c.1925 Bruno "Maxitone" Tiple


This tiple has been a long haul and now it's finally done (I know -- another tiple?!) and I must say I'm happy with how it came out. I've been working on this for a customer and it's needed a new bridge, neck reset, brace re-glues on the back, a new nut, setup, finish resto, etc. Here's a video to hear (and see) it in action:




Top close-up.


Headstock. New bone nut, a bit of mahogany overlay to hide some holes drilled in the headstock near the nut, and of course the tuners have all been thoroughly cleaned and restored to good order.


Brass frets on a faux-ebony (probably pearwood) fretboard with MOP dots.


Binding and soundhole binding recall early Harmony instruments (I think this was built by Harmony c.1925/1930).


Bound top and back... and the back and sides are birch, as is the neck (I believe).


Back. The finish was all scratched up and scuffed and had some paint splatter before... a lot healthier now.


Detail.


Here are those tuners. These sets are a lot more compact than their Regal counterparts of the time.


Side.


And here's that new bridge again, this time under tension.

Comments

Anonymous said…
the bruno sems to have a bridge like a martin. is there any relationship there? jack
marjamel@frontiernet.net
The relationship there is that everyone (Oscar Schmidt, Harmony, Regal) copied in one form or another the Martin-style tiples when they first came out, as the Martin-built ones were the first on the scene, so the bridge design stuck. Lyon & Healy adapted the same idea but used pins on some of theirs, which I think look cool as heck.