Got my first mandolin back this week for a refret and some finish touchup. It's been on perpetual loan to a friend. I completed it in 2007. This is an instrument I went down the rabbit hole to attempt tap tuning. I shaved two sets of tone bars down to nothing trying to achieve the target fundamental tap tones. Never arrived. This one was built using Siminoff's book and the grads were too thick. I thinned out the top to Loar specs and glued on new bars. In order to arrive at what I thought was the correct tap fundamental, the tone bars looked very weird. about 1/8" high treble bar, flat. A really tall bass bar. I decided to just finish it and see where it came out. It was ok. Nothing remarkable, but better sounding than most of the entry level mandos out there.
14 years later, this mandolin now sounds really good. I'm shocked actually. The finish and wood have aged and maybe that's what's going on? My current builds are better sounding out of the gate and more consistent, but this has me scratching my head a bit.
It would be amazing to go back in time to play some coveted instruments brand new. Would we still be going nuts over them?
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