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View Full Version : Blast From The Past...A Bruce Harvie Mandolin


Spruce
Apr-22-2013, 3:40pm
Sorry to flaunt my name in the title, but I want someone to be able to find this thread in case another one of these shows up...

Got a call from Dusty Strings in Seattle the other day, with news that a mandolin that I made in the mid-80's showed up at their shop...

Here tis:

http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee22/e_stamp/HarvieMandolin_zps0deb01b7.jpg (http://s231.photobucket.com/user/e_stamp/media/HarvieMandolin_zps0deb01b7.jpg.html)

Looks like a one-piece Sitka top, with wide grain on the bass side...
The back and sides are made from some old pool cue blanks, so it's a four-piece back if I remember correctly)...
Headstock veneer too, or so it seems...

I have no recollection of making this one, so it's kind of a mystery...
It's one of the first, though, as I switched over to a D'Angelico style offset 2-pioint design later on...
I made about 15-20 total...

Anyway, it's still together, and plays OK...
I might even stop off there and see if it jogs any memories...
But you can definitely see why I started cutting wood and quit building mandolins... :)
Jim Garber
Apr-22-2013, 4:28pm
I have no recollection of making this one, so it's kind of a mystery...

Hmmmm... that could be one of those counterfeit Bruce Harvie mandolins. There were hundreds of them coming over from Asia in the 1980s when the Bruce Harvie mandolin craze was in progress. Luckily the legal department at Bruce Harvie Industries put an end to that. :)
Spruce
Apr-22-2013, 5:18pm
It also needs to be distressed... :)
mrmando
Apr-22-2013, 5:52pm
It'll be distressed enough when it reads this thread and learns that you don't remember making it...
MikeEdgerton
Apr-22-2013, 6:44pm
Bruce, I'm assuming there's a dent on that thing someplace. :)
Spruce
Apr-22-2013, 10:05pm
It'll be distressed enough when it reads this thread and learns that you don't remember making it...

Sure am glad you can remember everything you did 30 years ago...
Good trait to have, that one... :)
Steve Sorensen
Apr-23-2013, 12:34am
Ah, the 80s . . .
mandopete
Apr-23-2013, 9:46am
How cool is that?

What, no whammy bar......
Dale Ludewig
Apr-23-2013, 9:56am
That is very cool. Ah yes, the 80's. And the 70's... When we were in our prime.
billhay4
Apr-23-2013, 10:58am
I can't even remember everything I did yesterday.
Bill
Eddie Sheehy
Apr-24-2013, 5:56pm
I learn something new each day. Nice mando, Bruce.
stevejay
Apr-24-2013, 6:04pm
It looks very nice. Looks like a mandolin which could easily be converted to lefty as well.
greg_tsam
Apr-25-2013, 9:42am
Sure am glad you can remember everything you did 30 years ago...
Good trait to have, that one... :)

Yea but to forget building an entire mandolin? lol.. Must have been good times. :) In the defense of memory lapses, can anyone remember what they had for lunch last week or yesterday, even?
Spruce
Apr-25-2013, 9:58am
Yea but to forget building an entire mandolin?

I think I figured out why I can't remember building this puppy....

It was originally built with a cedar top, and the guy who owned it put a book or something on top of it, closed the case, and collapsed the top...

This was years after I quit building these things, so gearing up to re-top an old mando is something I tried to forget...
Successfully... :)
Eddie Sheehy
Apr-25-2013, 11:19am
Was it a good book? Did you use matched book-ends?
Spruce
Apr-25-2013, 11:23am
Was it a good book?

Not really....
"Mally's 100 Essential Irish Session Tunes", if I recall... :)
Eddie Sheehy
May-03-2013, 6:49pm
Oh, that old door-stop...