The amount of time Bruce spent on the phone with me must have set his building schedule back. It had taken someone some time to forward my email to him., but as soon as he got it, he called. There just had to be a good mandolin wrapped up in that one.īut then (the poor dog and I were camping in West Virginia by then), the phone rang. If it wasn’t for that awful neck, it was beautiful. It had weathered and aged, the finish was checked. What if I actually got the job done and didn’t like it? There wouldn’t be any going back. Yeah, right… Bruce Weber, whose name has faced countless audiences on the pegherds of countless prized mandolins in the hands of great players, was going to file a neck down for some guy whose only audience is a dog who looks like she wants to be returned to the shelter every time the mandolin comes out. Montana Luthiers did not yet have a web site, so he wasn’t where I emailed him. Had this not been an actual conversation, that’s when I would have said, “Bruce Weber? The Bruce Weber?” Steve suggested asking Bruce Weber to do it. He warned me, though, that it might look a little funny because of the way the flat of the back of the peghead tapers into the V of the neck. Steve wrote back to say he took his old A5-L out to look it over, and sure, it could be done. It occurred to me to track Steve down and ask him if there was room to safely trim the wood. It seemed like it was going to cripple my hand with permanent nerve damage.
In mine, there are the Gibson factory labels, signed in 1990 by Steve Carlson.Ī few months ago, out camping with my dog in east Oklahoma, I tried playing the thing. You know how you look inside your mandolin from time to time? I’m not sure what it is anyone might expect to see there, but it’s part of being a mando player and if you’re reading this, you probably know exactly what’s in your f-holes like I do. I was never much good as a player, but I loved playing and didn’t like to go anywhere without my mandolin. It had been in all of the Lower 48, in Europe, all over south and southeast Asia, even on the back of a motorcycle for a 6000-mile motorcycle trek through India and up to nearly 19,000 feet to the Tibetan plateau.
The mandolin started spending a lot more time in the case. I took his word for it and kept playing until that sharp V started to hurt my hand. Every time I played that mandolin, for a quarter of century, I regretted that neck.Ī well-regarded luthier turned down my request to reshape the neck, saying that its integrity would suffer. The worst thing about it was its thick neck, a sharp V-profile under heavy, high-gloss lacquer, which created lots of friction. It took years, but eventually it developed a pleasing, though never exceptional tone. As a new mandolin, it was just holding something back, and I expected it to open up. The A-5 was okay, but that was it, and not because I was spoiled by the Loar. Included in the deal was a brand-new Gibson A-5L. One score and seven years ago, I sold a Lloyd Loar F-5. Customization, Mandolin Repair, Necks, Speed Necks