Lyon & Healy mandolin scales

[dan in va]

All informative posts here. There does seem to be variation in the original looking bridges out there, like you're saying. My bridge may or may not be original. It's compensated for plain A strings, fits the top nicely, but has some warpage. So i'm thinking to get some TI's and have a new bridge made.

As for tailpieces, the L&H screw spacing looks similar to the Waverly "cloud" tailpiece. Sure enough, i stumbled on an old post from Paul Hostetter that said those covers fit both bases. If'n that's so, then suspicion is high that Waverly made them for L&H. Hmmmm...i wonder if they still have the dies. Also, the L&H covers look more stamped than engraved to me.

[dan in va]

An original L&H TP cover arrived yesterday and with the imprint on the back it looks like the design was stamped. With the base screw hole pattern, suspicion is high the cover might fit a Waverly cloud base.

I'm always concerned about shipping instruments in hot weather, and there just happened to be a big heat wave out west. The seller felt comfortable leaving it tuned up to pitch but they honored my request to loosen the strings...grateful it survived UPS ground handling over the weekend without any issues. Every time I ship a mandolin I hope it will be the last time.

[Jim Garber]

Heck, the things are somewhat on the large size anyhow. It would suit me to have a smaller flat one, with or without engraving. i wonder if L&H has the tooling in storage. Wouldn't it be a nifty thing for them to pull out the old dies and stamp out bunch and charge a couple or three hundred bucks each?

The current L&H Company only makes/sells harps. Seems like they divested the rest of the company including parts and possibly even logs and record books. The person I was in touch with many years ago was barely aware of the history of the company. It could be possible that the dies exist but I highly doubt they would bother making such a thing for the small number of folks that would buy one. Hey, you can’t even find anyone to repro a plain Waverly cloud tailpiece these days.

[dan in va]

Thanks for sharing your experience, Jim.

The responsiveness of this model C is really quick and is close enough to a bowl back to scratch that itch so i won't be in the hunt for one. The thing just oozes tremolo.

Looking closer at the bridge, the compensation steps appear to be original, as the cuts were machined concave. The bridge isn't actually warped, but shaped in such a way that it looks bent at first glance from the end. Nevertheless, it's compensated for plain A strings and a new bridge will be needed for TI strings.

[Jim Garber]

That is interesting about the compensation. I should check my Washburn bridge against a tuner and see how the T-I strings work with the existing bridge.