I am about 97% done with the mandolin. The final 3% involves the last little tweaks to the action/setup, which I want to wait a few days on... now that it's been refretted and put under string tension. I just want to let everything acclimate, humidify, stabilize, then make whatever final adjustments that are needed. So far it has settled in very well.
I made a new bone nut for it. This is especially tricky on a mandolin; the strings are in pairs, tuned in unison. If one string slot is deeper than the other, the higher string will note sharper when fretted somewhere on the scale, than its coursed mate. This is critical stuff... these are hateful little things to keep tuned in the first place. To say nothing of how hard they are to play if you don't get the slots cut deep enough. It then becomes like playing an outta' tune egg-slicer. So I took my time, got the nut slots spaced, cut, and filed in. Got the original one-piece non-adjustable bridge refitted to the top, and left it a touch high, to account for any top sinkage that might occur. So far, that's been minimal.
After restringing, I fitted the old original pickguard with some new cork linings, and buckled it back in place. Check out the patent dates... July 4th, 1911 on the clasp, and Mar. 30th, '09 on the pickguard. Was the U.S. Patent Office open on Independence Day?
*evidently July 4th wasn't a paid Federal Holiday until 1938...
I'm conflicted on one last detail. A mid/late 19-teens A-model would have had a blank headstock when it left Kalamazoo. Often these would get a decal or sticker from a dealer or music store that sold them. If they made their way back to Gibson, they'd often be retrofit with a current logo, whatever was going. My 1919 has a white stencil Gibson script commonly seen on 1935-42 guitars. I have a set of "The Gibson" in MOP, (you can see it in one pic) and a more oft-seen in the 20's silver-stenciled applique of "The Gibson", much easier to do and less permanent. I could do either, or neither. I think it needs something up there.
On a personal note, and since we talk wood around here a lot... it's been really interesting to play and compare this little girl to my 1919 A-model in Sheraton brown. The major difference between them other than two years of age is the wood the sides and back are made of. Mine is maple, and this one is birch. Gibson didn't care, at least not enough to even put it in a spec sheet. They typically used maple for the upper-end models, because they got the nicer finish, but my little brown A-model has some quilt figure under that dark varnish. To my ear, the birch-bodied one still has plenty of treble-y sparkle, but a more woody bass. The maple one has a brighter, clearer everything, and projects more. They are night-n-day different, but still share that same thumpy commonality that oval-hole Gibsons all have.
It's been fun bringing this one back.
