I hope that this is placed in the correct place. If not, my apologies. I am possibly about to bite off more than I can chew, but with as big a mouth as I have, I’m going to try it anyway. I have been looking for a Flatiron 1N for a while now and everything that I have looked at is either just outside of my budget or priced way too high for this instrument. In my search today, I ran across one that is in pretty sad shape cosmetically, but is sound mechanically. By sound I mean there are no unrepaired cracks or missing parts. There are three old repairs done to it and I don’t know how well they are done, but they are several years old which is telling me that they were done well enough and it is still very playable. The major issue with it is that it got frozen and was thawed out too quickly causing multiple (as in a whole lot) of crazing to the finish. There was no damage to the wood (enter a sigh of relief here). I plan on stripping it down completely, remove the tailpiece and the tuners, no big job there. And sanding it down to the wood. Yes I have every confidence in doing that. I have done it to a couple of guitars in the past. The difference is that I sent the guitars out for a nice Nitro-cellulose spray job. The N-1 is lacquer finished and I’m afraid to put nitro over the lacquer. I’m pretty sure that they are incompatible. Even sanding down to the wood would leave traces of the original finish. I have a air brush to do the application, but what to use for the lacquer? Here I need some knowledgeable advice.
So, you ask, why go through all of this for a $300 to $400 mandolin? I got it for $60. And I can put another $30 or $40 into it and some elbow grease and have an if not pristine, at least playable, mandolin for about $100. I had one of these about 30 years ago and I was amazed by it. I only sold it because it developers separation in the top seam. I learned later that this was not uncommon in these and that it was an easy and inexpensive repair. Oh well, we live and learn. So now I get a second chance at one. And besides, playing a mandolin isn’t the ONLY way to have fun with a mandolin.
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