Recent Repairs

Just thought I'd make mention of a few recent repairs. Nothing spectacular, but we certainly have been busy around here.

Currently, I am working on a banjo neck for an Ibanez banjo for Denny. It is almost complete. I removed the peghead overlay from the old neck and reglued it to the new peghead. Then I had to shape the new peghead to match the old overlay. I also removed the last inlay on the Ibanez neck and re-inlayed it into the new neck so that the new neck will have all of the old Ibanez markers. I filled and re-drilled the holes in the new peghead so that they would line up with the old peghead overlay. The peghead has been stained, but I haven't completed the staining on the neck yet. The peghead is black, and the neck will sunburst to dark brown to match the rest of the banjo. I installed all the frets on the new neck, and then filed and sanded them. Yesterday, I worked on the heel profile. It is amost complete. Maybe today I'll get a chance to finish the profile so that I can stain the rest of the neck. Then I'll have to polyurethane the entire neck, install the nut, truss rod cover and tuners. That should complete the job other than restringing!

I also worked on a dulcimer this week for Amy. This was a rather light repair job. I had to reglue the end of the fingerboard, make a new bone saddle, tighten all the tuners, and restring the instrument. This was an instrument that has been in the family for some time. It's a nice, handmade instrument that will be great for playing.

Gary brought in a Flatiron mandolin yesterday for some work. This was a "campfire" style mandolin with a solid top. The strings were too high off the fingerboard towards the bridge end. I sighted down the neck and everything looked real good, so this was an easy fix. It had a bridge that was not adjustable, so I had to remove the strings and bridge, calculate the new bridge height, then lower the bridge to that height and fit it to the top of the mandolin again. Not hard to do, but it took about an hour in all to refit the bridge and put some new strings on it. This was a VERY GOOD sounding instrument! Pretty amazing for a smaller than normal size mandolin.

Today, I am hoping to start work on an Armstrong Emeritus flute. It is an open hole model with a B foot, solid silver mouthpiece. This flute is for Ashley. The flute needs new pads. I think the corks are good, but I will have to check them as I go. I will also be polishing the entire flute. Repadding is the perfect time to polish because all the keys have to come off the flute, and this makes it easy to get in between all the keys, springs, and posts.