Cool Rob, I’m looking forward to hearing how the project progresses!
And, speaking of projects, I suppose I should bring this thread full circle - back to the Hondo Mandolin. To start, here’s a photo:
Sorry about the sideways photo, I’m waiting for my hosting site to recognize the rotation change I made, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Anyway, I just got the mando a few days ago. As you can see, it looks pretty nice. Unfortunately the woods appear to be all laminate, which doesn’t shock me, but I was hoping for at least a solid top.
Right out of the case, the thing sounded deader than a door nail, and with about as much tone, even after a change of stings. Ever worse, the action is sky high, I mean, REALLY, WAY, WAAAAAAAAY High. I think perhaps Dwight Stones owned it previously and was using it for high jump practice. It’s really quite unplayable, however, the neck angle doesn’t look really bad, and clearly the nut is far too high, and bridge as well.
Still, considering the tone, I didn’t feel it was worth the effort to give it a proper set-up, so I immediately put it up for sale on craigslist, hoping to at least get my money back out of it. I was honest with my description in the ad, but after less than 24 hours, I decided I wasn’t comfortable selling it to someone the way it was, and I figured I’d at least lower the action.
With this in mind, I took the mando out of the case, to better assess what would be needed, and I tuned up the 4 new strings that I had bothered to put on. Oddly, the instrument sounded better. I realized that this was likely due to getting a tiny bit rehumidified, because I’d put a damp-it in the sound hole overnight. Hmm, interesting. Back in the case for another night, this time with a damp-it inside and an additional humidfier in the case as well.
This morning, better still, however, still with an odd deadness. Looking closer at the stamped cheapie tailpiece, I realized that the tailpiece was actually bent down so much it was applying pressure to the mando’s top! Once I bent the tailpiece a little bit away from the top, the tone and sustain improved a bit more (go figure) and the “odd” deadness in the tone dissapeared.
So, at this point, while the sound isn’t great, it’s no longer terrible, and I’m now thinking that the Hondo may be a keeper (as a beater) after all - assuming I can get the action to a reasonable level. Unfortunately the nut is a really cheesy peice of light weight plastic, and the bridge is rosewood, but I can’t afford to replace them, so I’ll have a go at sanding them down and see what happens.
Loren
cost me a fraction of what making my own “beater” would have cost, so I couldn’t pass it up, since the warm weather is on the way, and I don’t want to risk my Breedlove out in the wilds.