pollmann mando/guitar

[ollaimh]

i have an old pollmann mando guitar. mandola body with a six string neck with friction banjo tuners. i am thinking of adding two tuners and turning this into an octave mandolin. however the top is quite thin and the the brace is small under the bridge. has anyone tried this? is it instrument suicide? i should probably also put on modern tuners, geared banjo tuners if i can find small ones. it has quite a thin tone as a guitar but i think it would be a throughtty sounding octave. does this seem reasonable or wise. it is an original condition mando/guitar, so the to be or not to be moment is whether to make it into a player, or keep it as a beautiful oddity. i'll try and do pictures soon.

[ollaimh]

waa no opinions on the safety of this?

[sebastiaan56]

waa no opinions on the safety of this?

Possibly because of a paucity of information, perhaps a few pictues of the condition would allow thoughful comment. That said, if it sounds thin with 5 strings it isnt going to sound a lot better with 8. The extra tension of those stinds will strain the neck, how is it braced?

[Jim Garber]

Like this one? See below. I would think this has a pretty thin top and most likely was made around the turn of the last century. These may not be much in demand and I would also hesitate to mess with something that old esp if it may not sound like much. I would also think that you could buy a decent octave mandolin that probably would sound much better that converting this.

I have only seen and played the five-string banjoid Pollmans and they are built pretty light. If you do the conversion I would put really light gauge strings on it.

OTOH, your best bet is to take it to a good luthier who could do the work and ask them what they think with the instrument in hand. That way you can also get the cost of the coversion and make your decision.