just put all the pieces (except for one small piece he missed) into a brown paper bag and headed to Gibson. Charlie's first task was to make two separate piles of splinters and pieces.
The whereabouts of the 'second Loar' still remain a mystery.
Bill's first show after the incident was the Nightstage, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. You could hear the proverbial pin drop when Bill related how his mandolins had been vandalized.

**Steve Ostrander** · Nov-13-2008, 12:39pm

Just curious...did Monroe or Charlie D, or anyone else ever comment on how it sounded after restoration? Pretty much the same, or any noticable difference?

**f5loar** · Nov-13-2008, 1:12pm

There have been written accounts about the new sound after repairs but the true test was in the happiness of it's owner and that pasted the mustard as he continued to create with it. CD said it was a little tighter sounding but others things like a neck reset took place too and he felt it would take some months for it to open back up and it did according to recordings made after the repairs. It still maintained that open woody sound associated with Monroe's Loar. But again most of that sound came from his right hand not the mandolin. The 2nd Loar was reported by James as being stolen. No word from James about a safe return but I suspect it did and is being kept for the family as a private matter. CD did tell me the 2nd Loar repairs were not as successful in retaining it's pre-Loar sound. There are few photos of Monroe holding the 2nd Loar before or after.

**Fretbear** · Nov-14-2008, 6:25am

The second Loar had one of it's tonebars snapped, with #73987 miraculously escaping that fate. Succesfully repairing damage like would be tantamount to a great singer being stabbed in the vocal chords and then being able to sing well again afterwards. I'm sure the vandal was confident they had successfully destroyed both instruments and they were almost right.

**Mike Bromley** · Nov-14-2008, 7:13am

How fast did news of the attack spread through the mandolin community?

I had just seen the birth of my daughter a couple of months before, but as a aspiring bluegrass player at the time, I was none the wiser. I don't think I heard of the vandalism until sometime around WSM's passing.

**f5loar** · Nov-14-2008, 8:59am

I'd say other than close friends the world found out through BU magazine and after the repairs in Frets magazine. There probably was a blurp in the Nashville newspaper. And when Monroe did shows he told of the story on stage right away so word spread that way pretty quick through the bluegrass fans. I know I've heard the fact that the tone bar(s) were broken on the other Loar but Gibson has been making tone bars from sratch since the first mandolin in 1896. I would think all CD would have to do is replace the broken tone bar(s) vs. trying to reglue the old one(s). If you put it back together and it sounds like cra* then take the back off again and replace it with new tone bars of like kind. Jim Triggs might can tell us how those bars were replaced.

**mandopete** · Nov-14-2008, 9:08am

Originally Posted by mad4mandos

Another argument for not leaving your mando out of the case...

That's rich!

**evanreilly** · Nov-14-2008, 9:36am

One of the points that CD made about the repair job was that he used an "acoustically transparent' glue to reassemble the mandolins. I seem to recall he would not be more specific about it brand-wise, but also have an association that it was some flavor of high-strength epoxy used to repair helicopter rotors
My own hands-on assessment of the mandolin (#73987) was that post-trauma Bill had the action considerably lower, allowing it to be a good bit more playable. Tone-wise, I think it still sounded like #73987.

**Tony Sz** · Nov-14-2008, 9:48am

Originally Posted by evanreilly

that it was some flavor of high-strength epoxy used to repair helicopter rotors

I'm not so sure that I'd want to be up in a helicopter that had it's rotors glued back on. I don't care what kind of glue they used!

**Mike Bromley** · Nov-14-2008, 11:34am

Originally Posted by f5loar

Jim Triggs might can tell us how those bars were replaced.

I bet he could! He seemed a wellspring of tidbits on things Gibson & Mandolin when I visited last September.

**Bernie Daniel** · Nov-14-2008, 1:01pm

One of the points that CD made about the repair job was that he used an "acoustically transparent' glue to reassemble the mandolins. I seem to recall he would not be more specific about it brand-wise, but also have an association that it was some flavor of high-strength epoxy used to repair helicopter rotors

Evan, I made a call to a former military 'copter pilot I know and he is skeptical about the use of glue for any kind of propeller repairs. There is "helicopter grade" tape (super duct tape) but it is not used on rotors.

But regardless of what the epoxy was used for commercially I wonder how CD came to know that it was "acoustically transparent" -- that is a pretty interesting point right there.

Related to that same thought is the fact that some have been know to fit up a mandolin bridge using an epoxy base - -that approach spposedly works well too.

In addition that makes his restoration efforts all the more impressive as there would have been no "redo's" using a glue that reacts and forms an unmeltable chemical bond. Remarkable.

**greg_tsam** · Nov-14-2008, 1:07pm

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Bill found that out the hard way.

**Rroyd** · Nov-14-2008, 2:21pm

I would suspect that any helicopter-rotor related epoxy was used in the construction of composite rotors, rather than for repair. I have used epoxy made for use in construction of composite airplanes for some non-instrument related restorations on items made of wood, and it worked better than any other type of glue I had ever tried. The mix was 49 parts of A to 100 parts of B, and used a dispenser that automatically measured out the correct amounts. I don't know whether this glue was acoustically transparent, but I would not have hesitated to use it to repair a broken peghead, neck, heel, or any other structural problem that I wanted to permanently repair.

**Michael Gowell** · Nov-14-2008, 3:00pm

Funny that we're talking about an acoustically transparent glue, presumably with a short working time, when that description fits the classic luthier's glue - hide glue. Maybe not enough structural strength for "splinter reassembly"?

**laddy jota** · Nov-14-2008, 3:42pm

I saw Bill's mandolin last week at the CM Hall of Fame. A spot under where the finger rest would be was concave and appeared to have the texture of plastic wood or similar product. I wonder if some kind of filler was used. If so, it must have sunk a little. Maybe it was just pitted from the pick but I could not detect any grain. Still it looked better than the picture above.

**MikeEdgerton** · Nov-14-2008, 3:53pm

Originally Posted by Maine Michael

Funny that we're talking about an acoustically transparent glue, presumably with a short working time, when that description fits the classic luthier's glue - hide glue. Maybe not enough structural strength for "splinter reassembly"?

Hmmm, hide glue is acoustically transparent. And all this time I thought it was the magical ingredient that made all those old instruments sound so good. Who knew it added nothing?