Round mandolins

[Bill Snyder]

Yeah - as some of the greats have said to me (and I paraphrase), if it is mandolin shaped, it will likely sound like a mandolin.

Exactly.

[OldSausage]

I like the look of that watermelon.

[jasona]

I actually played it (or its sibling). Sounds really great! I would have said "sweet and juicy" but Bill beat me to that joke years ago...

[Astro]

Well here's a cool looking Octave : http://www.mandolincafe.com/ads/71526

[Mandocarver]

Very interesting thread. OK, so it's a resonator instrument rather than carved-top, but I'm intrigued by the Dobro Tenortrope tenor guitars and am planning on making my own version. I'm also wondering if it might make a good mandolin banjo-type instrument with a 14.5 inch scale...

[Paul Hostetter]

The reason the people who made these used a different (pear-shaped) body was because the string tension on a mandolin is many times greater than on a tenor banjo. The pear-shaped body offered a lot more structural support for the neck. (This is also why most mandolin banjos have pulled-up necks.)




This thread has really strayed from the Iucci/Tieri instruments that started it.

PS: I own one of those Framus Black Rose Baby mandolins—plywood junk, best as a wallhanger.

[Pete Jenner]

My Pagan started life as two circles.

[Marty Jacobson]

Hey Pete, all life started as two circles. :-)

[Pete Jenner]

Oh, I thought it was only one round thing and a long wiggly thing but you could be on to something Marty. I'm going to put my plans into a Petri dish with some nutrient gel and see what happens.

[OldSausage]

My Pagan started life as two circles.

Well, one of the things that inspired this idea for me was noticing how some F5s seem to look like a circle with various attachments. And then if you look at the original Loar A5, it's really rather round.

http://www.mandolinarchive.com/gibson/serial/74003

[Pete Jenner]

I thought you were just playing around.

[Bob Sears]

This is a very interesting thread with great pictures. Thanks to everyone who contributed

[Petrus]

I like the look of that watermelon.

I like that some of the holes in the Swiss cheese one seem to be functional sound holes.

[Bill Snyder]

So David have you finished an instrument of any shape yet?

[Marty Jacobson]

..

[pelone]

David----since making the two circular mandos that are shown in post number 25, I have completed an octave. There is nothing new under the sun---when I had completed the mandos I ran across some vintage photos of a Gretsch guitar using the same form. I built the instruments with a graphite rod running longitudinally from the top block running longitudinally to the tail block to work against the two ends against the middle and minimize any lifting or shortening along the string line. I can leave these instruments hanging for a month, come back to them and they are still right in tune. I believe that without the graphite rods that a pulling up of the neck might occur as happens in some banjos. I always get the odd response when I show up at a jam--attitudes change when their volume cuts
through some of the loud players.

[Reed Bennett]

Concerning round mandolins.......I just posted three photos on the Mandolin Cafe Forum Photos Section of a mandolin I recently acquired..........a 1921 Coulter mandolin. There is an article about F.E. Coulter in the November 2015 issue of Vintage Guitar magazine. Thanks.

[Jacqke]

Here's one other picture. I know that there are others from this photo series in one of the forum posts. It's on Wikipedia now, but originally came from a Finnish government archive from World War II.

[Franc Homier Lieu]

This one just popped up in another thread:



http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...nkey-headstock

[Trish0803]

I have a round bodied mandolin which I am looking for information on

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...nkey-headstock

[MikeEdgerton]

I still think it was made in Vietnam. The round body doesn't make this unique and it certainly wasn't built by any of the American builders that built round mandolins. What makes this unique is the headstock carving.

[Paul Hostetter]

I see why you'd guess Vietnam, but I think it looks European, ref: the bridge, the tuners, and the style of the carving, which owes more to cuckoo clocks than to netsuke. And it looks to have been made before WWII.





I also think that if this was made somewhere in Asia, it was commissioned by a Westerner who had a damaged mandolin from which some parts were salvaged and redeployed. And I would suggest China, because of the carving.

Looks quite cool, I'd love to hear it!

[MikeEdgerton]

Look at the carved bat mandolin linked to in her other post. There is French writing and a dated label on that one. Looks kind of the same. That one was created for a gathering of the French colonies in the early 1900's. Apparently the Vietnam colony was building fine carved instruments for the French market. It looks Europeon because that's who they learned from and built for. I still think it's Vietnamese.

[mandroid]

It is round , but a Uke http://www.gretschguitars.com/produc...blue-sunburst/

[Jim Garber]

It is round , but a Uke http://www.gretschguitars.com/produc...blue-sunburst/

That is a copy of the older Gretsch ukes, same color too. Lyon & Healy also made their Camp Ukes in that shape, but I don't think they ever made a Camp Mandolin.