Any fans of Stu Mossman guitar's out here in AGF land

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by Pistolero

I met Stuart Mossman once and recall him being a very humble, genuine person for the little time I was around him. Never owned one of his guitars but always wanted one.

Stu was an immensely lovable guy, with genuine charisma and leadership skills that would be the envy of the CEO of any Fortune 500 company. But I wouldn't call him "humble." That's not a word I've ever heard used to describe Stu by anyone who knew him well.

However, I can believe he knew how to project that image when dealing with the guitar-buying public.

Stu was a very talented, very complicated, very mercurial guy. He was brilliant, and his talent for self-promotion and promotion of his guitars was the direct inspiration and motivating factor that got the Winfield Festival founded. That festival in turn continues as a roaring success to this day, and has had a profound effect on the folk and bluegrass music culture of all the states of the southern Great Plains, and neighboring states, as well.

I won the United States Mountain Dulcimer Championship at Winfield back in 1980, and I have Stu Mossman to thank (indirectly) for that.

So I'm grateful to Stu for the effect he had on so many people.

But I wouldn't call him "humble." Catch him in an expansive mood, and "cocksure" would be the word that would have come to mind...

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

[jayhawk]

Originally Posted by Nort

I had the opportunity to buy a 000 size Mossman that Rick Ruskin had,
talked to him about it on the phone, and then passed on it.

Mossman made a 000 size? Is that true? Never heard of such an animal. I'd love to know more about it. I have a '75 Great Plains and love the guitar. If I could find a 000 size Mossman I'd snap it up in an instant.

Jack

[tj_mangum]

They are special guitars. Have played a lot of fine ones and am blessed to own some nice ones, but Mossmans are very unique. I've got a Flint Hills and a Great Plains and hope to someday collect the whole set, so to speak.

[tj_mangum]

Here is a link to a promo for a documentry on Stu Mossman. Appears the movie is finished and now available. This has been in the works for some time now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUXqg5POuq0
Cheers,
tj

[Nort]

[QUOTE]Mossman made a 000 size? Is that true? Never heard of such an animal. I'd love to know more about it. I have a '75 Great Plains and love the guitar. If I could find a 000 size Mossman I'd snap it up in an instant./QUOTE]

Hi Jack:

If my memory serves me right, when I talked to Rick Ruskin about the guitar he
had, he mentioned that Mossman only made a couple of them, his and I think
he indicated that one was made for David Carradine.

I've seen Rick post here on the AGF occasionally, perhaps he'll catch this
thread and enlighten us with more info.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Bridgepin

I have a 1977 Mossman Winter Wheat 12 string that really is a sweetheart of a guitar. I never see any talk about Stu's guitar's, they are really fine instruments....Well... probably because I'm a old fart sitting at a young man's roundtable. lol

Hi Bp...
One of the reasons they don't get talked about much is rarity - kind of like Wayne Henderson's guitars.

Another reason, though is Mossmans are really kind a mixed bag - some are stellar and quite a few of them need a lot of work to either correct or restore them.

One of my really good friends has owned one for about 30 years, and it's a nice guitar - after he sunk about $700 into it for a neck reset and repairs. It's not that much better than other comparable guitars...and in fact doesn't really reflect it's 30+ years sound/tone-wise.

[Bridgepin]

Hi Wade

This very well my have been your guitar, I bought it from Mickey Jones the musician / actor a few years back. Her year and # are 77-4493 she is a real jem and sounds so beautiful, just fills the room when she is played

[beach bob]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Another reason, though is Mossmans are really kind a mixed bag - some are stellar and quite a few of them need a lot of work to either correct or restore them.

The worst thing about Mossmans is trying to find someone who will sell you theirs!

But I believe you are correct about many needing work, Larry. My recollection is that back in the early 80s? the Mossman company was in receivership or something. And that during that time a couple hundred finished Mossmans were sitting in a warehouse out west, without climate control. Those all developed finished crazing. It seems that those 'vicitms' occasionally come out of the woodwork, either having had or needing the required neck resets, etc. A couple years ago AMW had one that was all finished crazed and they'd sent it off for a full tuneup by Bryan Kimsey... it lasted a week before being snatched up, dangit!

dangit! dangit! dangit!

Some 16 years ago, my wife was working at a bank and we got invited to a party by one of her customers, it was a going home party for the little old lady's two 20-something Irish grandsons who were heading back to Ireland... after the requisite pints and a few wee drams, everyone started singing and passing the guitar, a Mossman. The thing eventually got to me and stayed there, since I could pretty well fake my way through any tune that was called... I wound up playing that Mossman for about three hours straight, somehow following the two lads as they led everyone in Irish revolutionary tunes sung in weird keys like Db

That was a heck of an evening... I fell in love w/ that guitar ... a Mossman remains something of a holy grail for me.

& thanks to Wade for the interesting stories

[Allen Shadd]

Wade, maybe I just caught him on an off day. He was rather quiet, almost subdued even. I recall it very well, as I had wanted to meet him for years before I actually did. I met him around 1998, not long before he passed. My interest in him was paralleled with my interest in the festival at Winfield. In the early days of the flatpick contest they would give the winner a Mossman guitar. By the time I took it serious and won the contest (1997) they no longer gave Mossman guitars, of course.

[Wade Hampton]

Stu Mossman put all the blame on Conn for storing the guitars in an unheated warehouse.

Which is true so far as it goes: Conn was accustomed to dealing with brass instruments, which are impervious to weather and temperature extremes.

But the two different neck joint systems used by Mossman during the factory years were both inadequate, and the necks had a tendency to fail whether they'd been mistreated or not. It's a rare Winfield Mossman that hasn't needed a neck reset.

The good news is that those that were going to fail have already done so, and have generally been fixed along the way.

As for Mossman making Triple O's at the factory in Winfield, Stu made two or three back in the very early days when they were just getting started up. One of them is the 000-45 shown in the movie "Bound For Glory," where in the last scene David Carradine in the role of Woody Guthrie is shown scrambling up and sitting on the roof of a freight car while carrying and then playing it.

That particular guitar was not made for Carradine and never belonged to him; Stu made it for his wife and simply loaned it to Carradine for the film.

As for the Baxendale Mossman 000-42 I own, it's a one-off custom instrument that I talked Scott Baxendale into building for me. He never made another while he owned the Mossman brand name, and in fact has recently built only his second one in the past few months.

So there are a tiny handful of Stu Mossman handbuilt Triple O's floating around, but not many at all: fewer than five. And the factory never built anything but dreadnoughts.

Scott may have experimented with other body styles. I know he had great success with a shallowbody dreadnought he made and marketed under the Mossman name. But I know Scott never made any other Mossman Triple O's besides mine, and I don't even think he made any J-185's under the Mossman brand name, either, even though the J-185 is Scott's personal favorite acoustic guitar body style and he's made lots and lots of them since.

The easiest way to remember it is

Winfield factory Mossmans: 6 string dreadnoughts and 12 string dreadnoughts;

Baxendale Mossmans: 6 string dreadnoughts and 6 string shallow-bodied dreadnoughts;

and

Texas Mossmans: 6 string dreadnoughts only.


There were a number of one-offs built way WAY early, but even these were mostly dreads, and are notable only because of some of the tonewoods used like Brazilian backs and sides or cedar tops on some.

Hope this makes things a bit clearer.


Wade Hampton Miller

[RRuskin]

Originally Posted by Nort

.......................

I had the opportunity to buy a 000 size Mossman that Rick Ruskin had,
talked to him about it on the phone, and then passed on it.

I'm still kicking myself over that

As well you should. It was a honey and one of only 3 Mossman ever made.

[RRuskin]

Originally Posted by jayhawk

Mossman made a 000 size? Is that true? Never heard of such an animal. I'd love to know more about it. I have a '75 Great Plains and love the guitar. If I could find a 000 size Mossman I'd snap it up in an instant.

Jack

They made 3 in total. One was used in the film, Bound For Glory. I believe another was made for Mossmans's wife. The one I sold was made for a shop called the Sound Post, Evanston, IL., and then sold to a friend of mine.

[mario1956]

Pretty neat all this stuff about Mossman. And Wade I enjoy the colorful stories about the man. I have been a Mossman fan ever since i heard one while working in a music store during college. I bought a 76 Timber Creek and still have it. Wonderful instrument that always gets lots of attention when playing around. And it has had the neck reset by Scott in 2006. I have a 73 Flint Hills Custom that sounds OK but the pearl work is absolutely the best. I bought the FHC from someone in a trade for some of my gear. It had been butchered by a repairman trying to correct the neck block failure. I sent that one to Steve Mason in Kansas that was also a employee of Mossman Guitars. I also have a 76 Tennessee that is a very sweet sounding mahogany guitar. Here is a pic of my Mossmans and a Blueridge that is a gift from my wife



From left Flint Hills Custom, Timber Creek, Tennessee Flat Top and Blueridge BR260

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by RRuskin

They made 3 in total. One was used in the film, Bound For Glory. I believe another was made for Mossmans's wife. The one I sold was made for a shop called the Sound Post, Evanston, IL., and then sold to a friend of mine.

Rick, that's interesting. The Sound Post was owned and operated by Rudy, the same guy who went on to acquire the rights to the old Washburn name and has since gone on to build himself quite the little empire.


whm

[alohachris]

Aloha Friends,

Growing up in NYC, I used to see Stuart's heavily-inlaid dreadnaughts in Manny's window all the time. It really captured my imagination.

I owned one of his 12-strings with a double X-brace bracing design. He used lag bolts (one of the first bolt-on necks) screwed into the neck end-grain with a 3/8" maple dowel run up through the neck heal to grab the bolt better. I'm sure that's the design that you're referring to Wade.

In the early 80's, Stuart called me up out of the blue here in Hawaii because I was a Koa cutter/supplier at the time - only guitar-grade Koa. I traded some crazy, choke curl dense sets to him for Brazilian sets, Sitka, Cedar, all kinds of stuff from his small factory. I still have some of it around - great Sitka! He told me that he was making 3-4 guitars for the Smithsonian out of the best woods available and wanted some killer Koa. He loved the sets I sent and vice versa.

But in our discussions over several months, the main gift I received from Stuart was his insistence that all luthiers should be much more careful in dealing with the "poisonous" side of the craft, i.e., finishing, and sanding safely in between coats with proper ventilation and ventilators. He said that he hadn't and that he suffered from terrible overreactions to mists that came in the form of debilitating migraine headaches, even from spray deodorants. He made me promise to work more consciously. That was quite a gift to me from an older brother.

So Stuart truly helped me in a very concrete way. I loved/miss his rumbling Western voice, his unique way of telling a story, and warm, ironic humor - even in the throes of his horrible Conn fiasco.

I've missed him for decades.

His bluegrass dreadnaughts were as good as it got at the time! Get one. Set the neck up. And you've got yourself a real flat-picker's dream guitar!

ME KEALOHA STUART!

alohachris