spoox
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- Dec 3, 2014
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So I just finally got this last Wednesday. It was made by David Flood, apprentice to John Dopyera--the inventor of course of both National and Dobro instruments.
Eight--nine years ago? I found this mandolin body on eBay and I had a National uke neck and tenor guitar tailpiece and thought it might be nice to have a very large body
Dobro uke with steel strings. I called David as before he said he still had some early '30s Dobro mando parts--he said he did, so I bought the body which in the early '80s
OMI had intended to be displayed at a NAMM show but was never assembled. Of course when I when out to see David--"What parts? I gave all that stuff away years ago!".
So I bought a cone and spider for a mandolin, and after some time found a coverplate--never could find the small soundhole screens it would have had. This was about a year into the project, and he decided that he didn't like the coverplate and in fact decided that he really didn't want to work on it after all unless it were to be something unique. I knew he liked Ancient Egyptian art, so I suggested perhaps that style as a motif. That really piqued his interest! So I drew the "Eye of Horus" coverplate design, and I told him the tailpiece could be redone to look like a "djed" column. the handstrap with a winged scarab, etc. Early on problems with the coverplate, the ukulele neck wouldn't work, the first spider bridge was wonky. At this point it was about 3 years in. Then he had been run over by a hit and run driver and left for dead and was in a coma for 3 weeks. That slowed down the process a bit, as he couldn't drive that much and I had to take him places for some of the outsourced work. Then 2 years ago when my wife went on hospice I couldn't get away and so we had to do everything by photo or mail as he doesn't have a computer. This I think is the third neck--I'd seen the second one two years ago and it looked fantastic, but he decided it needed a special headstock so I sent him a sketch of a papyrus column and this is what he made from it. His greatest surprise was
when he decided it needed copper binding on the fingerboard and body--getting the right copper and ivory binding and getting it to work took about a year in itself.
Right now I have tuned like a mandolin, but eventually I want to try a uke tuning. He made me a really ornate Dobro mandolin back in '73 but this kind blows it off the face of the earth:
Were I any kind of photographer, I would have a closeup of the back of the neck--it's flamed maple and matches the back extremely well...maybe when it stops raining sometime I'll try again...
Eight--nine years ago? I found this mandolin body on eBay and I had a National uke neck and tenor guitar tailpiece and thought it might be nice to have a very large body
Dobro uke with steel strings. I called David as before he said he still had some early '30s Dobro mando parts--he said he did, so I bought the body which in the early '80s
OMI had intended to be displayed at a NAMM show but was never assembled. Of course when I when out to see David--"What parts? I gave all that stuff away years ago!".
So I bought a cone and spider for a mandolin, and after some time found a coverplate--never could find the small soundhole screens it would have had. This was about a year into the project, and he decided that he didn't like the coverplate and in fact decided that he really didn't want to work on it after all unless it were to be something unique. I knew he liked Ancient Egyptian art, so I suggested perhaps that style as a motif. That really piqued his interest! So I drew the "Eye of Horus" coverplate design, and I told him the tailpiece could be redone to look like a "djed" column. the handstrap with a winged scarab, etc. Early on problems with the coverplate, the ukulele neck wouldn't work, the first spider bridge was wonky. At this point it was about 3 years in. Then he had been run over by a hit and run driver and left for dead and was in a coma for 3 weeks. That slowed down the process a bit, as he couldn't drive that much and I had to take him places for some of the outsourced work. Then 2 years ago when my wife went on hospice I couldn't get away and so we had to do everything by photo or mail as he doesn't have a computer. This I think is the third neck--I'd seen the second one two years ago and it looked fantastic, but he decided it needed a special headstock so I sent him a sketch of a papyrus column and this is what he made from it. His greatest surprise was
when he decided it needed copper binding on the fingerboard and body--getting the right copper and ivory binding and getting it to work took about a year in itself.
Right now I have tuned like a mandolin, but eventually I want to try a uke tuning. He made me a really ornate Dobro mandolin back in '73 but this kind blows it off the face of the earth:
Were I any kind of photographer, I would have a closeup of the back of the neck--it's flamed maple and matches the back extremely well...maybe when it stops raining sometime I'll try again...
