I played an Eastman mandocello today

[patchmcg]

Originally Posted by thefsb

I know. It's like, I can guess how the bridge was done but the pegboard?

On my Ovation, they replaced the original bridge and added a brand new mandocello neck. (Most folks are unaware that Ovation offered mandocellos as custom orders for years.)

Here's how it looked with its original 6-string neck.

[FrankCousins]

Originally Posted by thefsb

Good lord, that's a huge microphone. Must be intimidating to have that in your face.

It was when I stumbled across this wonderful piece I knew I needed one of these. Took me 5 years of saving pennies but almost there. Sarah's is by US maker Fletcher Brock, but being in Scotland, thought I would have one made here by renowned arch top maker Mike Vanden. The build thread is on The Custom Shop forum ;-)

[PineMarten]

I love the sound of instruments in the mandocello range, though I do wonder why Gibson style mandocellos are customarily strung with such heavy gauges. I often play a 10 string 650mm scale instrument that the builder and I refer to as a cittern, but on which I've settled on unison tuning, CGDAD like a mandocello with an additional higher course.
After some experimentation with gauges, I have 0.060“ phosphor bronze strings on the low C course, as lighter than that was too low tension, and going heavier was powerful in the low end but tends to be thumpy and not sound sweet higher up the neck. And many guitarists using open tunings with a low C are using no heavier than a 0.059", yet the available mandocello sets are 0.070“ or 0.074“ on what's essentially a Gibson guitar scale length. No wonder people find them hard to play!



The picture is from an earlier experiment with octave courses, though I've since kept it in unison.