Carbon Fiber mandolin, Adam Buchwald and Circle Strings

[Doug Brock]

Adam has posted a couple of ads in the Cafe classifieds for an F-bodied carbon fiber mandolin. It looks nice, as far as I can tell from the pic, but I didn't see any links to audio samples. His write-up noted that he had a couple of nibbles but no bites yet.

I'm interested to see another effort into making carbon fiber mandolins. I have a carbon fiber CA Guitars Bluegrass Performer guitar that I like a lot and have been hoping that carbon fiber would take off in the mandolin world. I know it must be a daunting venture, considering the high cost of building carbon fiber instruments as well as the challenge of selling to the traditional preferences of many mandolin players.

I wish him luck!

https://www.mandolincafe.com/ads/140970#140970

[J.Albert]

It looks very nice, but somehow I think the asking price is 'way too high...

[Jim Garber]

That looks quite nice and from what I know Adam is making some excellent instruments. J. Albert, why would you think the price is too high? It is still a hand-made F-model mandolin.

BTW the ad will be gone at some point so here is the photo:

[mandroid]

Peter Mix Sold his CF F5 for that much, and then some.. the A5 for 3.6K$*

Resales seemed to hold value.. Clear Carbon/Peter's B stock?..

(He did say he was The one to finish what Peter had)..
So minus Mix logo & James engraved tailpiece. special synthetics for fingerboard and bridge

* I paid $3k for one 3rd hand many years ago,
( Paul Hostetter did a fingerboard leveling, refret on it a few years ago.. )..

those synthetics claim to be more stable .. stainless frets so wont wear out in decades..


One of my Friends got a CF violin, you have to look close to see its not wood ,
it has a lot of the traditional looks .

So he can leave the 19th century ones, he has repaired, at home ..







....

[ColdBeerGoCubs]

Somebody starts making these in an ‘A’ again and I’m in. Unless a New Mad A comes along.

[Peter Mix]

Fabricating a carbon fiber mandolin body is a very expensive proposition and all the more so when an arched top and back are involved. Through the 1990’s I went to the NAMM shows expecting to see cf mandolins, but they never appeared. Year after year I saw and played wonderful cf guitars, but no mandolins.

In 2006, I was thumbing through the latest news from the Canadian Musicians Union and saw a black&white photo of a Luis&Clark
carbon fiber violin. My heart nearly stopped. I realized that someone had figured out how to fabricate an arch utilizing carbon fiber.
I drove to Boston the next day (the very day the Big Dig collapsed) to see Luis&Clark and was astonished at the quality of the violins, violas and cellos they were building.

For better or worse, I realized in an instant how mandolins could be built with carbon fiber. I set myself on that path and had a good deal of extremely skilled assistance and trusting support in the process.

I’ll not belabor the point, but my timing could scarcely have been worse. In the fall of 2008 and just as we were getting off the ground building four mandolins a month, the financial world imploded. NewMAD had about 40 instruments on order at the time with dealers worldwide, but every single order was cancelled between September and October of 2018. All of these instruments were in production.

In hindsight, NewMAD should have closed the doors then, but stubborn pride kicked in. The company limped along for a few more years and produced only a handful of instruments.

Late last year, Adam Buchwald contacted me with the thought of building new instruments utilizing the technology NewMAD developed. The red/black F5 he has for sale is the first to be built in seven or eight years. I hope it is not the last.

[Jim Garber]

Peter, you and now Adam are my heroes to us this technology. As a side note: Blackbird, a guitar and uke maker started using CF and then developed what they call eKoa (made from flax fibers). I tried one of their eKoa ukes and immediately contacted them to see if they were at all interested in producing a mandolin. I liked the tone that the eKoa concert uke (Clara) and wondered if it would work with a mandolin configuration. I would think it might have to be a flattop, at least to start.

Info on eKoa is here and I think it is an interesting material though not sure about how proprietary it is.

From Blackbird's FAQ page:

Ekoa is a flax linen fiber and bio-based resin material pioneered by Blackbird and sister company Lingrove. It is lighter than carbon fiber, stiffer than fiberglass and makes a better soundboard than Spruce because of its superior stiffness-to-weight values. Like carbon fiber it is stable under changes in temperature and humidity. Aesthetically Ekoa is very similar to wood with no two pieces being exactly the same— though they are mechanically much closer than wood which can vary even when sourced from the same tree! The flax fibers themselves can exhibit some variegation in fiber orientation, color and visual density. We also do not lay on any clear coat, instead embracing any anomalies as beauty marks. The in-mold finish is a harder wearing surface than clearcoat, offers better tone and has rich natural grain finish in its own right.

[Explorer]

As a side note: Blackbird, a guitar and uke maker started using CF and then developed what they call eKoa (made from flax fibers). I tried one of their eKoa ukes and immediately contacted them to see if they were at all interested in producing a mandolin. I liked the tone that the eKoa concert uke (Clara) and wondered if it would work with a mandolin configuration.

I myself have been a huge fan of my carbon fiber guitars, after seeing a gut-wrenching demonstration of how durable they are from the Rainson rep visiting Chuck's Washington Music Center decades ago. My own needs would be for a CF version of my reliable Flatiron Army-Navy mandola, which is still going strong after my buying it new sometime in the 80's, and CF mandolas are even rarer than CF mandolins. I've been considering having Emerald Guitars build me a custom 5-course cittern based on their short-scale 12-string, having seen the 5-course cuatro they did in a similar manner. The folks in the CF subforum over at the Acoustic Guitar Forum have attested to the CF Emeralds also being durable.

With that said, I've read several stories both on the Blackbird site and on various fora, specifically dealing with a lack of such durability for eKoa, which have prevented me from going for an eKoa ukulele-to-mando conversion. Here's one example, from the Clara eKoa concert ukulele page at Blackbird.

"I purchased a Clara in May of this year, unfortunately I dropped it while it was in the Blackbird case and damaged it. When I contacted Joe and sent him pictures of the damage (a corner was dented and the linen skin had lifted), his immediate response was that he could not repair it, that "it was totaled" (a direct quote), but I could send it back for credit on the parts towards the purchase of a new instrument. As I considered this, I wondered why I would purchase another one, since they couldn't repair this one. However, I contacted a local Luthier and amazingly they quickly repaired it back to working order for a VERY small fee. It plays and sounds as good as new. Should you consider purchasing a Blackbird ukulele, make sure you have a very sturdy case, as the one issued with it may not prevent it from being "totaled" should it be dropped."

Having had more than one CF guitar which endured severe impacts with no serious results over the decades, this and other stories make me shy away from this other particular composite material.

----

If an oval-hole with scroll, 14-frets to the body, CF mando does hit the market, I'm going to have to get used to life with one kidney, because I'll be buying that mando.... *laugh*

[Jim Garber]

I wonder what the difference is in construction and in the material is. Actually I also wonder fro your CF people: if you dropped an instrument and it got smashed say on a corner would it be reparable or is it more complicated to repair one than a traditional wooden instrument. Or are they really indestructable vs. wood or eKoa.

[Explorer]

I've personally had three major drops when someone picked up one of my CF guitars at a gig without permission. One of the drops was to the floor, two hit the edge of the guitar on the edge of a floor monitor. None of the drops damaged the guitar, so no repair was needed.

There have also been reps who have been willing to stand on Rainsongs, so maybe not completely indestructible, but extremely durable beyond wood.

[Daniel Nestlerode]

Two dings in my Rainsong OM-1000...

I bumped the top on the corner of a metal patio table. It made a small cloudy spot where the finish has separated from the cf.
I whacked the back of my guitar with my knuckles quite hard and created a very small seam separation in the middle of the back.

After the second ding I determined to treat the Rainsong as gently as a standard guitar. From that point on I have had no issues, It gets gigged regularly.

My Mix F5 has been and continues to be my plugin mandolin for gigs. No dings or repairs required to the cf.

However, I carried it around in a gig bag for a couple years. The bumping at some point managed to damage the tuning machine for the upper string in the A pair. It was the little tensioner thingy that got bent. So the issue was both nearly invisible and made it impossible for the mandolin to stay in tune while it was being played.

After a very frustrating couple of gigs, replacing the tuners fixed it.

I don't recommend gig bags.

Daniel

[mandroid]

I managed to score an Eastman fiberglass A5 specific case off the classifieds here, for my Mix /..3 D rings for back pack straps FTW.