hot-rod frankenstein upgrades to my "new" '80 Epiphone mandolin

[Traveling Tracks]

The backstory: bought it in December at a very good price from Elderly instruments. Played for a few weeks just to get familiar with it. Brought it to my go-to luthier in the Philly area....Ron Ruggiero whose home office is in Yardley, PA. I've brought my instruments there for 10+ years and he always works his magic and my instruments come back better every time.

Here's how it was: the mando had a cracked bridge, small old frets that I didn't like, and the "Florida" had already been removed but I like even more clearance for deep picking in the sweet spot for maximum tone and volume.

Here's what he did: I brought him the mandolin with a new Cumberland Acoustics bridge, a few feet of Jescar EVO Gold 37080 fret wire, and a new set of my trusty Thomastik-Infeld strings. He replaced the bridge, removed all frets, sanded down the end of the fret board (as shown in the photo), and replaced all frets.

Plays like a dream!!! Unbelievable improvement overall. So incredible.
Thrilled with the results. The mando cost me $480 from Elderly.
The "improvements" ran just under $400.....totally worth the investment.

My last mando was a Collings MT2V which I had to sell as it was honestly just to expensive to own as I'm just playing for fun and holding onto a $5k instrument was just too much for me. So I am again thrilled with my "new' 1980 Epiphone hot-rodded frankenstein mando.

[Rob Roy]

With EVO frets and a Cumberland bridge you're good for the long haul there. Where's you come by that strap, haven't seen one of those before?