1980 Rich Westerman 10-String Celtic Cittern

June 09, 2026

1980 Rich Westerman 10-String Celtic Cittern

Overview: Apparently, Rich Westerman was a bouzouki, cittern, and octave mandolin builder on the "bleeding edge" for the time. In 1980, these instruments were simply not available to players outside of a few small Irish builders making for the folk scene over there (I'm looking at you Andy Irvine, Donal Lunny, and Alec Finn).

The owner of this sent this in to the shop with, essentially, the note to either "fix it up" or "put it in the graveyard." He found it on eBay or the like with no frets, a completely-destroyed neck joint (all caving-in), and no tuners or other hardware. It arrived and sat for ages upstairs because it looked like an absolute mess. I knew it could be fixed, however.

Tim is super-fond of mandolin-family instruments (me, too, but my time is painfully limited these days) and so he took on the project. It's turned-out beautifully, by the way. While it has some aesthetic problems (note the rosette and the various scratches and dings all over), it's now a very solid instrument and an absolute champ as a player. It's also got the goods sound-wise.

The current tuning is DGDAE. We used a D'Addario octave mandolin string set for the top four courses (tuned GDAE) and then a pair of 54w for the low string. That gauge is not big enough for the low D but it gets the job done. I would prefer to see something like 62w-66w on there at this scale length but we didn't have any extras in that gauge.

This one's not for sale, we think -- and going back to the owner. Yip!

Repairs included: With some advice from myself, Tim first removed all the damaged bracing and repair attempts at the neckblock area. He then made a "neck block extender" piece from maple in the shape of a wishbone that sits firmly against (the undersized) neckblock and then runs from it around the soundhole and out to directly in front of the main ladder brace below the soundhole. I've used this technique a lot in the past on 12-strings with absolutely-failed joints (underbuilt) and it works beautifully because it makes a very firm, stable joint that doesn't hurt the tone (as almost no acoustic value is added in that area of the top). What you might lose by the tiny extra weight from such bulky bracing is made-up-for in the fact that the instrument is stable and thus sounds better for that. The rest of the work was a board plane and refret, new tuners install (Gotoh single units), tailpiece install (provided by the owner), bridge fitting and install (provided by the owner but with a new bone saddle), cleaning, any crack repairs needing work, and setup. It's playing bang-on.