Workshop: Quick Top Crack Cleating

This is that Heberlein mandolin (violin-style) and its associated top cracks getting repaired. They were short and on either side of the endblock (this happens to violins quite frequently) but needed to be addressed. Since the top had a finicky glue repair at the endblock anyhow (you can see the bit of split wood there), I opened up the seam (carefully) all along the top edge and got enough play to sneak these clamps in. Don't mind my (not yet wiped-off) glue beads.

As I'm writing this, the whole thing is now all clamped up and I should be able to give it a fret level/dress, cleaning, and setup tomorrow and have it playing again on Tuesday. Can't wait -- it had a killer sound when it first came in.

In other news, I managed to squeeze some repair time in finally towards the end of this week and you guys should start seeing some pretty stuff materialize over the next few days. It feels good to get the banjo bass stuff out of my system!