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Apologies to all who want to discuss the alternatives for this material. We have a long history of individuals who don’t understand our well established policies of restricting the discussion of...

BTW, in America and other free societies, website owner has a right to control content.

I thought all you Kimble fans might enjoy seeing these... 188791188792

Hey y'all,

Just posted a new video to my YouTube channel of this beautiful piece. I have been traveling quite a lot in the month of March and didn't have all of my equipment near me so the quality...

I work in a violin shop selling violins/violas/cellos and bows, and I can say that a lot of the pricing is entirely legitimate, but a lot is also extra-musical.

As far as I know, violin-family...

Full disclosure:
I hustled violins and bows, and sold pernambuco from 1979-1984. I was known for the finest available pernambuco blanks and had customers come ( actually show up at my door step in...

Hah! You are joking, right? By the same token a mandolin is just a roundish box with metal strings run across the top. And a flute is just a pipe top blow air in.

You can get a bow, of course,...

Thank you: "Years ago I got my wife a violin setup (case, bow included) from Stephen Perry for about 5 bills. I am a pretty good judge of tone in acoustic instruments, and to me the thing sounds flat...

So shortly before the Christmas and the New year, I decided it was time to sell my Eastman. I gave Marty Jacobson a shout through email, and he was available for me to come down to the shop to have...

Do enjoy folks!

Dem


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8MswncPN7E


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luI3F8_CgaA

I found myself doing some early morning picking and the sun was shining; seemed too good not to take a few pics:
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And happy bday mandolin cafe!

the way I set up instruments these days, is not dependent on an actual measurement, and I also do not use another instruments measurements to attempt to duplicate to another. what I've found over the...

Different builders do different things.
Most of the dovetail shims that I install are in guitars when I reset necks. I prefer to adjust the neck angle (by cutting the heel) until the geometry is...

Unclelee, Feel free to come on over to the Vintage Case Facebook Group. Mike has a link, above. Share some photos of your case and we can chat about it.

If you try to take an old worn case and...

Forum member LoudLoar has an entire Facebook group and website devoted to vintage case restoration, repair, and value. Let me see if I can get them links. Steve can show you some examples of...

I tune my mandolins to GCEG all the time, it's the only tuning I use. Also called Open C, Taropatch C, slack key C. It has the same intervals and chord patterns as 5-string banjo capoed up 5 frets...

The problem here is that, within any given species of top wood (say, red spruce), there is considerable variation from log to log. Some boards will sound tighter than others. The range of tones you...

How about we do this:

If the spruce is super stiff, and denser avg spruce, slightly heavier, then we'll call it red spruce.
If the spruce is less stiff, less dense, slightly lighter, then we'll...

Well, the great builders tend to use great woods. These things are not mutually exclusive! A great builder needs to understand a lot about tonewoods and their acoustic properties -- and that is part...

I don't understand the obsession with woods or the notion of magical properties associated with specific trees or species, rather than mentioning the skill of a builder.

If it sounds good, it is...

FYI, it looks like I’m still making McClungs. So far everything I’m making is sold before it can be posted on the website. I’m unable to provide custom stuff at this time. When the weather clears up...

There can be a lot of difference between two pieces of torrefied wood even if it came from the same log - there are many variables to the process higher/lower temperature, duration and shedule of...

I have the whole palette of Collings mandolins here right now. Torrified, varnish, italian , etc. you need to play them all to get a good assessment. Collings spent a lot of time developing all...

Before this gets rolling, let me say that when I left for Wintergrass last Tuesday evening, I had no idea what was going to unfold over the weekend. As usual, NFI, try before you buy, and keep your...

I'm not completely sold on torrified wood either. I built 2 guitars with torrified sitka. It's very brittle to work with and will crack if you look at it wrong. I had a customer that wanted to try...