I made an appointment with Michael Heiden to drop off my mandolin for a refret on Aug 19th and would pick it up a week later. From there, my youngest son and I did some road tripping around BC and met up with my older son at Nimblefingers Music Workshop & Festival in Sorrento on Friday. Tai got to study with David Benedict for a week, and also played a set at the festival on Saturday. It’s a really good vibe they got going on and the level of music and jamming going on was incredible. Catching sets by John Reischman, Lonesome Ace Stringband, Mile 12, Foghorn Stringband and the Slocan Ramblers were all highlights.
This was definitely Heiden territory as there were 4 Heiden mandolins in Tai’s class, and I saw another beautiful chocolate brown Artist model at a jam on Sat. night. From NimbleFingers we drove down to Michael’s shop and met him on Monday morning. It was great catching up with him again and he did a wonderful job on the refret and setup. I thought It was set up pretty well before, but he brought it up to a different level. He also cut a new nut to adjust the string spacing. It definitely plays a lot easier now and somehow I wasn’t expecting that as I was happy with the way it played before.
Tai wanted his action lowered, so Michael did some bridge work and tweaking and got it playing exactly like he wanted it. He checked it over and gave it a clean bill of health. It was a great mandolin when he bought it last year, and it definitely sounds more resonant after a year of heavy use.
Michael had one Artist model available to play and and a few others in various stages of being built. I took a few pictures while at his shop and thought I’d share some of the Mando madness.
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