A picture is worth a thousand words.
In this one, the pinkish top bridge (like the OP's bridge) is backwards.
The middle dark blue one is correct according to Gibsons' original specs.
The...
A picture is worth a thousand words.
In this one, the pinkish top bridge (like the OP's bridge) is backwards.
The middle dark blue one is correct according to Gibsons' original specs.
The...
You don't weld cuprous alloys, welding is strictly for iron-based alloys. And even silver soldering (AKA brazing, the correct term for joining copper-based alloys on a molecular basis) would yield a...
Who is "he?"
If this one has been around K'zoo, it may be a mate to Barney's, as Gibson routinely made prototypes in threes back then.
A-40-12. Now we have a model designation for it, anyway....
Norway spruce is a common name for Picea abies, the primary European spruce that was introduced to N. America early on, and was thoroughly naturalized by the 1920s. Even if Gibson had used it, it...
It's clearly figured mahogany, as advertised. Definitely not koa.
My 3¢. As you know, 2¢ gets you nothing these days.
Check this: http://aultfamily.name/3651.htm
And this: http://bit.ly/2haL153
So you never saw his monthly column in Guitar Player magazine, Studio Log? It was always one of my favorite things about that magazine. GP used to archive them, but their website seems pretty dead...
No. Barney was a guitar player. Guitars have 6 strings. When you're a "can-do" studio musician as he was, and the call asks for a mandolin, an instrument like this will do the job. Six courses...
Not quite. It's grained. Graining is an architectural trompe-l'œil technique that used blocks, combs and brushes. Artisans who were good at it could do a staggering amount of surface area in a very...
I think there is. I had to learn all this long before those nice nut file sets were even on the market. Have a look here.
At the very bottom of the page is a link to another page on the general...
Then fix it.
Ideally you would check intonation up the neck starting with the open string, and then getting a correct note at the octave. The octave you can fix by tweaking the point of...
http://www.lutherie.net/mandolin.bridge.compensation.7.jpg
And here's a shot of a Greek picnic in about 1920, taken in Davenport, CA, about five miles from my house:
http://www.lutherie.net/greek.picnic.bella.vista.hotel.davenport.2.jpg
Who made those...
My Grachis has a scale of 28.5"—longer than most, which is why I said it hurt to play. String gauges are light: 10s on top, the wound ones are a 25 and a 40. I tune it like a mandocello sometimes:...
Mount the caul and the prepared Formica patch on the clamp with masking tape or somesuch, and you won't have to reach inside at all. Let the clamp do it all. About 2/3 of the way down this page...
The Stew-Mac tuners inexplicably are shipped without a trace of lubrication, and with the cog screws overtightened. Once you deal with those two issues, they work great. Assuming the holes in the...
http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=146551&d=1463757826
It's close, but I agree with fox, it should work. Don't let the pins touch the saddle.
But I'd still try the...
No hijacking—this is very much on topic.
No grooves in the saddle! Very important. The strings are guided over the smooth saddle by the string ramps coming up out of the bridge pin hole.
Some...
Yes, no comparison. Believe it or not, the first example I ever saw for such a bridgeplate repair was on a Martin 1-26 from about 1885. The string balls had pulled through the bridgeplate, then...
Thin normal formica is fine for this purpose. I could mail you some if you like, I have a lot.
A huge difference: one is worm-over and the other is worm-under. If you're making a mandolin from scratch, you need to lay out the headstock for one or the other. If you're retrofitting an existing...
I've done this conversion a number of times and it's important to note that the stock bracing for the top is inadequate for the pull of those 8 strings. Martin tenors can take it, but Baby Taylors...
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haselfichte
I've known the German term haselfichte for a long time. It's simply the German term for what we call bearclaw.
Stefan Sobell makes incredible guitars with bearclaw Sitka. He has a whole model...
Yep. The Larson Brothers braced many of their guitars that way. The spruce (most likely Picea rubens) was the normal vertical grain, while the grain orientation of the rosewood sandwiched in between...