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I have a hand made mandolin f-5 that I like a lot. The f- holes are cut a little to far forward. When properly intonated the bridge feet sit well behind the f-hole center points. Can anything be done to clean this up? Possibly and offset bridge saddle. Would like it to look more appealing and cover this mistake up a little. Probably. A stupid question.
Stradolin mandolins have the bridge way back from center on the f holes. Just say it was an intentional look and don't worry about it.
How does it sound? If it sounds good then I would call it good!
Intonation has nothing to do with the placement of the f-holes in relation to the bridge.
Brad Laird (a member here) has an extremely informative and easy to follow information about bridge placement and initial setup for the mandolin on his website: http://www.bradleylaird.com/blog-art...st-lesson.html. Rob Meldrum (also a member here) has an e-book about setup (https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...by-Rob-Meldrum). I have used the Brad Laird setup information with great results (on my expensive mandolin even). I have not read the Rob Meldrum e-book. But by what people write about it on this forum it must be good.
Concerning the position of the bridge in relation to the f-holes: On an F-5 style mandolin the bridge is roughly positioned centered between the f-holes. This is not the case with Hans Brentrup's "far out" F-5 with the f-holes offset (https://www.brentrup.com/page8/page8.html. or this one https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...brentrup+holes). Hans Brentrup made very fine mandolins.
If you look at various Lloyd Loar F-5s (check the mandolinarchive.com) you will see that due to the asymmetrical outline of the instrument the bridge is not necessarily dead center in relation to the f-holes (http://www.mandolinarchive.com/gibson/serial/72207, http://www.mandolinarchive.com/gibson/serial/72206, http://www.mandolinarchive.com/gibson/serial/72055 etc.) There's some variation obviously.
On an F-7 (http://www.mandolinarchive.com/gibson/serial/92107 or http://www.mandolinarchive.com/gibson/serial/92010), prewar F-12, F-10, Strad-O-Lin etc. the bridge sits behind the center of the f-holes due to the shorter neck/scale.
You could post pictures of your instrument and get advice from far more proficient people than me.
I play a Brentrup and while I get MAS I only have to play my Brentrup and it goes away. They are GREAT mandolins.
If it's "well behind the f-holes" my thought is any kind of bridge offset to put the feet of the bridge near the f-hole "points" would be pretty contrived and probably do a poor job of transmitting the string energy into the top. Just keep it where it belongs for intonation and don't worry about it, is my vote, too. Putting the bridge elsewhere would require a different scale length, and on a fretted instrument, that's a new, probably custom slotted fretboard, unless the current scale length is unusually long.
Has this mando been properly set up? If the action is really high, it's going to push the fretted intonation out, too. Just a long shot...
I am assuming that "hand made" means amateurish, perhaps an early build for the luthier trying to learn his/her craft? All I can say is I hope you got it cheap. Good on you for helping to support a budding mandolin builder. ;) Learn to live with it or upgrade ymmv.Quote:
Originally Posted by justrythym
Len B.
Clearwater, FL