What's a "flat iron" mandolin?

**Soupy1957** · Mar-25-2007, 1:05pm

What is it about a "Flat Iron" mandolin that is distinctive? what makes a "Flat Iron" a "Flat Iron?" Is it a flat TOP?

-Soupy1957

**bradeinhorn** · Mar-25-2007, 1:09pm

? - flatiron is a brand...

**mandolooter** · Mar-25-2007, 1:15pm

Yo Soup...do a google on em...plenty to be found!

**mingusb1** · Mar-25-2007, 1:35pm

Flatiron is also a descriptive geologic/geomorphologic term. The range outside of Boulder, CO is called (and looks like) Flatirons because of erosionally resistant rocks exposed and dipping (tilted) at a high angle.

Z

**Jim Hilburn** · Mar-25-2007, 2:05pm

Do you mean these?

**Jim Hilburn** · Mar-25-2007, 2:09pm

Mando content: That's Boulder's famous Chautauqua theater and I've seen Monroe, Grisman, Mike Marshall, Tim O Brien, Sam Bush, and Jethro Burns there along with many I can't think of right now.

**Celtic Saguaro** · Mar-25-2007, 2:19pm

For several years, the original Flatiron mandolins were all flat like Mid-Mos. #The f-style Flatirons came later. #

**Jim Hilburn** · Mar-25-2007, 2:23pm

Oh,yeah, Chris Thile...and Dean Webb. Anyone hear of him before?

**mingusb1** · Mar-25-2007, 2:26pm

Nice picture, Jim. They really do look like irons sticking out of the hill.

Z

**pdlstl** · Mar-25-2007, 3:27pm

Originally Posted by (Jim Hilburn @ Mar. 25 2007, 10:09)

Mando content: That's Boulder's famous Chautauqua theater and I've seen Monroe, Grisman, Mike Marshall, Tim O Brien, Sam Bush, and Jethro Burns there along with many I can't think of right now.

Wow! What a great setting that must have been to see these folks...

**allenhopkins** · Mar-25-2007, 10:32pm

Originally Posted by

and Dean Webb. Anyone hear of him before?

Of the Dillards.

And Soupy, oh you of the endlessly questing mind -- Flatiron was a brand of mandolins built in Montana, early to mid 1980's. They started out building a style of instrument based on the Gibson Army-Navy models of the World War I period: a flat top, circular body, with a round soundhole, a short scale neck not raised above the body. I'm going to guess that the flat appearance of these mandolins may have influenced the name of the company.

Flatiron branched out into fancier models, starting with flat topped mandolas and octave mandolins (I own a Flatiron 3-K "bouzouki"), continuing to carved top Florentine mandolins of the F-5 style. The Festival and Artist models were particularly good, and of course attracted the attention of Gibson Inc., which purchased the Flatiron company in 1987. The Flatiron shop, re-christened "Gibson Montana," was kept to produce Gibson's top-end mandolins and acoustic guitars. Flatiron became a Gibson nameplate; Gibson produced a few of the old "Army-Navy" instruments (I own a Gibson "A/N Custom," dated 1987, and signed by Steve Carlson, one of the Flatiron founders).

I don't believe Gibson is making Flatiron mandolins now; here's a lengthy recent thread discussing the rumor that Gibson may use the "Flatiron" nameplate for a line of imported Chinese instruments. Some former Flatiron employees started Sound to Earth, which makes the extensive Weber line of mandolins. Gibson's Montana shop continues to build their top-end acoustic guitars.

Given the construction of the Army-Navy type instruments that the Flatiron Co. first made, the term "flatiron mandolin" has been used as shorthand for the round, flat-top, relatively simple instruments which are available from several sources, including kits. Flatiron, however, is a former independent mandolin builder, now a trademark if Gibson Inc.

Answer your question? And, for all the other Cafe habitues more knowledgable than I am, please feel free to correct my narrative.

**Mike Bunting** · Mar-25-2007, 11:02pm

A "flatiron" is a tool used for ironing clothes etc. They were heated in the fire as opposed to the modern irons. Their shape is what is recalled in our modern use. Just found it on Wik.

* An old term for a clothes iron, now largely out of date.
* Another name for a hair iron, a tool used to straighten hair.
* A wedge-shaped building:
o The Flatiron Building in New York City for which the surrounding Flatiron District is named.
o One of a number of other buildings given that name.
* Rock formations near Boulder, Colorado are called the Flatirons.
* A small community named Flat Iron in Vermillion County, Indiana.
* Flat iron steak, a cut of beef.