A story about a mandolele

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JLT
Posts: 296
Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:13 pm
Location: Sacramento, CA USA

A story about a mandolele

Post by JLT »

I built a concert-size ukulele from scraps left over from building a few guitars, but didn't find it comfortable to play, so I built a tenor size which I feel better about.

But I converted the ukulele into a "mandolele." I replaced the strings with nylon guitar strings, tuned to a mandolin's G-D-A-E. The bottom three were easy to locate, but the one for the high E had to be ordered from a company that caters to harpers (that company is Markwood Strings, and I'm a big fan of them.)

Well, a friend of mine who plays the ukulele visited me from the East Coast. When I showed him the mandolele, he fell in love with it, so I ended up shipping it to him. He'd wanted to play the mandolin but found that he couldn't play the chords well, but the mandolele was as easy to chord as his uke.

I told him that if he wanted to pay me for the shipping and what I'd invested in hardware and strings, I'd be happy to take $50 for it. After all, the tonewood was all scrap, and I told him that in the years I'd known him, the time I spent building the instrument was a drop in the bucked compared to all the time we'd wasted together over the years.

Well, he got the mandolele, but he didn't send the $50. Instead, he sent $100.
Diane Kauffmds
Posts: 3246
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2014 8:13 pm

Re: A story about a mandolele

Post by Diane Kauffmds »

Good for you! I remember selling my first guitar. It lead to my first commissioned guitar.

Congratulations. You did good.
Diane Kauffmann
Country Roads Guitars
countryroadsguitars@gmail.com
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