Flat frets and playability

[gummia]

Hi guys.
I am always trying to improve my Eastman MD815.
It now has the CA bridge. That helped. I am missing a bit of a low end and the response isn't quite as I would prefer. I have described the response difference in playability between the Eastman and my Mowry F5 as standing still and trying to jump up on a trampoline as compared to jump up from a solid concrete. Bah don't know if you understand.

Anyway, I took all the strings of the Eastman to clean and put fresh strings on, then I noticed that the frets are totally flat on top, looks as they have been leveled but not re-crowned again. Could that have an impact on the feel and this dull response ?
I have been thinking about putting larger frets on as I am used to on my Mowry.

[kkmm]

I did this once, leveled the frets and tried to play before re-crowning, it sounds weird, just a bit off tune on fretted notes so I did not even pay attention to playability.

[sunburst]

Frets that are not well crowned definitely affect playability. If the frets are level, re-crowning them and smoothing them will make them feel much better and the mandolin will be easier to play. If there is still plenty of fret height, and you have the existing frets crowned (well), you may not need to replace them with larger frets to get a similar feel.
Frets that are still squared off from leveling feel rough, slides can be very difficult, and simply moving fingers about the fingerboard while playing can be more difficult because of the extra resistance from the corners of the fret tops.

[gummia]

They seem kind of low to me and I don't think there is much room for crowning, plus I am used to .080 frets (stewmac0147) and love them so I think that I will just throw the old frets deep into the trash bin and put some .080's on. Maybe even EVO. That should get me closer to what I'm used to on my main mandolin and hopefully help with sound and playability.

[Greg Mirken]

I certainly wouldn't expect refretting the Eastman mandolin to have much effect on its tone, if any.

[gummia]

Also I feel that the sound is kind of chocked, that the sound does not project as good as it could.
The strings feel stiffer on the Eastman than my Mowry, both J74s, and I have to push harder to fret a note, that might be the fret size difference. Small wire on Eastman and .080 medium wire on Mowry.

I think it is a shame to own a $1500 mandolin that plays that hard and dosen't sound to its full potential... or am I just crazy to be
comparing it to my handcrafted Mowry?

So you setup masters out there, can someone elaborate on why that could be, and/or if there is anything I could do myself to make it better ?

I have read that Stephen Perrys mandovoodo does miracles on Eastmans... maybe that is something to consider.

[bart mcneil]

Sounds to me that your "plays harder" problem has nothing to do with the frets but everything to do with the nut. Your Eastman nut is likely cut too high and lowering the action at the nut would at least alleviate one of your problems. Your instrument should (or could) fret as easily as the other. I wonder if your Eastman was professionally set up before (or after) purchase. From your description it may not be well set up,

Another good source of repair and adjust info Frank Ford's frets.com. Take a hard look at nut adjustment and other good stuff.

PS I just realized Where you are from, and yes, you can do this stuff yourself. It really isn't rocket science.

[gummia]

I have never had it professionally set up. Mostly because there is nobody in Iceland that works on mandolins, some guitar repairmen do but they'd rather not work on higher grade mandolins. I don't know if the previous owner ever did either.

Anyway, I feel comfortable enough to do pretty much everything myself if I had the tools (might just purchase some). Since I have read almost everything there is on mandolin setup on the internet, and messed around with my older mandolins of lower quality, wich in every case improved the instruments in my opinion.

So back to the Eastman. Bart, Since your comment on the nut I used what I had, a knife and a piece of fine sandpaper, and cut and then sanded the slots down quite a bit. I know that it is not optimal to do it that way, rather than using slotting files so that the slots are completely round. But I thought that I'd mess with this anyway. So i stopped just about when fretting the first fret vs. second fret felt the same. Now fretting is easier and no buzzing, luckily. But the strings still felt a bit tense. So I loosened the truss rod about 1/4 twist and lowered the bridge to about 1,5mm at the 12th fret. That made quite a difference too. So, so far so good. Lets see how it plays in a few days of settling in.

I think that sooner than later I will undertake re-fretting the Eastman with wider frets like I am used to on my main mandolin. And will probably have to fit another nut as well. Need to get me some tools. :)

And you are right Bart, this really isn't rocket science. And it is actually good to be able to do your own setup and maintenance. I mean no one but one self can really know how one wants his instrument to play and feel.

[Paul Hostetter]

Also I feel that the sound is kind of chocked, that the sound does not project as good as it could.
The strings feel stiffer on the Eastman than my Mowry, both J74s, and I have to push harder to fret a note, that might be the fret size difference. Small wire on Eastman and .080 medium wire on Mowry.

Fret size (and profile) have a lot to do with ease of playing.


I think it is a shame to own a $1500 mandolin that plays that hard and doesn't sound to its full potential... or am I just crazy to be comparing it to my handcrafted Mowry?

The scales on both mandolins are identical, so you should be able to make one play as well as the other. I assume the neck relief is correctly adjusted on the Eastman.


So you setup masters out there, can someone elaborate on why that could be, and/or if there is anything I could do myself to make it better ?

I would first look at how your bridge fits the top, particularly under tension. You can buy the best bridge in the world but if it's not enjoying a vacuum fit to your top, you're not really hearing the mandolin yet.

Flat-topped frets are just not good. You might want to look at my fret page here (http://www.lutherie.net/fret.chart.html) for some ideas of the possible frets.

[gummia]

Thanks Paul.
I think for now the nut and neck relief are good. I will take another look at the bridge. I noticed that under pressure that the ends of the base feet are not in complete contact with the top. I will try to scrape from the middle of the base feet close to the center and then sand down to a better contact.

Then in time I will try to refret with the same frets I'm used to.

[Paul Hostetter]

Ya gotta make the bridge fit the top under tension. Not like this!:

http://www.lutherie.net/gibson.bush.mandolin.bridge.jpg

There was a good thread recently about just that. I just wish I could find it.

[gummia]

Yes I saw that thread a while ago. I am having hard time getting the perfect fit, I always get a very very tiny gap at the very corner of the base on both sides, a little bit bigger on the bass side though. :/

[gummia]

This is the bridge fit after I had a go on it yesterday. Little bit better than it was. At least as good as I can get it myself. Don't think this is a complete vacuum fit though.
Feel that the sound improved a little bit.

121387

121388

[Tavy]

Looks pretty good to me from the photo - bear in mind that vintage instruments with "crinkly" tops will never have a perfect vacuum fit, but still manage to sound pretty good.... just saying....

[Pete Jenner]

I'd be happy with that.

[AaronVW]

Good advice from everyone so far. I'm a fan of larger frets myself. Just keep in mind that if you re-fret with larger frets, you may also need to make yourself a new nut from scratch. There is a great article on doing this over at frets.com (for guitar, but same concept), as Bart mentioned earlier.

[gummia]

Yep. Have read that several times... Am also kind of excited to try taking on both refret and nutfitting :)

[David Houchens]

Go for it. You'll do fine.

[Paul Hostetter]

This looks good to me ;):

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=121387&d=1404915140

Yes, a refret would likely necessitate a new nut. You could shim the old one, but after everything else, a nice new one would feel correct.

[gummia]

These are pictures I took from when I finished the first round of fitting the bridge months ago. You can see there the gap I was dealing with and have been having a real hard time getting to fit properly. Seems better now though after my sanding a few days ago.

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=104160&d=1373033298

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=104161&d=1373033300

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=104162&d=1373033302


Originally posted these pictures in an older thread.
http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?96854-Another-CA-Bridge-success-story-Eastman-MD815

[bart mcneil]

Looks like you are doing a good job so far. It certainly takes patience and time, at least the first few times I did it. I think I am better at it now than a few years ago. I find all of this stuff as interesting as playing the instruments. I love to take a wreck and make it playable again and give it maybe a hundred more years of play-ability.

[gummia]

Thanks. Yes I am becoming more and more interested in practicing and studying setup myself. I want to be able to do a complete setup and maintenance myself. And will use my Eastman MD815 to practice on. At least so far all the things I have done to all my previous mandolins has turned out to make the instruments better. Also living in Iceland where the mandolin culture is almost nonexistant, no one here really knows how to work on a mandolin. Well some guitar repairmen work a little on mandolins but no one really wants to work on high end instruments like mine. So it would be best if I could just do it myself.

I probably won't risk working on is my handcrafted Mowry F5 though. I'll leave that to professionals, and preferably only to Andrew. :)

[Folkmusician.com]

The foot fit is looking good. It does appear (as best as I can tell from the images), that the bridge needs to be angled back a bit more. This is always a little tricky on the Eastman's. :)

[gummia]

Yes, the saddle seems to lean ever so slightly forward, that might have happened in the last round of sanding. :/
Don't know if I should try sanding the base to be angled a bit more backwards ?

[bart mcneil]

"Don't know if I should try sanding the base to be angled a bit more backwards ?"

Not necessarily.... It is normal for the bridge to want to lean forward as you tighten the strings.,,,, Most folks start with a lean toward the tailpiece and as the strings are tightened the bridge will go upright,,,, If my guess is correct it is just a matter of experimenting how much to lean the bridge toward the tailpiece as you begin tightening the strings.

If you did a good job of sanding the base it will still want to lean toward the fret board. If you held the bridge rigidly as you sanded it should not be a problem. Just start tightening with the bridge leaning toward the tailpiece. It will straighten up. Everyone experiences this even with a perfectly shaped bridge base.

[bart mcneil]

Even though you may have a higher end mando the bridge base adjustment is the same as on a cheaper one.

[vic-victor]

Not so sure about refretting. A good musician should be verastile to be able to get the maximum out of the instrument, even if it feels a bit different to your other one. I have a classical guitar that has a higher action than my main instrument (but still within the norm). It was less comfortable to play and my first implulse was to lower the action. I am glad I haven't, as I learned to handle higher action and it made playing on my main instrument better, too. In other words -some instrument resistance is not necessarily a bad thing - it makes you a better player in the end.

[gummia]

Not so sure about refretting. A good musician should be verastile to be able to get the maximum out of the instrument, even if it feels a bit different to your other one. --- In other words -some instrument resistance is not necessarily a bad thing - it makes you a better player in the end.

Good point :)

[gummia]

Hi guys.
Just picked up my Eastman MD815 from a refret job... It now has EVO frets (FW74). ANd feels a lot better, easier to play. OF course it feels that way. These larger frets is what I am used to. I highly recommend larger frets by the way. And the EVO's slight gold tint really goes well with the Eastmans gold hardware.

127823127824127825127826

[bernabe]

127823127824127825127826 Maybe its an illusion or lighting but those evo's look a little flat on top as well.

[Steevarino]

It looks like your second fitting of the bridge gave you a much closer (and better) fit. You could do a bit more to get the very ends to touch. Sometimes this seems to be harder on some mandolins than others. If you are using the sandpaper-on-top method, sometimes you can "cheat" a bit, and scrape away the inner portions that are now making contact with a flat blade, like a scraper or box knife blade, in order to get the outer ends to fit closer. It's sort of more now violin makers fit their bridges, but after I do this, I go back to the sandpaper and hone it in to the final fit.

A note about sandpaper, I use about 5 or 6 different grits when I fit bridges. I don't charge a lot to do it, so I start with coarser grits (80 or 100) and move my way up as it gets closer. I usually end up with 400 or 600 grit, sometimes 800. The thing about sandpaper, the paper backing gets thinner as the grit number goes up, at least this is so with the brand that I use. The thinner the paper, the more accurate the fit. This might help a bit with those "fly-away" ends.

Here's another tip: It is often difficult to tell 320 grit scratches from 400, or 400 from 600, etc. So, what I do is run pencil lines along each edge on the bottom face of the bridge. You will know that you can stop sanding,or go tothe next grit, when the pencil lines go away.

BTW, Paul's excellent picture of a bridge under tension is a good thing to make note of. Sometimes you think you have a perfect fit when holding the just-fit bridge to the top, but things can change under tension. Always a good idea to check this as part of the bridge fitting procedure.

One more thing, on this particular bridge, I would take the bridge off one more time, and lower those threaded posts a bit. You should have gotten a small (1/16") hex wrench with your bridge. You can access the hex holes inthe bottom end of these posts by putting this wrench through the holes on the bottom face of your bridge base and turn them so that they are just at or below the top edge of the bridge saddle (top part). When doing this, make certain that you don't go too far though. You don't want those posts low enough to make contact with the top of your mandolin! Actually, we make this hard to do, as we only tap the holes to a certain depth. You'd have to crank pretty hard to get the posts down that far.

All that said, it sounds like your main problem is those frets. I'd crown them properly (or re-fret) and see if that helps.

Enjoy the journey!

[gummia]

Thanks for the tips.
I have actually already lowered the threaded posts since these photos. :)
I might make just another run and scrape from the center and then make final sanding with even finer grit paper.

Oh and regarding the EVO frets. They are not flat on top, they're just wide, and the light kind of reflects of off them that way. Even from a certain angle they seem a bit flat on top with bare eyes, but they are not.