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Thread: Best Mandolin for Traveling From Sea Level to High Desert?

  1. #26

    Default Re: Best Mandolin for Traveling From Sea Level to High Desert?

    I'm about to try out a plastic soprano ukulele with fifths tuning strings (still GDAE) as a travel instrument. Indestructible, immune to temperature and humidity changes, and smaller than a mandolin.

    I'm not planning on playing any shows with it, just something to mess around with while on vacation. I'll let yall know how it works when I get it (it's in the mail, coming this week)

    I also had the thought that the Seagull S8 mandolin may work well for humidity changes because it's only made from 3 pieces of wood; one for the neck, back, and sides, one for the top, and one for the fretboard. Maybe having less types of wood would help it warp less?
    https://seagullguitars.com/product/s8-mandolin-natural/

  2. #27

    Default Re: Best Mandolin for Traveling From Sea Level to High Desert?

    Quote Originally Posted by Chris Daniels View Post
    How serendipitous to come across this thread as I'm currently on my way to the airport from my near-sea level home for a vacation in the high desert of NM. Bringing the Flatiron 1N which I figure will be the best of my lot to handle the change. I do have a 70% cigar humidifier pack in the case to help keep it closer to normal conditions. I'll report back on how it goes.

    C. ~/:/~
    The promised update is here, and the 1N handled the climate transition with steady aplomb after leaving the unseasonably cool SC Lowcountry to climb to a very, very windy and dry desert, even with a couple of day's worth of layover in a rainy NYC waiting for my daughter to officially start Spring Break. No appreciable difference in playability or tone, though I did let it acclimate for a short while before first picking. It cruised through the 5300 then 11500 then 7200 ft of elevation and temp swings from 25° to 85° F without complaint. They sure knew what they were doing there in Montana back in the day.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    C. ~/:/~
    Northfield F5S Amber #347 - 'Squeeze'
    Mann EM-5 Hollow Body - Gimme Moore
    Kentucky KM-270 - Not just for whisky
    Flatiron 1N Pancake - Not just for breakfast
    Epiphone Mandobird IV - Djangly
    Cozart 8-string e-mando - El Ch(e)apo
    Lanikai LB6-S Banjolele (tuned GDAE) - Plinky and the Brane

  3. #28

    Default Re: Best Mandolin for Traveling From Sea Level to High Desert?

    Quote Originally Posted by mandroid View Post
    Perhaps a builder can finish the inside of the body , only leave a surface of the lining strips unfinished to absorb the glue
    ending up with both sides of the wood lacquered to not swell & contract so fast ...
    Often the one-side only finish in wood instruments seems odd, when in other wood construction sealing both sides is good practice - except in case goods, just to add to the confusion.
    Yes, unequal swelling or shrinkage on two sides of a board relates to humidity, but there's more going on, because wood isn’t an isotropic material, and movement relates to grain. Something we see if we take a round section of a tree and let it dry. Radial cracks guaranteed. So we pick cuts that are more stable, and also happen to have some better acoustic and strength properties. Then, we finish only one side. Tonight, my opinion is that this only works well is because the wood is thin; so thin that no significant moisture differential can develop. Not to say that a finish by itself can’t stress the wood as it responds to temperature and moisture. It can, and we see it in various finish failures. The finish on a piece of furniture is very thin, compared with the board it’s on; not the case on an instrument.

    But the combination of grain orientation, very thin wood, and thin finishes, plus mechanical design for expansion/contraction without rupture, works out pretty well. Plywood, with an odd number of plies, works better, except for the music part, so there we are.

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