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I'll pass along something I learned early in my practice: Bad/nasty/uneconomic cases crowd out good cases. And they take a lot longer to get rid of. You should know what you need to be paid to...

Hi avaldes, a couple more pics.

The 'nut' is black Corian. No inlay on the headstock for this one

It's actually been a relatively mild summer in Brisbane (though it is 34c today). The real...

I finished this last year and have been meaning to post some pics as a way of saying thank you to this forum for everything I've learned from it since I caught the building bug again after years of...

Adrian sums it up: the real secret to French polishing is ....lots of French polishing. The first time I tried it, I spent almost 70 days working a couple of hours a day. It was the lamest, thinnest...

Sand the neck down using finer and finer grades of sandpaper until smooth then put on 3-4 coats of tung oil. Use 0000 steelwool between the coats and it will be a smooth as a baby's you know what....

My good friend Nicolo Alessi, maker of some of the finest tuning machines in the world, recently sent me one of his new string winders. 'Shown with a nice '25 snakehead that was used for the upcoming...

I appreciate the compliment. That process evolved over many years and lots of painful mistakes. That article on intonation was excellent and provides some very thought provoking issues. Hopefully...

Thanks to Byron Spain, aka the Lefty Luthier, for a nice article on cutting F5 scrolls in the new issue of American Lutherie magazine and also a very interesting article by Don Mac Rostie (Red...

Barry:

That was never directed towards you or anyone else in this thread. Funny how everyone often assumes I'm 20 and name calling. If you look at many of my posts, I use the half deaf old geezer...

This is the best statement I've seen on the mandolin cafe in years.

What is your goal with stringing it up in the white? That should direct your choice. Ask some half deaf old geezer who only...

Spray guns basicaly come in three forms- cheap frustrating Chinese pieces of junk, models designed to dump a lot of finish in a fast manner, and more traditional styles that waste a bit of finish,...

Took a while but here's the new one.
Red spruce, sugar maple.

Yup! If I had not just brought home a 30" Yates snowflake two weeks ago, I'd be tempted to bring that one home. Imagine what we could do with that if Frank and I combined to restore it to full...

Yup...some guys go out of their way to get the blackest ebony they can find. I go to some pretty far extremes on the opposite end to find the wildest, most bold graphic looking striped Macassar and...

Once you get the ebony binding down, you can move your level of frustration up a grade. Here is a shot from earlier this year of Bob's F5 under construction- a hollow scroll without the typical giant...

I've been so busy the last couple of years that I have not posted any new photos in a while. I've got a few special instruments coming out in the next couple of months, so I'll try to get them...

108264108265108266108267108268108269I got a set of Golden Age tuners for my Eastman 315 and when I went to install them, discovered that the original post bushings were slightly larger in diameter...

My good friend Niccolo Alessi just sent over this set of custom tuning machines he made for a 1915 Gibson mandolin. It is pretty sweet to take the finest performing mandolin machines in the world,...

Back on topic: 80 grit 95% of the time. The other 5% gets the 35 grit for that "special love".

j.
www.condino.com

I just got back from a great week up north working on a project at The Metropolitain Museum of Art and wanted to pass on a great new collection they have on display.

Remember the beautiful...

Lots of people use Douglas fir very successfully. I believe Rolf is probably our resident expert with a few hundred of his Phoenix mandolins made from it. Roger Siminoff mentions it a a viable...

When was the last time you geezers had your hearing checked?????

A number of my customers and I can all hear a huge diffenence between the various tailpece designs, especially when you compare a...

Having formerly lived and built a lot of instruments in the land of redwoods and wester red cedars for about 20 years, the variability is profound. I've seen a lot of the so called "sinker" redwood...

I'm kind of excited about this one. It was originally a commission and after we were into the project for quite some time the customer had a hand accident and had to cancel. Then it sat around the...

This conversation comes up on a regular basis. I think that more than anything, it comes down to the indiviual and their level of hearing. I use a half dozen different tailpieces, several bracing...