My Bowl back Carl Fisher mandolin

[Jethro Aberdeen]

My bowl back mandolin with a brass bolt in the neck, like this when I bought it, would any of you here replace it with a wood plug of some sort? It was glued on the joint and a bolt added to hold it together, been like this for decades without any problem. Has a nice typical sound for this kind of mandolin. I did replace the tailpiece with a brass one from a Vietnamese mandolin instrument maker.
kevin

[Hany Hayek]

The mandolin looks good. I would not do anything to that brass bolt. If the neck is straight and the action is good, the instrument playable and stable, don't touch it.
Unless it is bothering you while moving your hand up the freight board. In which case try covering it with a piece of wood and sand it to level it with the rest of the neck.
Congrats and enjoy it

[Jethro Aberdeen]

It plays well and sounds very sweet, you would never know its there except to look at it. The nut is shaped and smoothed in line with the neck profile. Thanks for the advice.

[Jim Garber]

Strange that bolt is there, of all places. I agree with Hany—just leave it alone unless it really gets in the way of your playing. It also looks like whoever did that also put some heavy finish on the fretboard and probably other places as well. The mandolin is not worth a major restoration so if it plays nicely now, leave it and enjoy it for what it is.

[Tavy]

Strange that bolt is there, of all places.

If you look close you can see a scarf joint there. Interestingly the scarf is the "wrong way around" compared to what's normal, maybe a whole replacement headstock at some point? In any case leave it well alone and enjoy the instrument for what it is.

[Jim Garber]

That is hard to see but I do see in now that you mentioned it. That "volute" is also not normal to this mandolin either, at least I do not recall seeing such a thing, so maybe that is part of the scarfing.