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I guess mostly because they don't want to.
However, both on the face of the fretboard, and on the side of the neck, the slightest misalignment of the two dots totally stands out as a terrible glitch...

Overpriced for what they appear to be. The parts too. The guitars look like boardwalk or carnival grade prizes.
Find a local luthier. Bring them donuts.
Buy a decent playing Fender Squire or, hold...

Depending on what you're looking for, a guitar conversion is an inexpensive way to go. I've been doing these for a few years. A conversion takes me about five or six hours. A 25.5"scale will tune to...

Its just tradition. There are all kinds of thoughts on how and why with this but there is no definitive answer.

Twenty years ago, I did exactly the opposite mistake on a guitar. I still have the...

I see what Don sees -- a potential fracturing of a laminated top but it could be an unfortunate optical illusion thingy. I also see what could be interpreted as a sinking top referencing the...

I just want to say thank you to everybody in this discussion. I've yet to build an acoustic mandolin. To me, all of you are my mentors. I will do this at some point. Discussions like this may be...

I went looking because of the comments about naked... and didn't find them :( Good luck in your endeavors. EMandos are so cool.

Honest true... I once repaired a damaged gord on a sitar that was missing pieces by slicing a plain bagel into 1/4" thick bites and saturating them with superglue. Sanded them to shape and applied...

Its just like anything else that is stored for 15 years. It could go south, or not. A fair number of luthiers believe that playing an instrument imparts mojo and results in the development of...

Marty, I have a quantity of these tuning machines that I will never use. Its a long shot but maybe they'll work - or not. They seem to be be very good quality but a very odd design. The back shell...

Prep is everything. I absolutely do very close to the same thing as Sunburst. Its important that the light sanding actually be light (light pressure) or the shellac will load up and cause surface...

Since the mandolin is built overseas and in multiple locations, its quite possible that even the parent company in SF won't be able to provide you an answer. Its fairly easy for any tech to...

I just went to the website that Jonathan K mentioned. It will answer the questions you have exactly on the money. You can mess around with the specs that you input using things that you are familiar...

I've played around with octave mandolin guitar conversions and very short scale basses for a number of years. It comes down to which priority do you have, scale length, or pitch? Do you have an...

Mr Breeze, You polishing cloths will work great. 600 grit is fairly safe to clean up file marks without easily changing the actual height of the fret. 1000 grit is a better finish than you get on...

I've done that process on a couple of old guitars. Sometimes you can get away with only pulling a few frets and if you're lucky, you can reuse the original frets. I have a soft spot for student level...

The day I first saw that video I went to my hardware store on purchased a double headed axe and basically did the same thing he did. It had better sustain -- not really. It sounded like an axe with...

As a guy who has really really tried to understand the electric guitar for twenty years and tried to squeeze every bit of understanding out of every encounter with a superior instrument, I'm resigned...

There are a lot of folks who do this kind of work. Find someone that earns your trust and listens to you. If you don't have good communication steer clear. Its as much my responsibility to listen and...

I once played an electric guitar manufactured completely from machined aluminum billet. It sounded awful to me. But I'm sure that someone with skills could employ it to make a noise that was of some...

Just adding a couple of comments. Although I don't use superglue to fill a nut slot, but as mentioned by someone else above, I have found that a full overnight curing of superglue seems to result in...

As I mentioned before, I'm new to mandolins. I'm also new to this forum as an active participant. I signed up back in '07 but that was only to have a few questions answered. I find this post very...

Trussrods are insurance. Many instruments may survive without one. But considering the work and hours that you put into making a superior instrument, the $5 to $35 that you spend on a trussrod is...

Depends on where you live and what is included with what they are calling a "Fret Dress". As just the process of working the fret ends to be round, and establishing proper crowns and polishing them,...

I'm new to this forum. Recently smitten by mandolins. Not everything I know about guitars applies to mandolins and I'm eager to learn from those who know "stuff". Fretwork is my forte. I just hope...