Kay Mandocello?

[Eddie Sheehy]

I'm trying to get string -spacing measurements for the nut and bridge on the Kay Kraft site - there's a few mandocello pix on there. I picked up a bridge and tailpiece so far...

[Kerry Krishna]

Bernie, sorry that I did not see your post until now. The actual Kay Kraft instruments were only made between 1930 and 1939. The mandocellos that I have knowledge of are all from around '36. Dobe, if you Private Message me about that mando, maybe we can do something? The Moderators here REALLY dislike talk on the Forum like this . PM me OK?

[Kerry Krishna]

So I just contacted Eddy to let him know. I don't think this post5 will be well received.... ....
I have been puzzling this out over the last two weeks since the Ebay ad first came out to try and figure out what all the discrepancies between documented Kay Kraft mandocellos and documented Kay Kraft tenor guitars mean.

After going over all the measurements, scale length questions, nut width questions, and going back over all my archived photos taken off of the net, it turns out that Eddy's instrument is not a mandocello at all, but a 8 string tenor guitar.

The 3 confirmed cello's that I have measurements for are all the exact same. All are 24 3/4 scale, and all have a super wide nut, and all have the same mahogany body as the tenor guitars.

Eddy's instrument is a 23 inch scale, (all the tenor guitars were a 23 inch scale) and the nut measurement is not close to wide enough to be for a cello, but is only an 1/8th inch difference off of my 3 Kay Kraft tenor guitars.
I did not have enough information to figure all this out until earlier tonight, when I got confirmed measurements off of a third actual Kay Kraft mandocello that I located earlier on this week.

The Kay Kraft mandocellos are all 24 3/4 inch scale, with a 1 3/4 inch nut, and the bridge position is back towards the tailpiece about an inch and a half farther that the Tenors.

The Kay Kraft Tenor guitars are all 23 inch scale with a nut just over 1 1/8 inch. It makes sense that an 8 string tenor would have a slightly wider 1 1/4 inch nut.

In my photo archives, I have the pictures of a Kay Kraft 6 string tenor that are below. It has 4 on a plate machines on the treble side, and two singles on the other. I had heard that there was a few years were a two or three companies tried making 8 string tenors, but the necks were so thin side to side/front to back, that they could not possibly last. The Kay Krafts were all without neck reinforcement, and as such, this must have been a short lived experiment. The three tenors I have all have slightly bowed necks, and that is with half the tension!

The following screen captures/pictures are off of the Vintageguitar.net site. If you blow the second picture up to full screen you easily see the wider nut width of the 6 string 23 inch scale tenor and the regular 4 string 23 inch scale tenor right beside it.

That about wraps the whole thing up right there.

23 inch scale equals tenor guitar. 24 3/4 inch scale equals mandocello.

This thread has sure helped with all my research on Facebook's 'Kay Kraft Guitar' site, and I am so glad that this hybrid tenor guitar of Eddy's made it onto these pages. I just about bought this off of Eddy too! I already have 3 KK tenors, and an 8 string one would have been overkill on my part, so I am glad that it has worked out this way. (I am still looking for a maple tenor if anyone has any leads...)

The owner of Vintageguitaer.net is a super easy guy to deal with, and vera knowledgable about all that he collects.

[Bernie Daniel]

Hi Kerry,

I think we kind of suspected that might be the case (see posts #7 & #8) Good to have it confirmed. I sure enjoyed reading all the information you have collected on these Kay's -- I really had no idea that then even made those mandocellos. I sure like to hear one of them some time.

[delsbrother]

What time period were these produced? Were they always intended for double-strung tenor tuning (CGDA)?

[Dobe]

New neck & fingerboard, OR :

http://www.yellowstone-jewelry.com/B...20wings_p1.htm

[Kerry Krishna]

The actual fingerboard on this one was replaced, but the neck is original but has just been totally stripped which destroys about half the value. The neck was horribly put back together also, as witnessed by it being stripped. Many on this Forum have done fingerboard replacements, and never have I had to strip the neck.
The MOTS headstock overlay should have been steamed off, the work done, and glued back on, and the truss rod allan key entrance put in at the OTHER end of the board. I have one such modified instrument already, and it just weighs a bit more. You can not tell any work has been done on it at all.
I imagine that this 8 string tenor neck lasted all of two or four years before it self destructed too. Also there was never any Brazilian rosewood used on any of these axes, unlike what Eddy wrote in his ad, and there seems to be many who have been reading this ad that seem to think that the rosewood tenor instruments are uber-rare.
This is not the case.
There were many that were made in the later 30s, and they show up on Ebay quite a bit.

[Kerry Krishna]

Delsbro, the tenors were made starting in 1930, and continued up until 1937 as far as I can figure.
As my studies progress, so does my understanding of these flawed beauties. There has not been a single one that I have bought that did not change my understanding somewhat. There are no serial numbers, never any model numbers, on any of the various family of instruments, so a lot of the dating is just guesswork. The vague descriptions and horrible out of focus pictures in the catalogs only partly help too. For example, there is only a cursory mention of the 'Kay Kraft mandola' in one catalog, no pictures or anything else. We only know it really exists because a single documented one has been found.

The reason I am saying this right here, is because of the dating of production models is limited to the three distinct types of paper label and, in the 1935/36 models, an aluminum foil labels started being attached. . that are put inside, and a single 'bat-brace' that started making it's way into the production line as late as 1932 (?) .
In the case of this 8 string tenor, there is no traceable way to date the neck, as the body was swapped out at some point.
I have 2 Rosewood tenors, both from '31/'32, and a rosewood 6 string 14 fret from '35. I know that they were still making the Rosewood tenors in '35 because veneer used for the backs is a match for the 6 string, and some of the other Rosewood tenors I have seen pictures of were from the same batch.
Sorry to post all this on your thread Eddy. Have you changed the name of the ad in the Classifieds here yet?

[Kerry Krishna]

The axe has gone up for sale again here on the Cafe, from the guy Eddy sold it to. Eddy offered it to me for $800, and the ad was taken off the Cafe the next day.....

So let's review: This is a Rosewood Tenor guitar body, that someone put a replica Kay Kraft mandocello neck on.

(The neck is unlike any of the 19 Kay Kraft necks that I own. It is possible that the maker of this neck had a KK 'Cello neck that he semi-duplicated. This would explain why there is no MOTS headstock overlay, but I am guessing here.I just can say that this neck was certainly not made at the factory.)

This neck has an actual hand stop, and squared off heal, truss rod, no MOTS headstock overlay, correct period Waverly tuners (I think!) The headstock profile looks to be a perfect KK silhouette. The pickguard is gone, and the tailpiece and bridge look to have come off of an archtop guitar.

The current owner has it set up for playing 5 string tenor and is trying to be transparent about what this axe actually is....

[Eddie Sheehy]

I think the current owner is being up-front about what he is selling. He has put a lot of work and 'expertize' into getting it to where it is. The absence of the MOTS on the headstock is easily explained, it had been removed and replaced with a rosewood veneer before I got it. I believe that neck is a OM or Mandocello neck - and now it is a Tenor Guitar neck - yes, my guess is as good as yours. The tailpiece could be off someting else and modified for 8 strings, or it could have been original for 8 strings, maybe even 12 strings...The bridge is a replacement bridge - it didn't have one when I got it, and now it has a replacement saddle for 5-strings... It definitely is a one-of-a-kind and the Seller is entitled to request whatever he thinks its value is...
If you had bought it off me for $800 and then had to put considerable effort and expense into I wonder how much you would sell it for. At the time I felt that a lot of your comments were an attempt to 'undervalue' the instrument so you could pick it up cheaply, and it looks like you are trying again, and deciding that if you can't get it for what you want then nobody else should buy it either. It was not by accident that I 'unfriended' you and your FB site...

[eastmountain]

Anyone who would accuse Kerry of attempting to manipulate identification of an instrument in an effort to buy it cheaply simply does not know him. I've had a good deal of discussion and advice from Kerry regarding my KK mandolin and KK guitar, and he has always been unfailingly generous with his time and expertise. That you would accuse him of this says a lot more about you than it does about him.

[Eddie Sheehy]

Hiding behind a pseudonym says a lot about you... but you are entitled to your opinion, as I am to mine.