Looks about the same as the 1932 Gibson A-4 that I had to replace the fingerboard on a while back.
Did the saw need service? Was it the operator's first day on the job? Or did he have the Monday morning flu?? And yes, where was the QC man?
The good news was that with a new board with frets in the right place, it turned out to be a pretty darn good mandolin.
The moral of this story is that this sort of thing happens in the big professional shops also.
What is it?
Charley
A bunch of stuff with four strings
A mandolin with hopelessly mis-placed frets.
Tavy will have to tell us who the builder was.
Are you sure it's a mandolin? I don't see a body, just a short, stubby neck with a missing nut and nine missing frets. Since the entire pegboard isn't in the frame, there's no way to verify it is from an eight-stringer. For all I can tell, it belongs to a charango. Oh dear, indeed!
But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller
Furthering Mandolin Consciousness
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Sorry, yes, it was a mandolin - a bowl back made by F DeMurada. It's the same instrument I'm up-cycling in the other thread I posted, but the shot was taken before I'd chopped the neck off in preparation for the new one.
Interestingly DeMurada instruments seem to attract consistently higher prices than most other bowls, based on this one, I'm not completely sure why!
BTW because of the construction of these (ultra thin fretboard with fret slots cut right through), it's not generally advisable to do a fretboard replacement, or at least a like-for-like replacement would be super hard.
I also posted this on FB, and someone came up with some information on how these were done (at for the German makers) that was new to me. Basically they would have a "stick" with tacks pushed through at the fret spacings, and use that to mark the fretboard. Then use an angled edge pushed against the neck and a tenon saw to cut each slot by hand on the completed instrument. I suspect someone was badly hung over when they did this one
"Basically they would have a "stick" with tacks pushed through at the fret spacings, and use that to mark the fretboard. Then use an angled edge pushed against the neck and a tenon saw to cut each slot by hand on the completed instrument."
Not really designed for accuracy, IMO.
What's wrong with installing a slightly thicker fingerboard?
They probably orignally went thin to save on the cost of materials.
IF the tacks are in the right place, AND the craftsman takes care with cutting the frets I don't see why it wouldn't be accurate. Though I confess I wouldn't want to be doing this on a completed instrument. Other than that, it's not dissimilar to modern practices for custom scale lengths - except we now have computer generated templates to work off - and I wouldn't want to start cutting till both jig and board are firmly clamped in place, working on a completed wobbly bowl back would be like wrestling a truculent armadillo
Maybe, to my eyes it just looks totally wrong - even upping the fretboard to 2-3mm thick would roughly double it's original thickness which is very noticeable. US made bowls had much more sensibly sized boards on them, and those are definitely replaceable, though generally they do seem to have been better cut in the first place!
John, I come from the land of truculent armadillos.
We used to make headgear out of them when we were kids until the whole leprosy scare cut that out.
I had to ask my wife for the translation but odontoiatria dei rettili might fit the bill here
as an Italian riff on the regular Diego Garber quip: reptile dentistry.
Mick
Ever tried, ever failed? No matter. Try again, fail again. Fail better.--Samuel Beckett
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