Official Luthiers Forum!

OK, this question goes out to all of you who have dealt with some challenging repairs somewhat successfully.
A friend from my church brought me an old Bowl Backed 8 string Mandolin to see if I would repair it for him.
I have no doubt that I can but would like to inquire of you repair guys out there to receive input as to how you would do it.
My friend is not a player nor does he think he will be but this mando has sentimental value since it belonged to his grandpa.
He said it's been in his family for at least 80 years maybe longer. He would be satisfied with just a glue-up but I would
like to do better than that for him just to bless him. I'd like to repair, and maybe refinish it in addition to polishing up
all the hardware. Some, maybe most, would say turn it into kindling but since it's an heirloom, I'd like to do it right and well
primarily to add another challenging successful repair to my portfolio. I took a few pics and posted them below. With the
input I receive, in addition to any ideas I come up with, I will document this repair then post it here once it's complete.
May take a few weeks or a couple of months to complete it amidst other projects. BTW this is a no charge repair just to
bless him and increase my skills as a repair luthier. I can't read the name (or maybe it's a number) stamped into the wood
of the neck block (heel?) The inside (I assume since it's a vintage bowlback) looks to be bound with some kind of paper
(Maybe resin paper?). The tuning machines appear to be made of brass or bronze, they're pretty tarnished. The buttons
look like ebony and the pick guard looks like maybe it's micah? There's no plastic and I believe it was made pre-plastic era.
Not sure what the bindings are but they're pretty hard. I look forward to your input. I'm not a mando guy so I have no idea of
it's maker. If someone recognizes the style of a potential maker please chime in.

_________________
Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

There are a number of bowlback repairs documented on the Mandolin Cafe site Bill. Or you could try David Hynds at http://www.mandolinluthier.com/Hbackbowl.htm

Looks like fun, keep us posted,

Hi Bill

Although not an experienced repairer - a long way from it - I recently (am am still tackling ) a very similar item - something I found in a second hand shop for about $10 back in the early 90s that needed some loving care and attention - the difference was it needed a new top which was split due to pressure from the finger board (plus excessive worm hole! as well as the back splits as shown in your example. I was mentored on this by a very experienced professional builder so had plenty of advice - I removed the frets and planed away the old rosedwood board and then removed the top, carefully removing the rosette which would reused in the new top. The neck joint was solid but at an unplayable angle so we would compensate for this when shaping the fretboard.

The side splits were then glued back with titebond - using some 1.5 mm spruce reinforcemnets strips along the cracks on the inside - which were clamped in place over the original paper support - made possible by having the top rermoved - smaller craps along the seems were rebonded with CA. I wanted to get this playable again as the back was some lovely Brazilian.

Once this was all dry and solid, a new top was shaped and the old original braces reused, as was the rosette. New binding was added and a new rio fingerboard shaped and fitted - as mentioned, this had to be compensated slightly to ensure a playable neck angle and thus a reasonable action.

Thats as far as I have got at this time.

Good luck!

Bill i wish i had some tips to share. I have 5 or 6 of these that need repairs but i haven't gotten around to them yet. Maybe if someone else chimes in i learn something. I also have one of these in twelve string version. 3 strings per teir. Mine is similar to the pic below...Mike

Thanks for the link sebastiaan56 that may well come in handy. I'll do a google for the Mandolin Cafe' site as well.

Frank that's pretty cool that you had a pro to mentor you through the repair on your mando. I'm going to have to get
creative as to how to brace this one through the soundhole. I think I'll try the patch technique Terence Kennedy posted
a couple of weeks ago. He used a .012 E string through the crack in a soundboard and some old (looks like Les Paul type) tuners
mounted on a mini jig, to pull the patch snug and clamping the top closed. In my case it would be the back. Guess I'll also
look on my FRETS.com CD and see if there's anything like this that Frank Ford has dealt with.

Mike, that is one sweet looking mando. I've never seen one with 12 strings before. How old is it do you know? I don't think
I could ever attempt to learn to play something that has a neck no bigger around than my thumb

_________________
Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

Nice pic Mike. I've got one of those old 12 string Oscar Schmidt's as well but in a lot worse shape. It's been hanging in my shop for a few years. I keep meaning to fix it up one of these days.

Bill I'm not sure of my twelve strings age. But 2 of the ones i did research be it on google and they are over a hundred years old. At the minimal yours probably dates to before WW1 or before. The popularity of these died out around then because of the gibson style mandos and Jazz. I'm no mando master but i can play some and when i first started playing I had the same thought that it would be impossible to play such a thin neck with very close frets but over time with some practice i was able. Even with my short fat fingers.

If I could just find some info on the maker of the one I have here that would be nice. So far no success.
I'd almost be afraid to play something that old. An even scarier prospect is that my future sister in law
want's me to repair/refinish a Stratovarius (sp?) that belonged to her Grandfather. I tried to refer her to
a violin specialist because if it's a true Strat, I don't want to touch it.

_________________
Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

Bill wait till you do a little research on Stradivari violins. There were maybe thousand if not millions of copies of these made in various countries. I have a german copy that from the twentieth century. The famous one was made by Antonio Stradivari in the 1600's and early seventeen hundreds. Then members of his family also luthiers continued to make violin family instruments. Antonio also made guitars and bowlback mandos. Stradivaris were as well copied as stratocasters.
http://www.holeintheweb.com/drp/bhd/StradivariusViolins.htm

Hi I know I was /am lucky! David Whiteman is a professional classical builder of some repute in the UK and his instruments are sold globally - a great guy as well and has repaired many Torres , Lacote beauties over the years, loves all those 1800s parlour thingies but hates bowl backs because they are so difficult to clamp when repairing! - In the two years I have been a pest in his workshop, i have 'touched' 3 different original documented Torres guitars

The question I would ask is do the back pieces fit back in place correctly without too much pressure? On mine the splits were so old and had also been previously reparied that getting one side to close meant the other did not fit properly, with the rio strips having distorted - As such we had to reopen some of the joins to reglue teh whole thing and it would have been impossible to get any pressure on the repaired joins with the top still in place. We used strips of spruce so the internal repairs were obvious - sounds odd, but I did not want to hide this repair. We say an 'honest job' in the UK. If you need to apply loads of pressure to get the joint to stay in place it becomes very tricky as for us it simply did not work using tape on the initial attempt.

I will ask him on Tuesday next week if he has any thoughts on how to do what you need.

Howdy Frank,

Yes the problem I'm contending with is like the one you described where it's been broke for so many years, that one side or
the other will fit together but not both at the same time. I had considered heat but my concern is that this was likely built
using Hide Glue since it is in the neighborhood of 100 years old. I'm concerned that if I heat it, it will come apart completely.
That's why I was hoping some repair pros would contribute some ideas as to how they have dealt or would deal with this type
situation. I guess there are not as many repair pros participating here as I had imagined.

If your friend has input he'd like to offer I'd love to hear it. I really would like to do a good job of this restoration. One of the sites
sebastiaan56 provided has some great pictorials and limited info on how they dealt with a repair but this one is different enough
that I don't think that will work all together unfortunately.

_________________
Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

A repairer friend recently fixed one using repair magnets to level the joints and clamped it if it's not too bad tape would do it

_________________
Formerly JJH

I learn more from my mistakes than my successes