I think I first became interested in a mandola when the snakehead H2, nicknamed “The Centaur,” turned up at ETSU back in 2015:
https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...ad-H-2-mandola
And that interest only intensified back in 2017, when Gail Hester completed what she dubbed an H3 for Joe Mendel:
https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...A5-and-H3-pair
Certainly, I had seen some tenor lute conversions by Bill Halsey and Gary Vessel, who I also knew to have produced a stunning H5 reproduction:
https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...-Mandola-found
So I started to wonder: what would an A-style mandola with f-holes from the Loar era look, and more importantly sound, like? Somehow, without my ever having asked that question aloud, Gary answered it.
Gary builds in the old way, eschewing CNC in favor of handtools while continuing to use traditional materials like hot hide glue and oil varnish. The top features a pretty tight-grained piece of Adirondack red spruce:
The back and neck are maple with more figure than the birch often found on the backs of tenor lutes:
And while the build is classic, the appointments include a contemporary James tailpiece, Cumberland Acoustics bridge, and EVO frets:
Plus, there is a lovely set of Rubner tuners:
The result is an instrument that feels vintage but plays modern, producing a voice that is strong on clarity, note definition, and fundamental tone that I only expect to improve with increased playing time. It’s the instrument that Gibson was unwilling to build, so Gary did it for them.
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