Monthly Archives: May 2015

So awhile ago I came up with this little cut-a-way guitar-style mandolin design, and made a carved-top model, but what I wanted to do with this one was to use a conventional flat-top. The f-hole version I built first sounded amazing right after being strung up, but in time the top sagged and the toneContinue reading “Mandolin Prototype #2”

This guitar plays like a dream, soaked in creamery-fresh butter, by a 85-year-old Chicago Blues man in a light-grey wool suit and a pork-pie hat and Ray-bans. It’s my favorite guitar. Back in the Depression, anybody trying to make a living in the music business needed to be bold. Mr. Slingerland, who had a sheetContinue reading “1930 (plus or minus) Slingerland Guitar”

Some time ago I came by a no-name-brand banjo mandolin with a variety of problems: missing hardware, busted head, etc. It sat in my “to-do” pile for about five years until it occurred to me that I really needed a 5-string banjo, and one way to get one would be to make a new neckContinue reading “5-String Banjo from Banjo-Mando”