£50 Harley Benton mandolin (or New Mandolin Day!)

[Rosie C]

 

This is new today! A mandolin from Thomann for £50. I did a bit of research before buying and the consensus seemed to be that if you could:

• fit decent strings
• sand the bridge to fit the arch top properly
• set the action
• set the intonation

then it was a pretty good instrument for the money - and so it has turned out! It has an adjustable bridge so setting the action is straighforward.

 

 

 

The reviews were right - the bridge isn't bad quality but on arrival doesn't fit the profile of the arch-top: 

 

Edited August 22, 2024 by Rosie C

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

Nice!

 

I have my eye on the new version of the epiphone mandobird.

 

I'm not in a hurry for one so I'll probably wait until they start cropping up secondhand or epi bring out an eight string version, however I'll probably have to use ukulele tuning.

 

[pete.young]

On 22/08/2024 at 18:35, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

Nice!

 

I have my eye on the new version of the epiphone mandobird.

 

I'm not in a hurry for one so I'll probably wait until they start cropping up secondhand or epi bring out an eight string version, however I'll probably have to use ukulele tuning.

 

 

I have one of the original 4-string versions in seafoam green, with an Almuse pickup. It looks much better with the proper thunderbird type pickup. A bit of trickery wiith chorus and reverb goes a long way to making up for the missing 4 strings.