Hi guys,
New to the world of mandolin but seasoned violinist/fiddler, with a good bit of experience in acoustic guitar and bass. I just bought a really beautiful MD515 Eastman mandolin a few weeks ago and I'm IN LOVE. Super excited. The one issue I've found is that the thing holds its tuning far worse than I expected. In ambient conditions it'll be less than half a step out of tune after a day, but in a warm car it could be much more than a full step out after sitting there for a morning.
I know that temperature changes can definitely screw with the tuning for any stringed instrument (and not great for the body either, my bad!), but I've never had an instrument that detunes that fast, and even after leaving my Taylor guitar or electric bass or violin unplayed for weeks at a time it's still less than half a step out.
No cracks/warping/wood issues that I can see with the body - could shoddy pegs cause this problem? I still have the Eastman warranty so I'm hoping if I can identify the problem I can get it sent back for repair, but I'm not sure what to be looking for!
Oh, and I noticed right off the bat that the D strings need probably 3x the peg rotation as the other pegs before the pitch begins to change, which I marked up to strings sticking to the nut, and resolved to pencil in some graphite the first time I did a string change. Perhaps this is related?
Thanks a bunch!
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