A more relaxing time….

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned how nerve wracking gluing the bridge onto a guitar is; for all practical purposes, it’s an irreversible process and there is absolutely no room for error. Then, once the bridge has been glued on, you have the whole setting-up process, which is carried out on a freshly finished shiny instrument, that has to go out of the door as near to perfect as it can be.

By contrast mandolins are positively relaxing. As the bridge is removable it can be re-positioned easily and you can set the instrument up and get it playing before any finish is applied. Below you can see Youhei’s going through that process.

First, roughly with just four strings.

 And then, finely with all eight strings.

 And here we are; all set-up and playing. It can now be stripped down, French polished and reassembled in a few weeks once the polish is hard enough.

PS. the blue tape stops the bare wood absorbing any oil from the tuners.