overhauling an Asian import

[Jim Nollman]

I got into a hypothetical discussion yesterday about whether a small shop builder could take a better than average Asian import F5, undo the plate to re-plane the thickness, recut the tone bars, and do whatever else, to turn it into something as good sounding as the mandolins on which they sign their own name. It's made me curious if any builder here has actually done this operation on, for example, something on the level of a Kentucky 1000 or an Eastman 850. The perfect reply would also include a recording of before and after, as well as some idea of how many hours it took to do the job.

[9lbShellhamer]

A well respected luthier here on the cafe offers "hotrodding" services and he says he has the best results with higher end mandolins like km900s, 950s, 1000s, 1050s etc. It would be cool to hear some sound bites.


People in the guitar world seem very ready to send their D18s and D28s off to Brian for hotrodding but it seems less popular in the mandolin community.

[fscotte]

If the mando has the potential to sound better, then yes, it could be made to sound better.

But who decides whether or not it has that potential? So you play it and it sounds good. How would you know if it could sound great?

[HoGo]

The cost of work done, together with price of the mandolin will probably be more than value of new better mandolin... and cosmetics of "overhauled" mandolin will be damaged unless total refinish is done as well.
I've done that to US import :-) (Gibson F-9 imported to EU) and it came out fine...(I posted about it here on cafe) but that mandolin had failed neck joint and other issues in construction that needed to be addressed. Owner got it fo very good price so he could afford all the work done (70+ hours) and at the end I think it would be chaper, faster and easier for builder to finish a new kit (Stew-Mac or such) than rebuild and refinsh bad mandolin. Were the owner not my friend I would decline the work...

[Jerusalem Ridge]

Isn’t this similar to the mandovoodoo, that Stephen Perry does? He doesn’t take the top off or recut the tone bars, but he makes those Eastman and Kentuckys sing, at least that’s what the owners say!

[Steve VandeWater]

There is an Aria Pro II pending sale in the classifieds right now that meets the parameters of this thread. It was revoiced by Ron Stewart. Ad # 117556. NFI

[HoGo]

Isn’t this similar to the mandovoodoo, that Stephen Perry does? He doesn’t take the top off or recut the tone bars, but he makes those Eastman and Kentuckys sing, at least that’s what the owners say!

I've done that as well, but you need to get quite a range of measurements from the instrument to decide if there is any potential and if there is a way to do it through f-holes etc. That would take hour or two just to judge the potential. Just random thinning tonebars and accessible parts of top/back won't work on mandolin that has weird arching or way too thick uneven grads and uneven arch (like the F-9 I mentioned). You can thin back without opening instrument and partly top (except near tonebars) but you need a plan...
If you pay $1k for KM1000 and then few 100s for overhaul you will still have some $800 resale value mandolin.
Classical violin market is quite conservative and reworking existing old violins is a big NO where you are advised to buy higher level violin after you get to some level of playing (that means higher pedigreee) instead of tweaking your grandpa's old fiddle even if the new one won't really sound better than the old one would after overhaul - funny world.

[Steve VandeWater]

I've done that as well, but you need to get quite a range of measurements from the instrument to decide if there is any potential and if there is a way to do it through f-holes etc. That would take hour or two just to judge the potential. Just random thinning tonebars and accessible parts of top/back won't work on mandolin that has weird arching or way too thick uneven grads and uneven arch (like the F-9 I mentioned). You can thin back without opening instrument and partly top (except near tonebars) but you need a plan...
If you pay $1k for KM1000 and then few 100s for overhaul you will still have some $800 resale value mandolin.
Classical violin market is quite conservative and reworking existing old violins is a big NO where you are advised to buy higher level violin after you get to some level of playing (that means higher pedigreee) instead of tweaking your grandpa's old fiddle even if the new one won't really sound better than the old one would after overhaul - funny world.

I find it interesting that the Aria Pro II that I mentioned in reply #6 above has sold (pending payment) for $2,400. How much was it new? Perhaps someone WILL pay big for a re-worked instrument after all?

[lenf12]

Perhaps someone WILL pay big for a re-worked instrument after all?

Yes, I thought that $2400 asking price was a bit steep for an Aria Pro II. (Perhaps it went for much less?) but I do believe there may be a budding cottage industry for revoicing Asian instruments if the mandolin is worth at least what the overhaul costs. Not all of them are worth it.

Len B.
Clearwater, FL

[HoGo]

Yes, I thought that $2400 asking price was a bit steep for an Aria Pro II. (Perhaps it went for much less?) but I do believe there may be a budding cottage industry for revoicing Asian instruments if the mandolin is worth at least what the overhaul costs. Not all of them are worth it.
Len B.
Clearwater, FL

You're probably right. I think the seller of the Aria Pro has been selling revoiced fiddles, mandolins and guitars on classifieds.

[lenf12]

You're probably right. I think the seller of the Aria Pro has been selling revoiced fiddles, mandolins and guitars on classifieds.

Yes Adrian, I believe we're talking about the same guy. I think about what the value of an Aria Pro II (not overhauled) is on the used instrument market; maybe $700 or so if all is right with it. To ask $2400 for a $700 mandolin because it was "overhauled" seems ambitious to me. After all, it is still an Aria Pro II not a Gibson F-9.

Len B.
Clearwater, FL

[Skip Kelley]

I want to add my two cents. I have a Kentucky F model that the top caved in. I removed the top, regraduated the back, and made sure the dovetail neck joint looked good. I shimmed the fretboard plane of the neck because the original top had very little if any arch. I put a new top on it and I sounds incredible. But, it is still an Asian import. It's hard to think how to price it. It's complelety a better mandolin.

[Ron McMillan]

I want to add my two cents. I have a Kentucky F model that the top caved in. I removed the top, regraduated the back, and made sure the dovetail neck joint looked good. I shimmed the fretboard plane of the neck because the original top had very little if any arch. I put a new top on it and I sounds incredible. But, it is still an Asian import. It's hard to think how to price it. It's complelety a better mandolin.

In the case of the Aria Pro mentioned, it would want to be a completely better mandolin, for someone to pay something like five times its second-hand market value.

[Skip Kelley]

I can't see that huge price for one! It's still an import! The Kentucky that I redid is as good as any mandolin out there but, it is still an imported mandolin at the end of the day!

[dhergert]

Aren't we talking apples and pomegranates here though?

As good as custom workmanship is on a rebuild, we're still talking about monetary value limited by what the instrument is.

On the other side of this, one of these fine rebuilt instruments would be functionally equal or superior to some of the best new instruments.

Maybe we're talking not so much about how much money an instrument is worth, compared to how much money an instrument saves the buyer. Two very different concepts, but maybe they should both come together to name a sale price.

[George R. Lane]

That Ibanez is back in the classifieds.

[Steve VandeWater]

That Ibanez is back in the classifieds.

No, the other was an Aria. The Ibanez is another mandolin revoiced by Ron Stewart

[Skip Kelley]

Aren't we talking apples and pomegranates here though?

As good as custom workmanship is on a rebuild, we're still talking about monetary value limited by what the instrument is.

On the other side of this, one of these fine rebuilt instruments would be functionally equal or superior to some of the best new instruments.

Maybe we're talking not so much about how much money an instrument is worth, compared to how much money an instrument saves the buyer. Two very different concepts, but maybe they should both come together to name a sale price.

Don, that is a very good way to look at it! The Kentucky that I re-topped Is significantly better than any factory Kentucky you will find. (my opinion only) What it's worth will come down to what someone is willing to pay and how bad I want to sell it.

[Jeff Mando]

FWIW, and on a similar note, there is a small subculture of guitar players and repairmen who take old (usually USA, not Asian) vintage cheapo guitars such as Harmony Sovereign, which were ladder-braced, and redo the top bracing with x-bracing and scalloped braces like old pre-war Martins. The wood in some of these guitars is excellent and the results are amazing, heck a Sovereign sounds pretty good with the normal ladder-bracing, for that matter! Anyway the problem seems to be that these guitars sell for $250-600 depending on the condition, before the makeover. (eBay prices...) They all seem to have high action and need a neckset anyway, so redoing the bracing completes the makeover.....good stuff except when sellers try to get paid for their labor by charging $1800-2400 for these old Harmonys and sales are quite sluggish, because you can get a 70's D-18 or D-28 for that kind of money. Soundwise the revamped Harmony is actually on par with the Martin, but the Martin has a better resale track record. So I guess I'm saying it looks like these guys are pricing themselves out of the market, but then again there is one guy who has done close to 100 of these conversions, so people do like them. Tough call, IMHO....

[Br1ck]

My daughter's first good viola was a Chinese instrument of the $2500 quality range. A violin shop went to the importer, cherry picked two or three out of a hundred, took them apart and recarved the tops an backs. Charged $4500 for his finished work. It blew the doors off everything else under $8000. She played that through her education(doctorate in performance) and just recently moved up to the $25,000 class, so she got a good 10 years from it.

So I'm a believer you can take good and make better.

[Bernie Daniel]

I want to add my two cents. I have a Kentucky F model that the top caved in. I removed the top, regraduated the back, and made sure the dovetail neck joint looked good. I shimmed the fretboard plane of the neck because the original top had very little if any arch. I put a new top on it and I sounds incredible. But, it is still an Asian import. It's hard to think how to price it. It's complelety a better mandolin.

Since you changed the top board and made other changes to the mandolin perhaps it is not longer "just a Kentucky" - it is something else. So perhaps changing the head stock cover plate could be justified as well as a higher selling price? As long as you were up front about what was done of course. My point is the mandolin is now more than a "Kentucky" so its selling prince and its resale price should reflect that? "Better than a Kentucky" is probably too much to inlay in the head stock though.

It goes both ways and I do not know if there are hard rules. For example, I put a mandocello neck on a Gibson arch top guitar and because it suited my purposes I put "Gibson" back on the new head stock.