My Stradolin is under construction! I replaced the tailpiece and tuners with Stew Mac parts. For the tailpiece I had to drill three new holes (four including for the strap button) and for the tuners they were essentially drop in except I had to drill new holes for the top screw on each side. As others have noted the actual holes for the tuners on these old mandolins are often not uniform so I normalized them with my drill and used the press in bushings that came with the tuners. The thumbwheels that came off my bridge/saddle are beyond repair, I can't even get the wheel off of one so I've ordered an inexpensive bridge/saddle off of Reverb so I can experiment fitting a bridge to a top. This Stradolin was supposed to be a low cost way for me to tinker with mandolins but I have to say that I am really enjoying everything that I am doing and looking forward to stringing it up seeing how it sounds.
I bought a cheap blacklight flashlight on Amazon but still can't pick up a date anywhere in the cavity so as Iris Dement says 'I'll just let the mystery be'.
Rob
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