Strong on 3rd, weaker above doesn’t point to action height, but you could adjust it anyway. More indicative of low third or high fourth frets, so take a fresh, clean credit card and use it as a...
Strong on 3rd, weaker above doesn’t point to action height, but you could adjust it anyway. More indicative of low third or high fourth frets, so take a fresh, clean credit card and use it as a...
Considering homage to stripping, perhaps some ‘40s tasteful decalcomanias of strippers?
I think we may have to credit this builder with introducing the roller fairlead to mandolins, plus a few more novel things as well as mutating specifications. Some of us might get strange ideas, but...
Done, but it’s MK V. The first version using the original gear and worm in a new, solid housing, failed because the gear would be the part that failed and would be expensive to reproduce. The next...
This is identical to the one I just patched up (photo attached). It was on CL for rather cheap, with case in January. To settle one disputed claim, the ones with this particular stencil can be...
I have more than a few customers, mostly PhDs, if that’s relevant, who would need this particular instruction.
Jeff, from the look of things, I think re-doing all the string slots is in order. Shave a skotch off the top and start clean.
My theory about the oft-mentioned shimmer of the SOLs is a beat...
So, Galiano as in NYC, NJ, Schmidt, Chicago? If ChiTown, does that imply some SOLs are from there? I think the FBI needs to get involved.
Careful, sir, you may have inadvertently revealed yourself as having a connection to science, which here, as in many other human interests, is dangerous and quietly unwelcome. Perhaps not as overt...
I’ve been buying old mandolins, many are bowl backs at least a century old. On receipt, all get a spray of household insecticide and household sanitizer - inside, just because. Especially in the...
I’m sure some of you have done something like this: raising the tailpiece to lessen the downforce on a fragile instrument. In this case, an awful Rover 35 whose top was collapsing. I pulled the...
Glad there’s interest. So far, couple of experiments, shown in the photo. However, a friend had a better idea that I may get to fairly soon. In the photo, the MK I aluminum machined housing for...
To follow Adrian’s comments about non-ergonomic use of hand tools, certainly in the West, I’d like to mention that before power tools were widespread, hand tools evolved to maximize human strength....
Whatever you use, try to avoid holding the work with one hand and any power tool with the other: that almost guarantees injury.
Any high speed rotary tool, hand held, can inflict nasty injuries. ...
Matching outfits.
The OP can sort this out by, for example, using any set of small drills to measure the tuner holes in question, and just buy whatever screws are the same or smaller dimension in a finish or pattern...
Nearly all of these are nitrocellulose plastics, also called celluloid, q.v. Invented by about 1860, and considered the first commercial plastic, used in a vast number of products till replaced by...
Brad- shipping varies with no particular logic. Each Goodwill is essentially an independent franchise, and some of them gouge on shipping. The cost is calculated right on the listing, though, so...
I think you’ll better with a general listing, like Craigslist, since it’s not really luthier-specific stuff or terribly antique — except for the Walker Turner; there seems to be a rabid bunch of W-T...
A quick dip in gloss polyurethane will do the trick, and also spruce up that nasty unfinished interior.
Of course, the famous moLoar.
Epoxy works, but all traces of earlier glues must be scraped off. Since we don’t know what old plastic buttons are made of, choosing a solvent or glue is a guess.
Small amounts of a vast variety of...
Looks like a lower-line Strad-o-Lin, maybe ca. 1950, but…..nobody is sure who made the various SOLs, or even where. Early Stadium is associated mostly with SOL, but the name, as you found, continues...
So here’s my ancestral SOL with a homemade Delrin button, a rod of ‘natural’ color ABS, and a block of another plastic. Same tuner type. Too soft a plastic won’t work. The usual way to put a...
Consumer dial calipers and digital ones are not rated for any specific accuracy. Same with low-end micrometers, as said more suitable for strings, but technique is needed for most critical use. For...