Gibson Scroll

[Jim Hilburn]

Was discussing the nature of scrolls old and new with a friend I pointed out that this F4 which is from a poster on my wall was what I considered to be the classic or "right" look. And part of what I mean is not just the perfectly cut opening, but the way it sits so close to the fingerboard.
The F4 has the wider fingerboard than the F5 which may be part of why it has this look. My question has to do with the F5 off-center neck. I think I've heard it said it was to give the instrument this look by moving the fingerboard closer to the scroll. So were the F4's also shifted or was that done when the F5 was created?

[Hendrik Ahrend]

Jim, the off-center thing is a typical F5-feature, as far as I can tell. Your example is an older (= pre '23) F4 with a wider neck, so the differences are not as clear as on this F4 (with '23 FON):
Comparing this F4 (#76599) to a Loar F5 (#75318) reveals that the off-center neck set on F4s is almost zero, but quite obvious on F5s. Here are back pics:



BTW this may be the reason, why most builders' F5s (and available drawings) do not have the "right" Loar look. They go by F4 examples, which are easier at hand than vintage F5s.

[Tom C]

I like how the button is flush. Most buttons seem to be raised a little.

[Jim Hilburn]

I've had the F5 photo for sometime after scouring the Archive. It's rare to find a pic that is straight on of the neck joint from the rear. Just a little bit of an angle can distort your perception but this picture seems to clearly show that the neck was offset toward the scroll and then the heel was carved asymetrically to align the heelcap with the back.
This was about the best I could find of an older F4 and it appears to be more centered to me, but I did find another that looked like it was off-center.
I was just wondering if it was an intentional design choice on the F5.

[Jim Hilburn]

During my building days how to account for the heel button if you did the shift was enough to keep you up at night.

[Hendrik Ahrend]

I like how the button is flush. Most buttons seem to be raised a little.

That flush button on F4s can be found from late '23 on (referring to Spann's FON).

[Hendrik Ahrend]

I was just wondering if it was an intentional design choice on the F5.

I just held my F4 (#76599 shown above) against my F5 (#75319). As far as I can tell, the off-centering is not much. But as it's plainly visible, I believe it was intentional from the drawing board on. They may have figured, a narrow scroll opening at the 15th fret just looks "right"; who knows?

[sunburst]

...I believe it was intentional from the drawing board on. They may have figured, a narrow scroll opening at the 15th fret just looks "right"; who knows?

I believe that the early F mandolins were adapted from Orville Gibson's earlier designs, and were "compromised" for production. As things like elevated fingerboard extenders, truss rods, narrower necks, f-holes, longer necks and such were brought to the basic design, they didn't actually go back to the drawing board but instead adapted to the production forms, machinery, and processes that they already had. If they wanted a narrower space between the scroll and the fingerboard when the fingerboard got narrower, they could have re-drawn the body with the scroll closer to the neck, but that would require new forms, perhaps different procedures and perhaps adaptations to machining operations. Much easier to just just move the fingerboard over and then have to carve the heel sideways to compensate.
As I was learning to build mandolins, and trying to interpret the F-5 design, I kept running into features that had no obvious explanation or reason for being. Through studying earlier Gibson F designs I feel that I have tracked most of those things down to adaptations as features were changed while production continued. As I see it, they never really when back to the drawing board.

[sunburst]

BTW this may be the reason, why most builders' F5s (and available drawings) do not have the "right" Loar look. They go by F4 examples, which are easier at hand than vintage F5s.

Perhaps that is true, but some of us are not trying to replicate the Loar look so much as interpret it, often using elements of F2 and F4 designs. In many ways, I find the earlier F designs to be better balanced and more attractive than the Loar F5. We don't all have to build Loar replicas all the time.
In other words sometimes it is intentional for builder's "F5"s to not have the "right" Loar look.

(FWIW, I don't set up and display instruments at shows very often, but once when I did, a fellows picked up my "F5", looked it over, smiled and nodded, then said: "Do you mind a little constructive criticism? I assume you are going for the Loar look..." at which time I said, "No, actually I'm not". He then quickly realized what was going on, but he still pointed to the scroll "gap" at the fingerboard, and I said; "Yes, the Loars were closer". He smiled, nodded and moved on.
As I have continued to modify and re-draw my "F5" design I have made that gap a little narrower, but at the same time I've made the space inside the scroll narrower so the proportions still look right to me. My neck heels are symmetrical, BTW. The "F5" I have in the finish room right now has re-drawn body points and a re-drawn peghead. The next one will have a re-drawn scroll as well. I assume I'll never fully complete my "F5" interpretation. The builders at Gibson didn't have the opportunity of re-drawing and modifying even if they had wanted to. Production makes that far too difficult.)

[Hendrik Ahrend]

Perhaps that is true, but some of us are not trying to replicate the Loar look so much as interpret it, often using elements of F2 and F4 designs. In many ways, I find the earlier F designs to be better balanced and more attractive than the Loar F5. We don't all have to build Loar replicas all the time.
In other words sometimes it is intentional for builder's "F5"s to not have the "right" Loar look.

Obviously; I agree, John.
Then again - since you say "we don't all..." - which builder is actually trying to copy Loar F5s? Wiens, Kemnitzer, Vessel, Minarovic come to mind. Any others?
Of course, every builder is free to choose their design, right or wrong being very subjective - which is why I put "right" in quotation marks in the above post.

[sunburst]

...which builder is actually trying to copy Loar F5s? Wiens, Kemnitzer, Vessel, Minarovic come to mind. Any others?...

I'm not sure if anyone is regularly trying to accurately copy a Loar F5. I have never done it, but a "bench copy" is a project I might like to take on at some time. Some builders stay closer to the Loar model than others without copying per se.
I've only seen one Wiens mandolin, I would not consider that one to be a Loar copy (I don't know about others). I've seen quite a few made by Kemnitzer and I consider those to be of his own design and not particularly similar to Loars. I have not seen a Vessel mandolin "in person" so I don't really know of any Loar copies by him other than one that was pictured here some time back. It looked pretty accurate to me from internet pictures, but I don't think he does that as a regular thing. I have not seen a Minarovic mandolin "in person" either, but I get the impression from pictures that he has refined many details to his own taste rather than trying to copy a Loar. Bill Halsey built a mandolin and posted pictures here that looked about as much like a Loar as any I've seen, but of course I only saw pictures.
I suppose it would be a matter of opinion how accurate the details of a mandolin would need to be in order to have the "right" (in quotes) Loar look.

[Eric Oliver]

Can a small-batch builder actually faithfully copy the Loar F5?
If it is an assembly-line production setting that made the Loar, with production of units-per-hour-per-day the order of the day, I wonder if somehow that a piece of the puzzle is the joining of disparate pieces in a unit/hour/day mindset (all assumptions on my part)? I do think that in that factory the best at 'setting the necks' are setting necks all day, and the best at carving scrolls are carving/finishing scrolls all day, so you end up with the best at each task doing that task (again, pure assumption on my part!).
I've wanted to ask how many tasks or stages were involved there? How many workers in that production were required to build one F5? To me, one of the best features of the F-type is its bold rejection of symmetry.

[Hendrik Ahrend]

"Bill Halsey built a mandolin and posted pictures here that looked about as much like a Loar as any I've seen, but of course I only saw pictures."
I agree, Bill Halsey is among those who seriously tried (and extremely well succeeded) - but apparently no longer does these days.

Contributing to the widespread modern "centered" neck set may be that before HoGo's accurate Loar-F5 drawings weren't available until a few years ago.
At the same time, variety among the mandolins makes the world more colorful. I'm sure glad about that.

[Don Grieser]

Here's the Halsey thread. https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t.../41002-New-f-5 Unfortunately, no straight on shots of the front and back.

Jim, here's one way of dealing with the button on the off center neck. Just lean it over toward the scroll.

[Hendrik Ahrend]

Here's the Halsey thread. https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t.../41002-New-f-5 Unfortunately, no straight on shots of the front and back.

Jim, here's one way of dealing with the button on the off center neck. Just lean it over toward the scroll.

Thanks for that pic, Don. Those early MMs are interesting regarding the "off-center" aspect. Apparently the leaning-over of the neck is actually a bit more than on vintage F5s (and possibly other MMs). I like it, though. Check this prototype out (V-73732; Derrington, October 18 2000), note the angle of the strings running across the bridge and the off-center bridge:

[HoGo]

I'm a bit late to this thread, but will try to add a bit.
My take is that both F-4s and F-5's used the same asymmetry. Of course thay were not all identical but the idea was there. Why did they do that? My first answer would be design as Bill Halsey pointed out they wanted the gap to be the same size inside the scroll and between scroll and fingerboard edge. I believe thay fitted the neck blanks to the rims before tops or backs were attached just rim with the riser block was routed for dovetail (from teens, before they used three cuts with table saw) and the neck dovetail was cut on shaper or similar machine to very close tolerance and fitted to the body. At this time the blank was likely just rectangular block of wood with tringular piece of maple applied (on F-4). The dovetail was cut at the apex of the body so both sides of dovetail were as symmetrical as possible (to be cut with the same cutter) Now that the blank was fitted to body, the prepared fingerboard (or template) was held against the surface and marked. The board was positioned with 15th fret at the end of the crosspiece and given distance from scroll (on the mandolins where the distance is larger probably the neck blank was not fitted close enough to the scroll to allow this or defect in wood prevented it) and of course the board centerline would aim towards center of body. Then the neck blank was removed from rim and headstock angle was cut at the nut end and side profile was cut. The next step was routing the channel for black wood inlay on back of neck for F-4s (the early F-5s appear to have three piece necks, not inlaid strip) for this the exact position of neck (and heel) within the blank must have been known as the strip is approximately 1/16" deep. They likely used large shapers for the whole neck shaping. The channel for the strip was probably cut right after the side profile was cut to template.
Since the dovetail was centered on apex of body, the heel had to be as well at the apex, but the fingerboard side was marked independently so it is shifted towards the scroll. The whole asymmetry was just result of the design requirement for fretboard and their working methods.
In my own work, I cannot claim I'm copying Loars as I don't have the machinery and don't have a Loar at hand to copy. I can imitate whole lot of the details but still be far from copying. On my latest ones I'm trying to get as close as possible with these details but I don't use ivory for points, I don't have US sized rods and thread taps, there's no source for original size/color celluloid for binding anymore etc. So I go just as close as practical. I would love to go closer, but now it is just not possible.
In my earlier mandolins I did like John, I corrected all imperfect asymmetries and curves of scroll etc. and drew my own drawings but still I saw something "special" in the old Gibsons and started drawing their outlines till I started realizing teir design was pretty spectacular right from the drawing board. Whoever designed F-4/5 had clear vison of balance of the curves and the scrolls and points, the curves are both symmetric an asymmmetric at the same time. if you look at the curve between the points you can see the main curve being symmetric (think of recurve bow) but that would look boring so they made the upper point longer and bent the tip towards neck which adds something. If you look at modern mandolins without his bend the upper pint looks likely too long compared to lower one. Similarly the whole body symmetry is not perfect. If you try to match bass side by treble side, the curve between points would be far from nice symmetric "archery bow" shape it would straighten towards upper point way too much. If you try to match the bass side to treble the curve will not have smotth transition of radiuses towards scroll and look out of place, the whole body would lose balance. When I was drawing my own drawings, I spent three years at the frawing board before I was happy enough to cut some wood... (took me that much time to realize I had to give up tiny bit of symmetry to gain some balance and eventually led to my Loar drawings after few more years of drawing)
The MM two posts above is pretty ugly. The leaning button just looks like messed job, IMO.

[Hendrik Ahrend]

The MM two posts above is pretty ugly. The leaning button just looks like messed job, IMO.

Ugly on the back, somewhat better seen from the top. Messed or not, it seems to have been the concept on many earlier MMs. The back of that proto looks just as messed as the other MM pictured; the button is way too small:


Thanks, Adrian, for your thorough explanation.

[Jim Hilburn]

Regardless of whether you off-center the fingerboard or not, on the back the challenge is to have the heel button center with the apex of the body nose and with a 2 piece back have it's seam align to that button. Used to drive me crazy. But I found it best to start with excess wood on the heel so you could adjust as needed.

[Don Grieser]

So did Gibson carve the heel of the neck to match the correct button position on the Loars? Going to go look at more Loar pics.

[Jim Hilburn]

Do you mean old Gibson or new Gibson?
Here are a couple of other examples I saved for some reason.
The MM's look like they went for the off center thing but didn't think about the off-alignment on the back.

[Jim Hilburn]

This was the last F I did. If you squint it nearly looks symetrical.

[HoGo]

I believe they just centered the backs and tops on the bodies and since the neck piece was way oversized during fitting all they needed was marking the centerline of back (or better said centerline of rim as it was still without back or top attached) on the rear of neck blank and cut the back strip and heel according to that. I do it the same way.
One more thing that they did differently from most todays makers is that they applied the last piece of binding around button after the neck was attached (or at least after it was fully carved and shaped for gluing in) the binding on the button is glued at an angle following the curve of the neck heel and not perfectly square like the rest of body. IMO they cut the ledge following the curves and they bent wider piece of binding to U shape and then trimmed it so it matched the angle. Hard to describe but any good shot of the heel from side shows the angle and the grain direction in the ivoroid shows how it was cut. The only exception from this is side bound where the binding is square - no surprise as the black/white line needed to sit on the neck heel so they could not trim it from bottom. The joints of the heel binding seem to be always mitered even though the rest of sidebound binding joints (or on single bound F-4s) are butted. On top bound F-5s the joints were typically mitered for the b/w and butted for the outer ivoroid when aplied separately, but there are many exceptions in later Loars (mismatched bindings, etc...) On older F-4s button was not round and binding applied in two pieces allowing for the angles.
I'm adding few pics for illustration.