Mandolin Repair

[Taffy Evans]

Hi. Eight mandolins, a Ukulele, a banjo Uke, and various necks and fittings were all donated. There’s a longish story about this stash of Mandos told to me by the builder’s son. His father built most of them, but that’s a story for another post, maybe.

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Now, where can I store them??????...... One was repaired for the customer, one was given to my son as a project, and the rest I hung on the office wall. Good conversation piece.

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One I repaired free of charge as payment for the others...
Nothing like a challenge… and often some repairs do just that…
What can I say about the earlier repair on this mandolin? It’s the sort of thing I get with instruments from the education system, where the janitor, gardener, or parent has had a go at repairing a school instrument.
Anyway, the photos should tell the story. As with all repairs I always try to work out why the part failed. Was it the owner’s fault? or a structural/design failure or a bit of both? In this case, I feel it was a bit of both.
I suspected the area behind the fingerboard nut may have been weakened by the neck rod nut access cavity being too deep, so making the neck/peghead weak. This is the reason that the repair looks a bit beefy on the back of the peghead.

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[Taffy Evans]

Oh, I forgot to mention that I was also given these two small shop-made planes a week later.

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Cheers Taff

[Mark McLean]

Nice job on the mandolin Taffy. At first glance I thought “no way he can glue that break line back together”, so that grafted in piece was a clever idea. And “beefy” but also artistic.

[kiwigeo]

LOL.........I got my hands on a couple of old planes a few years back.....now Ive got a shop full of the bloody things awaiting restoration.