Search:

I just pulled the frets, nut, and bridge on a 1980 Martin D-37K guitar.

Nice guitar, reasonably well cared for, played a lot, and in for repair simply because of stuff that normally needs to be...

I've done this a few times, and I never saw any compelling reason to file the higher wire down to exactly match the lower wire. .004" difference is chicken feed and the instrument will play very...

Hmmm. Perhaps if he can get his hands on a couple of tenor banjos or tenor guitars, he'll be able to give you some idea of what feels good to him.
Or, if he plays guitar, does he have any...

Are you making the instrument for yourself or for someone else?
Personal preferences are so important.

I play most string instruments to one degree or another. Personally, I prefer wider string...

Well, if no one else contributes, one of my former students has a Trinity College that he could measure.
And Walter Carter just listed a Sobell, and has a Gilchrist in stock. Measurements on those...

My old Regal Octofone is the only octave mandolin I've spent any significant time with. The fingerboard is 1 3/8" at the nut, and 1 5/8" at the 12th fret. It is set up with an old one piece...

If you find it necessary to plug old screw holes and drill new ones, you can plug with round toothpicks with the end cut off and a little bit of Titebond to glue them in. I leave them a little long,...

Phil, if you have any lingering doubts, go to Ace Hardware and buy their little 6" metal rule which is graduated in 64ths of an inch. It costs about $5.

Then, measure again very carefully from...

A well executed headstock repair may last a lifetime without any adverse effects.
But the market does not like them. They devalue the instrument significantly, and many buyers will not even...

The modern logo does indeed come in about 1947, first in silkscreen, then changing to a decal in 1954.

Factory order numbers from the late '40's are inconsistent and not much info is available on...

The neck angle was changed, but several years earlier-- the earliest 2-pointers, introduced in 1910, had the same angle as mandolins made in the late teens and throughout the 1920's. The bridge...

I am 1000+ miles from the mandolin, so I can't offer you any opinions on the tone or projection of the instrument.
However, I will reluctantly suggest that the price seems to be quite high for an...

Many years ago, I visited Fred Oster's Vintage Instruments shop in Philadelphia.
He routinely carries many very fine violin family instruments, and he happened to have an early Stradivari violin in...

Addendum:

I've spent the last several days glueing and cleating cracks and glueing loose braces in an F-5G and a 20 year old J-45 guitar that have had a hard life.

I have nice 20th century...

I operated in my shop for quite a few years with no power tools at all except for a Dremel with a home-made router base, an electric hand drill and a hand held jig saw. The jig saw does not get used...

To install a new bridge on flat top instruments with fixed bridges, many of us simply locate the bridge, tape or clamp it in place, measure for the saddle position, drill a tiny hole through the...

Stop by Gruhn Guitars also. Although they have less than usual at the moment, new stuff walks in the door every day. And, at the moment, they do have an older Gilchrist model 5. I haven't played...

The mandolin is an early modern era Washburn. It was built in either Japan or South Korea.
It bears no resemblance to the mandolins made by the original Washburn Company, which was out of business...

Dave Apollon was known to remove the 23rd and sometimes the 21st fret on some of his mandolins so he could get a clear high E and sometimes a high D.

Gibson did make a very small number of A-4's with fancy fingerboard inlays. All were built before 1910, and would have left the factory with inlaid pickguards, and a somewhat different shape to the...

Note that these are out of stock.
So far as I know, Gibson stopped offering mandolin strings several years ago.
I'm not sure why these are still listed on the Strings and Beyond website.

The picture of Jim's earlier mandolin appears to me to show a light radius, while the picture of the later instrument appears not to have a radius.
Computers and camera lenses can distort pictures. ...

If hide glue is used, it will look about the same as it does now. Most other glues might darken the crack.
As a matter of fact, it is possible that the crack has already been repaired. If you take...

Very few good handmade mandolins were being made back then. Monteleone and Randy Wood were making a few, and Gilchrist was just starting to build his first instruments. There were only a few others...

Many old instruments have hairline cracks. Your immediate concern is that it does not open up or spread. Use a humidifier such as a Damp-it to ensure the instrument does not dry out too much during...