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A couple of years ago the local vintage store I used to work at got in a 40s epiphone flat top (which I borrowed and made patterns from for my new acoustic model). Even though it was ladder braced it had a wonderful sound. I took it over to a friend's place and compared it to his martin hd-35. In projection and overall tonality it KILLED the Martin.
The guitar sat around the shop for well over a year and eventually I went back and revisited it. I could see that the physical condition of the guitar has deteriorated. When I picked it up and strummed it I was bummed out. No projection, dry weak tonality. I know the change was due to the deteriorated condition of that guitar and it was terribly sad.

Nelson Instruments wrote:OH and one more thing. You mentioned ebony. I wonder if people know how much ebony gets dyed black??
Gretsch used to "ebonize" rosewood fingerboards.
That is a practice taken from student violins where cheaper woods are dyed black to look like ebony.


Some of the most gorgeous ebony I have seen is "black and white" ebony! That stuff is amazing!

Personally I avoid working with ebony if I can. People need to be educated to not let it dry out or it cracks, and it can be really messy to work with.

My vintage Ibanez AR100 from Japan was sold to me as an Ebony guitar, but I knew it was Rosewood painted black, so I told the seller and he was like, "emmm... OK..." 'cause he had no way to prove me wrong. I still bought it, of course, and it's a great guitar. On other hand, I had an Edwards Les Paul that I didn't like and recently sold. It had an Ebony fretboard and had many issues.

Yeah there can be so many variables! Poor workmanship and/or wood that isn't properly dried are two big ones.
Take fantastic materials and let someone do terrible work and you have issues.
Take a good builder using unstable materials and you can still get tons of trouble!

Combine the two and you're in for a world of hurt! ;-)

A low end music store I worked at for a while became a heritage dealer. They got some nice guitars in! I told them it was a bad idea to hang them near a heat vent and an even worse idea not to humidify them.
They had a beautiful 555 (i think that's their model number) wich curly maple veneer where now the finish looked like ripple chips.
Also the bound ebony fingerboard got so dried out that it cracked in multiple places AND the areas between the frets on the sides (where the binding is) shrunk so bad that the fret ends cracked the binding AND there were deep scallops between the frets.

What a shame that they ruined that guitar. That's why they can't have nice things!

Keeping with the subjectnof the thread I will post the latest update.
Half of my bridge frames have arrived! Finally I can get the ball rolling on getting saddles made!

Also the blue 12-string conversion is just about done! Just my luck that as I am finishing turning this into a mando sort of instrument Lark street music says they want the Shaded AMBER guitar to be an electric mandocello.
So I will finish this blue one off as an octave mandolin and will probably try to sell it myself.

Do you dig the tuning machine layout? The name plate covers two tuner holes so only the lowest two touched up pilot holes are visible.
Also this areangement neatly spaces apart the string sets. It works for me anyway!

Oh and the chicken foot! Haha I forgot about that. I am making chicken stock this weekend and this foot struck me as funny!
A badass chicken who led a rock 'n roll lifestyle.
I'm sure it welcomed death since it was so badass!

wtf?!

Well here it is! All ready to find a home! A one of a kind Nelson electric octave-mandolin. I've been playing it all afternoon and it is a lot of fun to play. A huge pain in the ass to re-string, but lots of fun to play!

Pretty amazing, Bobby, I want that.

I like how you had enough room on the headstock to group the tuners into courses.

I like that too! Really it evolved out of necessity. I had to place a tuner in the bass side hole at the farthest end since that was the only hole that was drilled all the way through (to hang the guitar on while finishing).
If I left all 4 together then they all were sitting at one end and it looked weird.

This way the logo covers two holes and so only two of the un-filled tuner holes are visible.

I'm not sure Buzzy (Lark street) is a fan of that layout and he might have me do something different for the mandocello I am putting together for him. We'll see!!!

It may've evolved out of necessity, but it should make tuning easier. It totally makes sense. With coursed instruments, I'm always turning the wrong tuner.

I'm interested in seeing how the Lark Street mandocello turns out too.

Me too! The low G strings on this mando sound REALLY rich and deep. I can only imagine how the cello will sound!

I totally want to hear and play those. Never seen either in person

It's times like these when I wish I had proper video/audio equipment!

Bobby, that thing looks awesome! I'd love to hear some audio of it too, even if it is just a low quality phone recording or something.

Here's an update for ya: Buzzy at Lark Street decided to grab this blue one. I have seen that they put videos up on youtube SO for all that want to hear it you should email Larkstreet music and tell them you heard that the Nelson octave mandolin is going there and would it be possible to hear a demo.
It could happen!!