Bigleaf maple, Engelmann top plate, ziricote bindings and appointments, orange/rust purfling lines.
Bigleaf maple, Engelmann top plate, ziricote bindings and appointments, orange/rust purfling lines.
Back plate
Detail, top plate and face.
Beautiful. Wayne has made me an admirer of your work!
John, You've done it again !! Long time no speak though, but this is truly Beautiful ! I just finished spraying the clear on 2 instruments here that i'll be sending you a few pictures of to get your feedback . John Monteleone is coming to Newport this summer and i'm finally going to get to meet him i person.
Again thisinstrument is a work of beauty, i remember you ' warning' me about this one a while back !
Good to see your trying the Englemann, how do do you like it ? It's great to work with and you can get some great tones out of it .
Great work John, keep in touch, i've been wondering what you've been up to !
Jim
OK John. Mission accomplished. I guess you wanted me wiping the drool off my keyboard looking at the pictures, knowing mine isn't far behind. Mission accomplished.
<Insert pause here to allow time for keyboard to be wiped clean>
It's hard for me to get my head around the fact that you keep turning out instruments as gorgeous as these and that they somehow seem to get even better with each batch. Pretty amazing.
OK ... back to work ... it's become a necessary distraction so I don't go over the edge in anticipation of finally getting my "Garrity"
For those interested there is an interview here http://www.mandolinsessions.com/apr04/interview.html with a picture of John hopefully working on hard on my mandolin!!
Wow, that is a work of art. Good work. I wish I could build something as beautiful as that.
-John.
Ah! must --
Designer Infinite --
Ah! must thou char the wood 'ere thou canst limn with it ?
--Francis Thompson
John, That mandolin is beautiful!
It's a work of art!
... And for what it's worth, John's mandolins are none too shabby in the sound department eitherOriginally Posted by (Skip Kelley @ May 07 2004, 06:27)
It is so modern looking and still beautiful. Dang, that is probably one of my favorite pictures so far.
-John.
Ah! must --
Designer Infinite --
Ah! must thou char the wood 'ere thou canst limn with it ?
--Francis Thompson
I hope you don't take this wrong way because it looks and probably sounds beautiful.
But I'm not sure how hip to the pickguard I am. I'm not sure it compliments the styling of the instrument. If the body had a few more angular lines in it say in the f holes or the head stock (which I can't see so it may be there?) then having an angular pickguard like this makes sense but the geometry of the pickguard seems to kind of clash with the elgant forms that are going on else where...
I hope this isn't taken the wrong way becasue I do think it looks great other wise...anyway just my .02
-Ethan
Beautiful and flawless work. As for the pickguard, I've found its usually the 1st thing people comment about my Garrity(also the angled t. rod cover)
Hmmm ... I dunno ... I really liked the pickguard the very first time John sent me a photo of it and my opinion hasn't changed. You have to see the whole instrument I guess ... it just fits somehow. It's completely functional and yet breaks the mold of the "traditional" pickguard ... a very nice departure imo. Like KTB, it's one of the first things people seem to be drawn to on the instrument when I've shown the "loaner" Garrity's I've been fortunate to have sampled, around.
I want one tooooo.
Headstock picture pleeaase.
Not to 'tease' you but John does a really nice headstock, bookmatching some truly gorgeous woods in similar fashion to the way it's done on guitars. Another unique touch is that he does this not only on the face of the headstock but on the back of it too ... I guess so both the audience and the performer can enjoy this aspect of his artistry
Kidding aside ... it's a really nice touch, executed flawlessly (as is the case with the rest of John's workmanship)
I'll leave the picture posting to John and others since I've never been able to figure out how to do it here myself but I think you'll like what you see.
Sorry, folks, here's a pic of the peghead, bookmatched ziricote, inlay by Paul Bordeaux.
Very nice work! My opinion of the picguard doesn't matter...It's well done!
Beautiful wood. Blond ain't easy from the standpoint of getting the un-blemished wood to match.
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
I think the pickguard makes the whole look, it sets off and balances the binding and overall contrast to the blond bombshell. If she were mine I'd have to call her Marilyn. Great job John.
We few, we happy few.
Absolutely outrageous wood utilized to its utmost potential; WOW!!!
Sorry about the delay in chiming in here, but my fingers have been too busy playing to get to the keyboard. This mandolin, I am delighted to say, is mine, and it is certainly the love of my life. In a nutshell, my comments after 2 weeks are these: As far as appearance, everyone who sees her is stopped dead in their tracks on first glance. She is remarkably beautiful, and the purfling as well as the pickguard get the most comments. With respect to playability, it took me all of these two weeks to acclimate to the fingerboard, which has significantly less radius than my Breedlove, but now that I've adapted, it just plays like a dream. Nearly effortless fretting, and string-crossing is actually easier than on my previous mandolin. The sound? Ahhh, the sound! I wrote to John the other day ( who, BTW is a gem of a person as well as a exceptional luthier ) to tell him that the closest to the Hope's sound I've heard recorded is Paul Glasse. I kid you not on this! Rich, full, responsive to the inflections of my playing, and so even across the range of the instrument. Now if only I could play like Paul Glasse we'd be a perfect match. She is a treasure in every respect. WJF, if you're reading this, just know that I saw your baby in the flesh and everything's perfect (as if there would be any doubt). And John, you can be sure I'll be back out to visit before too long.
I promise I'll get some mp3s up here one of these days, so y'all can hear her sweet voice.
Dean D
Dean,
You are fortunate to have such a spectacular instrument. Don't be shy about posting more photos!
Hi Dean,
Congrats again on your mando!! John sent me some pictures of mine last night that have me panting ... I'm debating whether or not to post some links to them now or hold off until I have the finished product. Hmmm ... well OK ... maybe a compromise ... one picture of the headstock in progress ... inlay by Paul Bordeaux - tuner buttons by Peter Coombes - amazing craftsmanship and overall mando alchemy by John Garrity.
It's coming together pretty nicely I'd say ...
http://out2lunch.lunarpages.com/mvc-015f.jpg
And just to tempt you all ... here is a picture of some *unclaimed* wood looking for an owner to tell John, "please turn me into a gorgeous mandolin". Check out the figure on that ONE PIECE back!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I swear john must have compromising pictures of his wood supplier to get stock like this!!!
http://out2lunch.lunarpages.com/mvc-020fdanc.jpg
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