Need Help from Colombia

[Jairo Ramos]

Hi,

I'm from Cali, Colombia. I have played colombian bandola (16 strings), an instrument daughter of the spanish bandurria. Three months ago, a friend of mine brought me from the USA a Fender Mandolin, a cheap instrument, but he one I can afford for the moment. Basically I want to know the instrument and begining to love his sound and the learn bluegrass and irish tunes.

The problem and the reason of this post, it's that the mandolin came with a problem in the Tailpiece. The A and E string doesn't make an even contact with the lip, and the sound is like to strum straw strings, the buzz and rattle is very annoying. In Colombia there is not a mandolin culture, you can't find this instrument and their strings in the music stores. I've tried for a very long time to find help with the luthiers here, but they only know about bandolas and guitars.

Here you can see where the problem is:



The black arrow points where the problem is, the lip of the tailpiece.

Mr. Robert G. Meldrum send me his book about mandolin setup, and I saw that he had the same problem with a mandolin. I have try to bend the piece, but because is an stamped tailpiece, soon or later became to the same position.

The question now is, is anybody can advice me, to know if I can bend the lip backwards. The strings needs to make a full contact with the lip of the tailpiece or can be completely free? If they are free (if I bend the lip back), can break the saddle of the bridge the force of the strings?

In this moment I can't afford a new tailpiece, the taxes and the post raise the price. I want to solve this problem, and maybe in a future to buy a new and better mandolin.

Thanks in advance, and excuse my english.

Jairo

[michaelcj]

Take a piece of leather and insert it underneath all of the strings on top of the offending lip of the tailpiece.
Mike J.

[Jeff Hildreth]

There is a mandolin/bandolim culture in Brasil... is it possible for you to contact luthiers there ?

[Dave LaBoone]

I like michaelcj's response. Cali is a great place (I bought a tiple there a few years ago), and congrats on your new mandolin!

[Jairo Ramos]

MikeJ: Thanks a lot for your help, the leather solution is so simple and magic, in fact I'm tuning the mandolin with that solution and so far everything is well.

Brazil is so far from here, that the idea is no possible.

Dslaboone: nice to hear about my city, and about the tiple. In fact, the bandola is a tiple companion in our music. My great grandfather (Pedro Leon Franco), developed this instrument more than a century ago, more o less, and the bambuco, one of the most important rhythm in our country.

Thanks everybody!!!

[michaelcj]

Glad it worked out for you. MJ