My main squeeze right now, A5 made in 2002 by Pavel Janish:
My most recent acquisition, by Joe Foley, 1995
Custom Weber Hyalite, 2003
Rob, you read my mind! Seriously, last night I started thinking we ought to have a thread like this, but I’ve been too busy with other stuff to take photos of my mando and post it. Glad to see you’ve got the ball rolling. I’m expecting a new (used) tailpiece in the mail today, so once that’s been replaced, and the mando strung back up, I’ll try to take photos and post.
Sweet looking mando’s btw. I saw a custom Hyalite blackface on-line recently, very nice… What are your impressions of the Janish?
Loren
I almost sold the Janish when i got restless and sold (or traded) off a bunch of mandolins recently. I’m glad i didn’t, though, it has really developed great tone over the years. It actually suffered a top crack due to its dumbass owner (moi 
) but after getting fixed up the tone hasn’t suffered at all. It’s got great balance, and decent volume (that’s also improving with age), playability is great. The tone is bluegrassy but still versatile – mostly i play newgrass-type stuff and fiddle tunes so the Janish works really well for that kind of thing.
The Foley is a work of art and sounds heavenly – everything you could ask for in a flat top, really – but the neck is a little chunky for me so it doesn’t get played so much. Still i’m hanging onto it for now.
The Hyalite is similar to a Bridger with the integral fingerboard, but there’s no binding and the back is mahogany so it has a nice plunky old-time sound. I got it from Musician’s Friend (of all places) on closeout for about half off the list price.
I’m scroll-less now, so the temptation to get an F5 is there, but as far as sound goes i’ve pretty much got my bases covered with these three, so i don’t really need another mandolin. I’m thinking about getting an electric so i can play with some of my friends who like to plug in, but other than that i’m set for now.
Here´s mine
Made by a swedish furniture maker. Thomas Dorup
One of a kind…
The best mandolin I ever played…
very cool. love the tailpiece. what’s the back made from?
Hmm Rob, sounds like that Foley has my name written all over it… 
Par, that’s a cool instrument, nice to have a one of a kind. Looks to me like the tail piece was a custom one of a kind job as well, do you know for sure? I assume it was made by a silversmith and not the furniture maker?
Loren
Hah, there we go again! I was writing while you were posting.
Here’s a picture of my 2001 Breedlove Quartz OO :
Sycamore in the back, side and part of the neck.
The fingerboard: jacaranda
very nice, looks like you did well for yourself. the arm rest is a nice touch. the strap is cool too, as you can see i went for the cheap bootlace-with-hangman’s-noose on a couple of instruments… 
You´re right Loren. I bought the tail piece from a local luthier because the original couldn´t take guitar stings.
(Sorry about the bad english)
Yeah man, I love the way you just wrap it right around the center of the headstock, no pretense there, just backwoods down and dirty 
I’m digging the Breedlove, especially with the Tone-gard, Allen TP, and the Armrest upgrades, I was surprised how much difference they all made (conbined) to the sustain, resonance and tone. I got the TP 1/2 price but unused. The Tone-Gard I picked up used for $45., and the armrest, believe it or not, was a freebie! The Breedlove sounds great now, and plays like butter.
Oh yeah, the strap was made by Loren Bailey over on the Cafe, his prices are quite reasonable, and he’s very nice fellow, as the name implies,
Loren
rh
I can´t see your instruments
No worries Par! It is a cool tailpiece, nice that you were able to find it.
Rob,
I can’t see your photos anymore either, although they were working fine earlier.
Loren
Here´s a link to the luthier. Really nice instruments. You can have a look at the instruments but the info are in swedish. I can help with translation.
Go to
http://www.luthiers.nu/?show=108
Go to “Bildarkiv” and have a look at some nice instrument…
my server seems to be down, hopefully it’ll be back up soon.
Yeah man, I love the way you just wrap it right around the center of the headstock, no pretense there, just backwoods down and dirty
Weber sent a strap button when they returned it from some warranty work, i just don’t have the heart to take a drill to it…
I’m with you on the drilling, that bothers me as well. Fortunately I’ve got the elevated fretboard to loop under. Actually, what I’d prefer is a flush mounted truss rod cover, so I could tie in behind the nut, but who knows, maybe I’ll start going redneck style, like you 
Now, where’s my mason jar, I need my White Lightnin’…
Loren (Boston Hillibilly) B.
the A5 has an elevated fretboard so i tie the bootlace off there. the Hyalite doesn’t (which is actually what i wanted, like i say, it’s kind of a poor man’s Bridger), but one night i saw Mike Compton on Austin City Limits and he had an old Gibson A tied off at the headstock, so i figured if it’s good enough for Mike…
maybe i’ll go shopping for overalls tomorrow…
Bib overalls or suspenders are not the best for playing a guitar or mandolin, mainly because the metal buckles will scratch the back unless you are very careful.
I also have a question about mandolin bridges. I notice that many mandolins have adjustable bridges with threaded metal rods supporting the top of the bridge. This goes against everything that I understand about the acoustics of instrument bridges in general. There are no height adjustable bridges for the violin family. Also, most guitars have a simple bone bridges that are not height adjustable unless you sand the bottom of the bridge. Do the best sounding mandolins have adjustable bridges?
Another questions has to do with the offsetting of the top of the bridge from string to string, as shown in some of the photos here. What is the advantage of doing that? Classical guitars are fretted, and they are made with a straight bridge, as is one of the mandolins in the photo.
it was a reference to Mike Compton, who always wears overalls: http://www.mikecompton.net/
not sure how he keeps from scratching up the backs of his instruments, though.
Some higher-end mandolins use one-piece bridges but usually two-piece adjustable is standard issue. Instrument tops shrink or swell with changes in weather, so it is sometimes necessary to adjust the bridge to keep the action at a playable height. Instruments with one-piece bridges may have a few slightly different-sized bridges all cut for the same instrument but used in different climate conditions. I’m not sure how widespread the practice is among violinists (though a violin i inherited from my great-uncle, a serious amateur classical violinist, had three or four different bridges in one of the case pockets, which i’m assuming was for that purpose). In any case, from my violin-playing days i can say that fiddle strings have considerably less tension than mandolin strings, and slight changes in action height are not so crucial in terms of playability.
Flat-top guitar bridges can be shimmed to adjust the action, but IIRC arch-top guitars usually come with adjustable bridges as well.
An adjustable bridge is also nice if one is experimenting with string gauges, as different gauges play better at different bridge heights.
From http://www.btinternet.com/~john.baldry/mando/tuning.html
On a short scale instrument like the mandolin a compensated bridge is a necessity. This is because the standard fretting creates different results on each string, the differences being magnified by the short scale length. I’m not an engineer or a physicist, but what it amounts to is this. Stopping the string half way along its length raises the pitch an octave - in theory. The halfway point is the 12th fret, and the bridge is positioned so that the note at the 12th fret is an octave above the note of the open string. Jim Coon has written a useful page about finding this half way point, using harmonics. If you used a straight bridge positioned so that the note on the 1st (E) string stopped at the 12th fret was the exact octave above the open string, the other strings would fret sharp to varying degrees. On longer scale instruments like the guitar and banjo it can be enough to angle the bridge backwards on the bass side, but the mandolin requires individual compensation for each string.