1920s Washburn Bell Tiple

I worked on this for shop-friend Michael B. and I'm psyched he had me do it as I've had both a "Bell" uke, guitar, and mandolin in the shop in the past. This tiple is the wildest version, with its flipped tuners to conserve space.

Washburn/Lyon & Healy sold these in the mid-'20s and their quality is up there. They have design flaws, though -- no bridge plate, a shallow neck joint, and a "tieblock" style bridge design yielded a some trouble as it aged. I wound-up having to reset the neck, make a new "smile" bridge, fit a bigger maple bridge plate to shore-up a damaged top, level and dress the frets, clean it up, and set it up.

Michael plays CGDA instruments and so I strung this like a mandola for him but with octaves on the C&G strings and plain D&A courses with 3 strings on the D. The bridge pin loading was mildly complicated but turned-out nice and the saddle is fully-compensated despite what my butterfingers make it sound like in the clip!

The top is solid spruce and ladder-braced while the back, sides, and neck are mahogany. It has a rosewood board (thin) and new rosewood bridge.