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Old 01-19-2016, 11:45 AM
Cone Head Cone Head is offline
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Default National Reso-Phonic Factory Tour

Visited the National factory in San Luis Obispo, CA yesterday.
The place is tiny, especially compared to Fender's Corona plant which I visited last week.
I was given an extensive tour, met most of the employees and the prez, and got to see the manufacturing process from start to finish (with the exception of cone spinning, they weren't making any cones that day). Guitars, mandolins, tenors, even a mandola...and Scheerhorn dobros.
I took a pile of photos there, here are some of the highlights:





























Here's something that they're phasing out: Aside from the El Trovador model, wood-bodied NRP guitars used to have a steel cone "shelf" - they will be making them all out of wood from now on. This is an older metal one:



(part 2 below)

Last edited by Cone Head; 01-20-2016 at 08:23 AM.
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Old 01-19-2016, 11:46 AM
Cone Head Cone Head is offline
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part 2:

Here's a wooden tricone cone "tray" for a wood-bodied Tricone:



A bunch of Scheerhorn spiders:



























I brought along my '36 Style O and had the chance to compare it to a brand new O-14 "Replicon" model. You'd have a hard time distinguishing one from the other in a blind test. It was truly an outstanding guitar. If I ever lost my '36 I could easily live with the O-14 Replicon as a replacement!





Had a great time where the stuff I love is made!
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Old 01-19-2016, 11:52 AM
Silly Moustache Silly Moustache is offline
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Fascinating! Nice to see an Estralita in there (recently traded my Style O Deluxe for one), and please tell me more about the dark sculpted wood (hog) detail under the top of the mando ??
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Old 01-19-2016, 03:39 PM
Cone Head Cone Head is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Silly Moustache View Post
please tell me more about the dark sculpted wood (hog) detail under the top of the mando ??
That's CNC-carved out of a solid piece of wood (walnut, if I am not mistaken). It's an entirely new design and bears no resemblance to the old bedpan-shaped mandolins the original 'National String Instruments' company made in the late 1920s and 30s. I've tried them and they are an entirely different animal than my 1930 Triolian mandolin. Not at all a "niche" instrument, they're actually very versatile and pleasant sounding mandolins.
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Old 01-19-2016, 04:30 PM
tdq tdq is offline
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Thanks for the pics! I lived in LA for 5 years and had many roadtrips up to SF but could never swing the time (or the family) to get in to the factory along the way. I have a NRP Black Rust and would love to have had the chance to see it's birthplace. I've moved overseas since then so that's it. Pics help!
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Old 01-19-2016, 04:39 PM
emuhunter emuhunter is offline
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Very cool!! I used to live in that area and still consider it home/make it back several times a year.
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Old 01-20-2016, 04:24 AM
Eldergreene Eldergreene is online now
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Conehead - did they give any reason for the switch from metal to wood wells on the wood-bodies? - Tone maybe?
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Old 01-20-2016, 08:22 AM
Cone Head Cone Head is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Eldergreene View Post
Conehead - did they give any reason for the switch from metal to wood wells on the wood-bodies? - Tone maybe?
Yes, that's exactly it.
Personally I never understood why they put steel cone wells in wood bodied guitars before. If this gets them closer to the sound of my wood bodied 1929 Triolian, it will be a VERY good thing.
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Old 02-07-2016, 09:36 PM
Wade Hampton Wade Hampton is offline
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Cone Head wrote:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cone Head View Post
Visited the National factory in San Luis Obispo, CA yesterday.
The place is tiny, especially compared to Fender's Corona plant which I visited last week.
Well, believe it or not, when I visited there this November I was struck by how much bigger it had gotten since 2003, when I first visited the company while working with Don Young and MacGregor Gaines on the RM-1 mandolin project. They've taken over at least two more spaces in that light industrial/business park building they're in, there are a LOT more machines being used, and it seemed to me that there were half again as many employees at work as there had been.

Those are just my impressions, mind you, not hard and fast data, but they definitely have a lot more advanced machinery in use than they did twelve years ago.

Then after Silly Moustache asked:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Silly Moustache
please tell me more about the dark sculpted wood (hog) detail under the top of the mando ??
Cone Head replied:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cone Head View Post
That's CNC-carved out of a solid piece of wood (walnut, if I am not mistaken). It's an entirely new design and bears no resemblance to the old bedpan-shaped mandolins the original 'National String Instruments' company made in the late 1920s and 30s.
Right. The first version of the RM-1 mandolin had the integral back and sides CNC carved out of three wedge shaped pieces of walnut glued together. (The one I received as compensation for my contributions to the project has a middle wedge of maple.) However, the three piece construction had some problems with the glue joint delaminating along the sides of the middle wedge, and so they switched to a two piece version, which has solved the problem.

Or so they told me. They asked me if mine was holding up okay, and I said, yeah, no problems whatsoever. So the older three piece back/sides version doesn't automatically go bad, but there were enough examples of that same problem cropping up that they decided to change the design.

So what you see in this photo is two pieces of walnut glued together and carved out to reduce weight while retaining strength:



The carved pattern underneath the cone and coverplate on my mandolin is different than what you see in the photo, but I don't feel like taking the instrument apart just to take a picture so I can show it to you. That's a LOT of work, especially putting it back together and getting intonated properly again! But that part of the design was changed at the same time that they switched from three to two piece back/side construction

Cone Head concluded:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cone Head View Post
I've tried them and they are an entirely different animal than my 1930 Triolian mandolin. Not at all a "niche" instrument, they're actually very versatile and pleasant sounding mandolins.
Oh, yeah, these modern wooden RM-1 mandolins sound gorgeous, like a really nice A model oval hole archtop mandolin played through a good PA with just a touch of reverb. I also own the rare bird pre-war wooden National mandolin that inspired the RM-1 project, and playing these wooden resonator mandolins has really changed my mandolin-playing. I can phrase my melodic lines in a really vocal way now, and not have to rely on tremolo to sustain a note, though I can still use all my traditional mandolin techniques, as well.

They're great instruments. And for what it's worth, when they introduced the RM-1 mandolin at the NAMM show, it was at that time the most successful new product launch they'd ever had. I think the El Trovador model guitar might have since surpassed it in that regard, but the National mandolins are just great, in my admittedly biased opinion.


Wade Hampton Miller
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Old 02-07-2016, 09:51 PM
Wade Hampton Wade Hampton is offline
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Here are some photos of some of the different versions of the modern National mandolin. Here's an original three piece back/sides walnut RM-1:




˚˚˚
The only difference between that one and the production prototype I have is that mine has a middle wedge made of maple.

Here's a more recent two piece back version:


And here's the Vintage Maple model mandolin:





˚˚˚

I have played one of these maple ones, and it's a good sound, just a little bit different than the walnut ones. It wasn't so radically different that I felt any compelling need to run out and buy one, but I sure liked it, nonetheless.


whm
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Old 02-10-2016, 12:22 AM
pops pops is offline
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Nice pics, I was there several years ago when Mac was still there. I was going to build amps for them. Mac gave me and my daughter a great tour of the factory. A sad story that I won't go into, but miss you Mac and glad Don is continuing on in great style.
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