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CA has a way of sticking really well when you don't want it to, and not sticking when you do want it to stick.

Acetone eats nitro. So does anything else I know of that weakens super glue. I...

I just thread a nylon boot lace through the channel in the bottom of the tailpiece and make a knot.

Oh no . . .

Every '30's Gibson with dot inlays that I have seen used real mother-of-pearl dots.

Sometimes, I can see the most by viewing the label from several different angles in natural daylight.
The instrument has been refinished, and the bridge is a Gibson replacement from no earlier than...

The mandolin appears to have had some re-work, and the serial number has certainly been re-written.
Without seeing more pictures of the instrument, I would tentatively estimate the year as 1920 +/-...

On an instrument like that, you don't know how much needs to be done until it's on the bench and you find everything that's loose.
But it surely falls into the category of a partial re-build.
Good...

CNC or not, it takes a lot more time to carve a scroll, sand it, bind it, and finish it. And then there's making the fancy peghead to go along with it.

Mandolins can sound great in a variety of...

Any of the brands I mentioned earlier should work, although a Martin will not project as well as a Gibson or Lyon & Healy. A Vega cylinder back would probably be somewhere in between. The Larson...

If you are referring to a mandolin orchestra, which you mentioned in your other thread, many brands were used in the old days. Gibson was perhaps the most common, but we see many old photos with...

There is a veiled implication of hostility in several of the posts in this thread towards people who work with their hands and their feet, and that makes me sad.

It has been my experience that the oval hole Gibsons can vary quite a bit in tone, power, and general character. If you have the opportunity to play some other Gibson A's, you will have a better...

Sherry, the instrument is an A-2 made in 1920. The bridge is an inexpensive replacement, which does not resemble any style bridge that Gibson used.
The rest of the instrument appears to be in...

I've been following this thread with interest.

Over the 30 years that I've been doing repair work, I've found that on some jobs, when things are going smoothly, I make the equivalent of a very...

Many instruments have been built with single action rods that adjust at the heel end of the neck. Some of them work well, some don't. I believe that their effectiveness depends on how well they...

Traditional single rods work well if engineered and installed correctly.

I am not personally fond of double rod systems. I prefer methods that leave more solid material in the neck. In the...

According to Spann's Guide to Gibson, the mandolin has a 1913 serial number.
A well-known vintage dealer might be able to get as much as $3000 on a really good day, a private seller will probably...

Many years ago I visited Jean Horner, who built a lot of mandolins during the 1980's and 90's.
He had two that were just about finished, one varnished and the other lacquered.
I commented that the...

Who knows the original composer of any of the 100+ year old tunes??
They were passed down from one player to another, over and over, and often changed a little as they were passed down. That's the...

My mistake. The Constitution Hornpipe in Cole's is a different tune.

Here is the Constitution March in D from a fakebook compiled by the late Fletcher Bright, crediting James Bryan as the source....

The tune that Stringalong linked to is indeed "Constitution Hornpipe," which is in "Ryan's Mammoth Collection," which was also printed in the now out-of-print "1000 Fiddle Tunes" published by M.M....

Keep it light, no matter what else you do.
I use the following set on an old Gibson: 12-20w-32w-48w; using D'Addario or GHS singles.
If you don't go with Thomastiks, which are made differently...

A Martin 2-15 might be hard to sell later.

The Martin is a style 2-15. That particular model mandolin is not considered to be desirable by either players or collectors. Martin's oval hole mandolins will be better instruments-- they never...

Saturday, I worked on a small-shop banjo that had a truss rod that was just about frozen. The instrument wasn't more than a year or two old.
Maybe it was caused by glue on the mechanism . . . [???]...