1977 Gibson F5

[galens]

My dad bought my 1977 Gibson F5 for me when I was 11 years old. I"m 39 now.It has good tone, but the volume is not there. Any thoughts about makeing it louder. It has original nut,bridge.

[Brian Aldridge]

Send it to a good luthier and have the back removed and the top and back plates re-graduated and the tone bars reduced, and there you have it, my friend. Randy Wood would be a good choice for this. Short of that, you could send it to Daniel Smith and have him cut the tone bars down through the end pin hole. That would help it quite a bit. Best of luck to you.

[Big Joe]

We have done a number of these. The hints above can be helpful, but there is a limit of what can be achieved. We are happy to look at your mandolin and give you our recommendations as to what is needed for your particular instrument to give it the best it can be. You can e-mail me at joe.vest@gibson.com for more information.

[Fretbear]

Mike Marshall had John Monteleone do this to his Loar (he still has the shavings in a jar on his bench) so you could feel very free about having it done, though it wouldn't be cheap...

[Bill Halsey]

This is likely to involve more than the thinning of tone bars. The years leading well into the '70s saw the ultimate decline of the F-5. For historical reasons, several changes had found their way into the mandolin line at Gibson over the decades, some of them fatal to the instrument’s integrity.

At that time, the pantograph carving form for the inside profile of the tops only defined a large, basin-shaped scoop to be taken out of the inside of the soundboard, with a wide, flat margin left around the perimeter for the individual maker to graduate by hand. This machine had fallen out of adjustment to the extent that some of these instruments had tops that were dangerously thin under the bridge, yet remained quite thick around the edges (i.e., graduated in “reverse”). Depending upon the individual maker, some of these instruments were left this way, and had thick, ill-fitted tone bars glued in and were assembled “as-is.” There was little monitoring of actual stiffness or deflective strength of the spruce tops, and it was eventually the structural collapse of some of these mandolins, as well as market factors, that brought about the complete redesign known as the F-5L project.

If the subject instrument has enough strength and thickness left in the center of the top, it may be a candidate for a regrad and new bars. Otherwise, it may be worth having a new top made. BTW, because of the neck joint design of this period of production, it’s just about as easy to remove the top, as it is the back. This affords the opportunity to replace the top, if desired.

Also, the neck/scroll block of this period was massive and can be easily carved to the earlier profile while the instrument is open, in order to regain interior volume.

Since you are the original owner, it would certainly be a good idea to take Joe up on his offer and see what Gibson can do for you. They have come a great long way since 1977.