100 Year Old Restoration :: Lyon & Healy Bowl Back Mandolin [1.3 lbs]

View fullsize

100 Year Old Restoration :: Lyon & Healy Bowl Back Mandolin [1.3 lbs]

Whew! Finally finished up this ~100 year old mandolin restoration a couple weeks ago. Let's see ... neck & fingerboard reglue, missing soundhole pieces, cracked / loose top bracing, loose back ribs, new inlayed pickguard (courtesy of Dave Nichols Custom Pearl Inlay), new bridge and properly spaced new tuners (peghead had to be bunged & redrilled). A lot of hours into this little fella. Excited to drop it off to it's new owner. I went to high school with him in PA and this was his grandmother's mandolin. Always an honor to work on family heirlooms.

Until I gather everything into a single blog post, you can check out the previous progress of this project here.

View fullsize

View fullsize

Neck glue-up :: Lyon & Healy bowl back mandolin

View fullsize

Neck glue-up :: Lyon & Healy bowl back mandolin.

Other work includes the soundhole repaired here and here, and the loose back ribs glued up here.

Missing soundhole pieces :: Lyon & Healy Bowl Back Mandolin

View fullsize

Missing soundhole pieces :: Lyon & Healy Bowl Back Mandolin

Here I'm fitting missing sound hole pieces in the Lyon & Healy mandolin.  First internal cleats were prepped to support the new pieces.  Once glued in they will be shaped and color matched to blend in with rest of the ~100 year old soundboard.

Soundhole repair :: Lyon & Healy bowl back mandolin

View fullsize

Soundhole repair :: Lyon & Healy bowl back mandolin.

Prepping reinforcement cleats to support missing sound hole pieces to be fit later.  The loose back ribs were glued up here.

Loose ribs :: Lyon & Healy bowl back mandolin

View fullsize

Loose ribs :: Lyon & Healy bowl back mandolin

The a few of the Brazilian rosewood ribs on this bowl back mandolin were loose and needed to be re-glued.  I quickly brushed hide glue into the seams and wrapped the body with large rubber bands to clamp them closed.  Next up is fixing a couple missing soundhole pieces before gluing up the neck.