Bowlback mandolin repair
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world of lutherie. The mid-term aim is to build a replica 18thC English
Guittar - but I need to develop some relevant skills first!
The first task is to try to repair the many splits in the back of a
1900'ish Italian bowlback mandolin that I've been given. The mandolin is
of no real value (and is probably not worth repairing) but seems like a
suitably challenging project to start on.
Naive question #1 (probably of an indeterminate series): can anyone make
any suggestions about how best to start, or point at any on-line
guidance? There are a large number of splits and joint failures so I
presume the sound board will need to come off - do I warm it and slide a
sharp knife through the joint - or what?
Apologies for asking such basic questions, but everyone has to start
somewhere ;-)
Dave
Nick Odell
wrote:
It's difficult to tell from your post whether you are a desk jockey
who last did a bit of woodwork in high school or a maker of fine
furniture looking to make a subtle change in your area of
craftsmanship. Knowing so little about you makes it hard to offer
advice. Unless you are bringing a lot of experience of one sort or
another with you, I'd say that repairing that mandolin is not newbie
material and you almost definitely don't want to take the top off.
If you are determined to jump in at the deep end, have you thought of
going straight on to build your English Guittar on an
instrument-making course? It's a long time since I looked into this
sort of thing but these courses sometimes turn up at Technical
Colleges as Adult Education Classes and some instrument makers used
to offer residential recreational classes in instrument building and
maybe still do.
Nick
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Thanks for the reply, Nick.
Sadly I'm not a maker of fine furniture but am a reasonably accomplished
woodworker and metalworker with a very good workshop. Many years ago I
made a passable apalachian dulcimer, but this was not particularly
demanding. I'm a graduate electronic engineer and pilot, currently
working as an IT consultant and in flight instruction. I play the
mandolin.
I've been looking-around for courses but haven't found anything that's
within reasonable travelling distance of Hampshire. Because of this my
plan was to identify some luthiers in the area and to offer to be an
un-paid apprentice and dogsbody in exchange for help, guidance, and
education - but I haven't yet got around to that.
It would be great to hear of any suitable courses, or of anyone that
would welcome an assistant.
If there was just one crack in the bowl I'd be reasonably confident of
closing it but there are at least 8. Most of them look like joint
failures but one runs slightly through the wood of one section. In my
naivety I was expecting to have to remove the top in order to be able to
get to the inside well enough to reinforce the joints with some fine
fabric. The instrument is a Stridente so I don't have anything to lose.
All suggestions gratefully received.
Nick Odell
wrote:
I should really learn to keep up at the back, part one..
...The first person I thought of sending you to was Andy Manson who
used to run courses of this kind and lived not too far away from your
work address. But a quick google shows that he now lives a tad further
away to the south-west - in Portugal. Googling some more came up with
this: http://www.bvma.org.uk/links.html with some instrument making
courses about half way down. I'm sure other sites are out there to
offer further links.
<swerve>Amongst those links I quite like the idea of Luthiers sans
Frontiers - A few years ago, completely unaware of LsF, I ran a short
violin repair course in the middle of Paraguay and it was great fun to
do</swerve>
Which brings me to: I should really learn to keep up at the back, part
two..
...I've spent part of the day musing to myself along the theme of
maybe running some instrument making & repair courses as a retirement
project - when retirement comes. After all, I reasoned, I've read
about a desire to learn to make instruments in two different
newsgroups in as many months.
Until it dawned on me that you are both those people!
Well, they do say that there are only 200 people on USENET: the others
are just the pseudonyms and alternative personas of those 200.
Nick
David Hajicek
Since you make violins and Mandos are built pretty similarly, how would you
deal with this?
I'm thinking that removing the back (not the top) makes a more sense since
that is where the problem is. Not knowing the details, it is hard to know
what to do. It is possible that repairs could be affected with out removing
anything. But removing the back would be more direct. Then the wood can be
cleaned, glued and clamped. Then the back replaced and new binding added.
Extra perfling could be added if the back has shrunk noticeably.
Dave
"Nick Odell" <gurzhfvp...@ntlworld.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:u887p69hucke3rokn...@4ax.com...
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> project - when retirement comes. After all, I reasoned, I've read
> about a desire to learn to make instruments in two different
> newsgroups in as many months.
>
> Until it dawned on me that you are both those people!
>
> Well, they do say that there are only 200 people on USENET: the others
> are just the pseudonyms and alternative personas of those 200.
>
> Nick
Thanks for the links Nick, they led to long conversations with the (very
helpful) tutors at the West Dean 9-day course that runs later this
month, and to me booking one of the last two places. The journey begins!
Yes, last month it was you that told me about this group - but there
must be many others like me.
Dave
Ecnerwal
"David Hajicek" <haj...@skypoint.com> wrote:
> Nick:
>
> Since you make violins and Mandos are built pretty similarly, how would you
> deal with this?
>
> I'm thinking that removing the back (not the top) makes a more sense since
> that is where the problem is. Not knowing the details, it is hard to know
> what to do. It is possible that repairs could be affected with out removing
> anything. But removing the back would be more direct. Then the wood can be
> cleaned, glued and clamped. Then the back replaced and new binding added.
> Extra perfling could be added if the back has shrunk noticeably.
>
> Dave
If the bowlback is like the bowlback I've seen, removing the top and
removing the back are basically the same - there are no "sides" - the
bowl back connects directly to the top. A regular mando is much like a
violin (has sides), but a bowlback is (per the one example I'm familiar
with up close and personal) rather different....
--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by
nicktravel2002
> > courses about half way down. I'm sure other sites are out there to
> > offer further links.
>
> > <swerve>Amongst those links I quite like the idea of Luthiers sans
> > Frontiers - A few years ago, completely unaware of LsF, I ran a short
> > violin repair course in the middle of Paraguay and it was great fun to
> > do</swerve>
>
> > Which brings me to: I should really learn to keep up at the back, part
> > two..
>
> > ...I've spent part of the day musing to myself along the theme of
> > maybe running some instrument making& repair courses as a retirement
> > project - when retirement comes. After all, I reasoned, I've read
> > about a desire to learn to make instruments in two different
> > newsgroups in as many months.
>
> > Until it dawned on me that you are both those people!
>
> > Well, they do say that there are only 200 people on USENET: the others
> > are just the pseudonyms and alternative personas of those 200.
>
> > Nick
>
> Thanks for the links Nick, they led to long conversations with the (very
> helpful) tutors at the West Dean 9-day course that runs later this
> month, and to me booking one of the last two places. The journey begins!
>
Brilliant news! I hope you will report back after the course
> Yes, last month it was you that told me about this group - but there
> must be many others like me.
Nick (same Nick - just another guise from one of the 200)
nicktravel2002
<MyNameForw...@ReplaceWithMyVices.Com.invalid> wrote:
> In article <fJWdnQ9fdJJ2kAjQnZ2dnUVZ_j6dn...@skypoint.com>,
I think that this is a tale of two Dave's, Ecnerwal.
Bowl-back Dave is English Dave. but IIRC you are a builder of lutes (I
only ever built one, a very long time ago and though I am a pretty
patient man, I don't think I have the patience to build another one)
so maybe you could comment on the advisability of removing the top in
his case?
Flatback/arch back Dave is American Dave (I think). Normally the back/
sides of a violin are hide glued with a thick, heavy consistency to
make a firm joint that will give stability to the build and hold the
shape when the top is popped on and off. Conversely the top is
generally fixed with a lighter glue to make separation easier so
taking the back off should really be a last resort. David - can you
remind me what's wrong with your, instrument? My memory's not what it
used to be, and I really ought to have subtitled this 'keeping up at
the back, part three.
Nick
David Hajicek
"nicktravel2002" <nick...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:049cffa5-4b49-4b3c...@p16g2000vbi.googlegroups.com...
Nick
========
Nick:
Right you are. American Dave was confused regarding the style of Mando.
Duh!
Dave H
Ecnerwal
"David Hajicek" <haj...@skypoint.com> wrote:
> I think that this is a tale of two Dave's, Ecnerwal.
Could easily be. I wasn't really tracking if we had two broken mando
threads going at once (given the usual dearth of any discussion of late)
and assumed they were the same.
> Bowl-back Dave is English Dave. but IIRC you are a builder of lutes (I
> only ever built one, a very long time ago and though I am a pretty
> patient man, I don't think I have the patience to build another one)
> so maybe you could comment on the advisability of removing the top in
> his case?
No, I'm mostly a fly on the wall with general woodwork experience and
some dabbling in instruments. Thus far a kit harp and aiding a student
with a kit guitar, plus a few other minor things. I usually try to keep
foot firmly inserted in mouth and pick things up as they go by.
When I find time I need to grit my teeth and see if I can do the "5
minute neck reset" (not discussed recently, but discussed quite a bit a
while back, and I don't rush into things) on a typical example of a
Korean mass-production guitar which someone put heavy strings on and
folded the neck on - that was abandoned, making it a suitable victim for
me to experiment on. If I succeed, I'll have to find some guitar player
to hand it on to... When the mandolins have needed work, they went to a
real luthier. The bowl-back is a real weirdo.
I have thoughts of dabbling into violins (making, not so much fixing,
unless I get serious enough to not be dabbling - don't want to screw
anybody's instrument up but my own), given some of the directions of my
woodwork, but it remains to be seen how serious that is. I'm certainly
going to dabble in violin bridges, as I have someone to try those out
and they provide a small-scale, easily swapped, yet fiddly enough entry
into aspects of working on the things. If my niece ever gets back into
the same state with the bass she didn't drag off to grad school I might
try my hand at a bass bridge, too (and actually I have plans for a more
portable bass around here somewhere I should dig out again - but there's
always the "copious spare time" problem, as in, that's a laugh!)