Re: Flamed Maple Top on a Mandolin
Originally Posted by
pelone
...the body and sides of a mando are made from maple...
Not all mandolins. Bowl-back mandolins tended to favor rosewood for the bowls; others were mahogany, and some had alternating ribs of either maple and rosewood, or maple and mahogany. Martin made thousands of mahogany-bodied canted-top mandolins, and quite a few with koa bodies. Gibson built quite a few mandolins with birch bodies. When I had my ten-string fanned-fret mandolin/dola built, I went with "flamed" koa for back and sides.
Here's my tentative theory: when Orville Gibson started building carved-top-and-back mandolins, he was much influenced by violin construction -- thought the violin was the "king of instruments" -- and violins were spruce top, maple back and sides. Violins, of course, had been made in Europe for centuries, and European luthiers didn't then have access to tropical hardwoods like rosewood and mahogany; they went with the "local" hardwoods of their areas for back and sides, and maple was readily accessible, acoustically suitable, and often nicely figured. Orville G copied that aspect of violin construction as well, and the rest, as they say, is history...
Coulda been oak, perhaps. But it's maple.
Allen Hopkins
Gibsn: '54 F5 3pt F2 A-N Custm K1 m'cello
Natl Triolian Dobro mando
Victoria b-back Merrill alumnm b-back
H-O mandolinetto
Stradolin Vega banjolin
Sobell'dola Washburn b-back'dola
Eastmn: 615'dola 805 m'cello
Flatiron 3K OM
Bookmarks