Stradolin goes under the knife

[MANDOLINMYSTER]

Well gang the days are short and cold so its down to the basement workshop for all the "other" projects.

Tonight I was mentally prepared to remove the back of an old Stradolin( the good kind-with the bridge centered to the sound holes) This is a very stressful procedure with a lot at stake.

Minimum breathing, exerting great amounts of force yet handing the instrument and
tools with a gentle glove.

What a sigh of relief when I heard that last pop and the back came off with no issues...pheww.

Heres a few pics for the curious.

[Vernon Hughes]

You going to rebrace that in a more traditional manner?

[MANDOLINMYSTER]

You going to rebrace that in a more traditional manner?

Humm, good question. I tend to leave things original whenever possible. Let see what the consensus is.

[Charles E.]

That bracing makes no sense at all. It's a Stradolin for gosh sakes. Now that you have the back off (nice job by the way) you can check graduations, redo them and put in tone bars or an X-brace. This is your chance to hot rod it.

[Tom Haywood]

What are you repairing on this mandolin?

[MANDOLINMYSTER]

What are you repairing on this mandolin?

The main reason I removed the back is one of the top braces fell off and the other was about to. Also the sides were getting out of alignment and some of the glue joints are failing.

I just took removed the fingerboard, it came off with minimal effort. It will need a new board, as the one that was on it has shrunk,cracked and dried out like a prune.

[bmac]

Why in the world would anyone want to hot rod it? These are nice sounding instruments and in fact this model, the top of their line, is fairly unusual. Restoration is one thing, which I think Mike is doing, but hot rodding it would be a real shame.

Mike.... If you have any "before" photos I am sure many of us would like to see them. Lots of folks don't know what this model Strad-O-Lin looks like.

[MikeEdgerton]

I love hot rods but I'm with Bart on this one. These things sound as good as they do partly because of that non-traditional bracing. Michael, would you mind posting these pictures in the Strad-O-Lin Social group as well?

[Timbofood]

I agree, hot rodding some things is a great idea but, some projects are just better as restorations. Just because you can does not mean you should.
Also agree, before and after shots are always interesting

[David Newton]

I'm agreeing that the bracing should be returned to what Stradolin did originally, but I'm calling it "traditional" for many of the inexpensive mandolins were braced this way.
Because many of the glue joints are failing, I think the path ahead is to re-glue each one in its turn.
Re-glue the top braces, then check all around the linings and blocks, running in hot glue where they are loose without removing them entirely. Then re-attach the back. Then go around the top little by little, running in thin hot glue where it will.
By doing a little at a time there is less chance of distorting the sides and having the top not fit well upon re-gluing it.
Because the original build used hot-hide-glue, running in thin hot glue will re-activate the old glue, and stick well to it and the wood.

[pfox14]

Does it have a solid wood top? The back looks like laminate (1 piece). Thanks for sharing the photos.

[Jim Garber]

I am watching this thread because I have a Weymann-made Strad -O-Lin type mandolin in dissembled condition that I need to re-assemble some day.

[BradKlein]

Tonight I was mentally prepared to remove the back of an old Stradolin( the good kind-with the bridge centered to the sound holes)

Strads with the bridge centered on the ff holes, are a tiny percentage of Strads, and I'm not sure that I would call them 'the good kind'. They were a high grade, 'Artist Deluxe' I seem to recall, but the relationship to the massive cross brace is very different than in most Stradolins, where a single top brace runs just South of the bridge. The latter are what the Strad reputation is built on.

The Artist Deluxe model leaves the bridge between two braces with no support nearby. It's old, and solid woods (carved back, pressed top?), rare, and cool - but not, I think, better sounding or as structurally sound as the 'typical' Strad. So yeah, rebrace at will if you are so inclined.

you can check graduations, redo them and put in tone bars or an X-brace.

It should be easy to check the grads of the top, since it's a single thickness pressed to shape, I believe.

Here's the model that I am referring to, and I assume what the OP's looked like.

[MikeEdgerton]

Does it have a solid wood top? The back looks like laminate (1 piece). Thanks for sharing the photos.

This one is all solid. Actually the vast majority of the Strad-O-Lin genre mandolins are all solid. I've seen very few that weren't. This model was their top of the line in the years it was produced and has one striking difference from the run of the mill models, the aforementioned centered bridge.

[MikeEdgerton]

The Strad-O-Lin Social Group has a few pictures of this model (as well as almost every other model). This one belongs to Bruce Clausen.

[MANDOLINMYSTER]

Yes Mike E is correct this model is all solid wood. I have the other type of stradolin that Brad describes so I will be curious to see how the two compare tone wise. One thing immediately different from my other strads that have a beefy neck profile, this one is very slender, almost like that found on a Gibson snakehead A.

As far as hot rodding, I'm a traditionalist so this instrument will retain all its original features. I will be adding more pics as I move through the restoration.

[bmac]

It is my understanding that there are two versions of the Strad-O-Lin Artist Deluxe... the early one being a virtual copy of the Gibson with solid carved top and back. At some point after WW2? the solid carved top and back were replaced by this version with solid, but thin, steam pressed top and back as on most Strads. With the moving of the f holes downward two cross braces were necessary to support the very thin top. One located above and one below the f holes. This thin steam pressed top and back (about 1/8" thick) is very subject to cracking hence the necessity of the second transverse brace to keep the top half of the mando top from splitting. Since the top and back are identical to the standard Strad top and back with only the f holes in a different location and the additional cross brace, the sound of this instrument is likely not much different than the standard Strad-O-Lin. It simply has a little more decoration on the mando than the standard Strad.

The significant crack in the above photo (a little hard to see) running from the treble side of the tailpiece up to the end of the fretboard indicates that one and likely both of the transverse braces broke loose at one time allowing the crack to develope. One of my Strads has the same type crack caused by the breaking of its transverse brace.

I suspect that the good tone of Strad-O-Lins is due, in part, to the thinness of the solid top and back of the instrument.