Gobble gobble ... Happy Thanksgiving, all. Well, I ordered a t-shirt from Sue Rieter, so I had to follow up with an actual mandolin. it's in decent shape except for a thin crack that runs from under the fingerboard extension under the bridge and ending an inch or so from the tailpiece. Two-piece bookmatched solid maple back, three-piece bookmatched maple neck. Real (not painted) binding, headstock overlay with the treble clef art. Tuner buttons are in good shape although one tuner shaft is bent and another is jammed. Tiger stripe pickguard and matching tailpiece cover. Seller told me it was built in October '41, but I can't find a date anywhere inside the iinstrument. Madeleine's currently resting in a plastic storage box surrounded by guitar humidifiers. I'm hoping to find a good repair person without a multi-year backlog to repair the crack, but I've been advised that restringing it and playing it shouldn't make it worse in the meantime (does that sound right, Mike?) which should also reveal any other issues that need to be addressed. A couple of questions for the aficianados ... I know it doesn't have an adjustable truss rod, but is there a metal bar in the neck? What brand are the tuners? And the biggie: Recommendations for a repair person, preferably within driving distance of Asheville/Brevard/Hendersonville NC. I have uploaded 10 images onto the landing page for this social group. Seems like if you click on all images and then select the thumbnails individually, they appear in the correct orientation. Thanks, everyone.
James Condino is a very good luthier in Asheville. He did a partial re-fret on a Stradolin a few years ago and did a masterful job
Thanks for the referral. Madeleine's currently in Chattanooga, in the ultra-capable hands of Bob Chuckrow.
