Hey, everybody, this is Daniel Patrick and this is episode number 313 of the Mandolins and Beer Podcast, brought to you in part by my favorite website, the Mandolin Cafe. How is everybody doing? I finally have got the merch online. If you go to themandolinsandbeer.com go to the shop section. Shirts and stickers are now officially available. To purchase the M and B logo, I want my MNB very similar to a TV station or a channel back in the 80s and 90s that was pretty popular. I love the shirt. It looks even better in person than I thought it would. And I'm not just saying that. I am. I am absolutely stunned at how cool they look. And yeah, there are. They are available now. I've got hats and koozies coming. Just takes a while. And I'm heading to Ireland in a few weeks, so I'm not sure if they'll be here before then or not. I hope so. Also, next week there will not be an episode. It is 4th of July weekend and again, I want all the guests to get as many listens as they can get. I think everybody deserves as many days to listen to as possible. And holiday weekends just tend to be a time where everybody's traveling with friends and family and such. So no episode next week, but I will be back the following week with a great one with Alan Bybee. And I don't know if you saw his post, but he recorded a tribute to Herschel Sizemore with some incredible mandolin players. And we're going to talk about Herschel and the song and all that good stuff as well. My guest this week, Hugh Hansen, great guy, great luthier, a lot of killer repair work, great mandolin builder as well. And you'll hear I just played one recently, I'd played one years ago and, and I was just blown away by how great that mandolin sounded just a few weeks ago. And I've also had him do repair work for me to too. And he's just great. And man, you, I, I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

He's.

He's a funny dude too. And what a cool, what a cool past. And I mean, there's a reason why a guy like Stephen Gilchrist, he's. He's kind of like the quote unquote, Gilchrist repair guy when Steve's not around. You're going to hear about that as well. And yeah, it was a fun talk. So I want to thank Hugh for doing the podcast and there'll be a link below to his website that's how you can contact him. And yeah, so we're gonna get into the ad reads real quick. Let's see if I can do this. I did it again last week where I actually made it without screwing up. So let me pull my my mojo together here. Peghead Nation With Peghead Nation streaming video courses in mandolin, guitar, banjo, fiddle, dobro, ukulele and bass. You'll learn bluegrass, old time and other styles from some of the most talented players and instructors in roots music. Who you ask? How about Sharon Gilchrist mentioned in this podcast? Joe K. Walsh, Mike Compton, John Reichman, Aaron Weinstein, Marla Fibus, Chad Manning, Ian Corey and Ethan Satiawan. From beginner to advanced, they got it all. Courses include high quality multi angle video lessons, downloadable notation and tab play along tracks and plenty of tunes and songs to play. The best part of course is you can join any of Peghead Nation's video courses now and get your first month for free. Just go to pegheadnation.com and use the promo code mandolinbeer all one word at checkout Northfield Mandolins. Let's build more than a mandolin together. Check out their [email protected] download their app at mandosummit app for lots of special performance recordings, demonstrations and special workshops. Ear Trumpet Labs Hand built microphones from Portland, Oregon. Their mics are beautifully designed and have great feedback rejection for live use in the most natural tone you'll find for acoustic instruments. You can check them [email protected] today. I love mine every chance I get to use it. I'm I'm ready to go. So thank you to Ear Trumpet Labs. Always an honor to have you on tone slabs. Get yourself a slab of tone from toneslabs.com Frank and David have got it going on over there. I absolutely love my tone slabs and I've had to make me a few different models and each one has just been better than the last and I loved the first one and I'm sure you'll love it as well. You can go to their website, check out all the shapes and sizes. If they don't have what you're looking for, I'm pretty sure that they can make it for you. So head over to toneslabs.com get yourself a slab of tone. Tell them Daniel Patrick sent you. Also String joy strings. I love my string joy strings. I use the Foxwoods. They're coated. They don't sound like any coated string I had ever used before and I had never been a fan of coated strings. I Loved how they lasted a long time. I did not love how they sounded when I first put them on. And that is not a problem with the foxwoods. The foxwoods for me, sound broken in right away. That's the sound I've been looking for and I love, love it. Pava Mandolins dedicated to building for the impassioned player out of Austin, Texas. PAVA mandolins and Elderly Instruments. Elderly Instruments is your trusted source for new, used and vintage stringed and fretted instruments for the experience to the beginner player. Their vast selection of mandolins, guitars, banjos, ukuleles, and did I say mandolins? Includes all of the accessories and books to go with them. All instruments are inspected and set up for easy playability and they're down to earth. And award winning and knowledgeable staff are there to help. Heading into their 54th year next month, their family owned and operated the ship worldwide and you can visit them [email protected]. oh, my goodness. I did it again. No edits. Wow. Well, I think that deserves a. A beer here on this Friday afternoon. Okay, once again, no episode next week. It's fourth of July weekend, so please have fun with your friends, family, and for goodness sakes, be careful around fireworks. You want to play the mandolins? Blowing your fingers off would be a terrible, terrible idea. Don't do that. Instead, just have fun. Watch the fireworks. Do it that way. It's safer, I think. I hope you enjoy this episode with Hugh and have a fantastic couple weeks. Cheers, everybody. All right, everybody. Well, I'm absolutely honored to have my next guest on. I've had him do some mandolin work for me back in the past. It was absolutely killer. And then just a few weeks ago, I played a gig where a guy had one of this gentleman's mandolins and I forgot how freaking great his mandolins were as well. Welcome Hugh Hansen. How's it going, Hugh?

It's going great, Daniel. It's good to talk to you.

Good to talk to you, man. Thank you so much for doing this. I. I ran into Keith McCullough and, and he was playing a gig and he had his.

He's.

I think he's got an A style and an F style of yours, and he's like handed me that F style and boy, oh, boy, you couldn't ask for anything more out of a mandolin than what that F style had. It sounded killer.

Oh, good. Keith is a great guy.

Super great. Well, you're a great guy too, man. You know, I had brought my back when I had my Gibson F5. I brought it to you and, and you fixed. Fixed it right up. And actually I remember at one time there was even an issue. There was like a truss rod, the way they maybe had it in or was, you know, you kind of had to give her a frightening shake to break it loose.

Oh, you're going, you're going. You're going right in for the. Right in for the dirty stuff.

Ah, no, it was. You're very kind about it. You know, you fixed it and dude, it played. Played so great and you did just killer work on it, replaced the frets and like that's the first time I'd ever had anybody. You're the first time I ever went to a luthier with like instrument I had put an investment into, you know, before it was just like going to like local guitar stores and having somebody bang around on like a Pacific Rim era, you know, Mandalim. Like that seems good. And, and you came highly recommended and lived up to the hype. So that was much appreciated.

Glad. Glad it worked.

Yeah, me too. So how did you get into. How did you get into Lutheran? Were you. Were you a musician?

Well, I guess. Yeah, I suppose you could call it that. The. I've always. I've always been interested in making things and repairing things and taking things apart and figuring out how they work and. And you know, I started playing guitar in junior high and I kind of. I slipped into. Slipped into the bluegrass world through the, the side door of Grateful Dead music like like many other people. But the. I was. When I. When I decided to become a luthier, I was living in Lawrence, Kansas and playing and playing in bands there and doing. Doing construction work and, and delivering, you know, some of the. The latest and cheapest and drunkest pizza in all of Lawrence, Kansas, which would. Was pretty late, pretty drunk and pretty cheap. But I was. I was playing. I was playing in bands and I was having trouble with the guitar and I. It was actually, it was a pickup that just wouldn't balance, an under saddle pickup that wouldn't balance. And I'd taken it to a bunch of different places and I was really starting to think that people that fix guitars for a living were just complete charlatans. And. And I took a. I took. I took my guitar to a guy named Steve Mason, who. If you're still out there, Steve, good on you. He just instantly diagnosed it and was able to fix it. And then I decided that there might be a difference between fact and opinion when it came to fixing guitars and just instantly decided that I had to understand how that worked. And I just asked him, how do you learn how to do this? And he said, it's easy. Go to, go to Red Wing. And so that is exactly what I did.

Now is that, is that a school for like, musical instrument repair and building?

That's exactly what it is. It's in, in Red Wing, Minnesota, where they make the shoes.

Oh, yeah. I love it up there.

Eh, by.

Anyway, anybody who thinks I'm making fun of that, I'm from the Midwest. I can, I can make that accent. I have that accent when I'm back home.

Yes. Well, I, I, I, I grew up in northeast Nebraska in, in farming country on, on a farm, you know, 40 miles from the, the nearest Walmart and the, the, the Norwegian, the Norwegian Midwestern accent. That's, uh, it's, uh, it's real.

That's right. Um, how long of a program was that?

It was, it was back then, it was a year. Then I stayed a little longer to do the mandolin building class. So that was, that was when it all changed.

Yeah. So how long, how long does a, like, is it all day of classes sort of thing? I have no idea how that would work. So it's kind of like a universe. Like a college course for a year.

Yeah. Well, yeah, it's a, they have, they've got a big long acronym now, but it's a, it's a Minnesota State College they used back in the day. It was called the Votech, and then it was Red Wing Tech. And I think it's something like Minnesota State College, Southeast Technical Red Wing campus or some such thing. But they've, they've stretched the program out to be a little bit longer, but it was great. It gave me a foundation of skills. It's pretty hard to just insert yourself into a shop somewhere, not really knowing anything. The great thing about that school is that they can spend a lot of time teaching you how to do things that would just be very unprofitable for somebody that owns a shop to teach you really, the basics of how to use tools correctly and maintain them and understanding, you know, things, specific things about wood. And it provides you a base that you could leave there and, you know, not just be a liability to yourself and those around you. Trying to work in a shop.

Yeah. Holy cow. That's awesome. So like, how long, how long would a day be, like, say, for the mandala? Was the mandolin building the same sort of thing? Like a year long process?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like, you know, eight in the morning until three in the afternoon. Or whatever. And then you know, a lot of times people stayed a little later and continued to work on things. And I sure tried to make the most of my time there and went around and just scooped up any repair project that I could find and worked on, worked on as many different things as I could get my hands on.

Would they, would people do. Is it like, like the local dentist here, the dentist at the college or the medical university here, like you can go there and get discounted repairs done. Is it the same thing? Like, is it the same sort of thing where people could bring instruments by the school and have them, have them worked on?

I think that they did that maybe once upon a time I could be wrong about that. But. But no, not, not really. You just kind of found found things to do and you know, if I couldn't find enough things to do, I would just go buy up any old harmony or k. Arch top or whatever and you know, do a neck reset on it and try to figure out how to, how to do that. And when you're learning those skills, it's pretty, you know, important to be able to repeat those and get some reps in and kind of learn learn by doing.

So the mandolin course, like since you had gone through like a year of the first round, was it a little bit more advanced or did they kind of start you right at the beginning sort of thing? Again, when you went into the mandolin

it was, you know, people were kind of free to, to build whatever type of mandolin that they wanted. I didn't, I didn't actually complete a mandolin there. I got. It was about, you know, 90% complete ish. It sat around for a couple years in the. I eventually finished it and played it and it's kind of actually what got me into play in the mandolin.

No kidding. That's so, so then after you leave the school, obviously you want to go and work at a repair place, you know, where did. What was the next step for you after you left there?

Well, the deal was that my, my wife to be came to Red Wing with me and then after that she went to school in Boulder, Colorado. And and so I went so well, we went to to Boulder after that and the. It's a funny story. The. I tried to get a job at, at the, at the big shop in town there at HB Woodsongs and the best that they could offer me was a non paying is for me to be a non paying apprentice, meaning that I could, I could work there for free and unfortunately as opposed to a paying apprentice. But that didn't work for me. I had to actually make a living. So I just, I worked on other things and just continued to do luthier work on my own. And we lived there for a few years and then eventually moved back to Nebraska where I worked for a, a local, a local shop and which was, you know, they had the, they had all the normal things of Martin Gibson. You know, they were, they were kind of the big shop in the area. They had I think four or five stores, something like that. But it's actually, it was not always the most exciting work, but a really good foundation. They actually put a lot of effort into making sure that all of the instruments were properly set up. Even. Even down to like the lowest kind of like firewood grade Indonesian, you know, starter guitars. Even, even those got, even those got set up, you know, which was. That's, that was really good that, that they were willing to do that. But eventually that kind of ran its course and there's not Lincoln, Nebraska. There's a, there's a, there's a few people that'll spend a hundred thousand dollars on a guitar there, but if they did, they, they wouldn't tell anyone because they'd be horrified of what people might think of them.

Oh, I bet

you run through, you run through the good stuff pretty quick in a place like that. And one of my friends from guitar school called me up while I was actually right in the middle of performing a setup on a, on a hello Kitty Stratocaster starter pack.

Nice.

And said, I just started working at Groom Guitars. They really need more people. You should come here. And I said, hell yes,

man. What is it like to go from a place like I would imagine a lot of that stuff was, it was a lot of it kind of newer stuff when you were in Nebraska working like stuff that, you know, they bought. X Amount, however, whatever they had to buy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a lot of, it was a lot of setting up of, you know, new, new instruments and you know, and customer repairs and everything like that. But it's not, you know, nothing like the type of stuff that you see, you know, in a shop like Grooms where you're just kind of instantly thrown into the deep end of all of the, the biggest and, and hairiest stuff that, that there is. So that was, that was quite a transition. But you know, George, you know, George is. George is George. There's only, there's only one, there's only one George. But that's for sure. He, I, I owe him a lot, you know. For kind of believing in me and giving me a chance and helping me understand how, how instruments work and what was significant about them. And that's the thing about working at a place like Grooms is you just, you get to see everything. And so you realize, I certainly didn't realize until I was there how many things have been tried, like how many ideas have already been put to the test. And when you, when you can see that firsthand of the way that ideas have been put to the test and, and the results of it, then you start to, after a while you kind of start to realize that, you know, that the wheel isn't round just as an arbitrary choice. Like there was other shapes that were tried first and it didn't work as well. And so they, they got, they got cast off. And so yeah, you get to see things like that and, and, and you just get to realize what, what people are really capable of doing. You know, when it's, when it's done well, you see the, the instruments, you know, the, the, the lores and you know, just the different things that Gibson and Martin and, and other, other builders too were we're able to accomplish. It's kind of just kind of, it sets the bar at a totally different level for what you should, you know, for what I would expect out of an instrument. You see that this is, this has been accomplished before, this has been done. And it's, you know, it's, it's kind of a, kind of a sad story of how we got from that to, you know, what, what things turned into things, things have, have come back. But it was really, was really how far all of those, how far things fell that gave rise to, you know, the idea that a person could, you know, you could look at a Martin or Gibson and look at it and say, you know, I think I could do better than that in my garage. And people did. People did.

Yeah, that's the, that whole era of like, you know, like there's a Fender, electrics and even Gibson. I mean there's those dead eras of instruments where they, it was more about money than, than music, you know, and in some cases still is. But yeah, you know, it's quality control is, is a great concept and you know, it's just go to any guitar center and pick up a high end instrument that's been hanging on the wall there and then, you know. Well, I guess I don't know what you could compare it to. But yeah, I don't think I'd buy a, I should say high end, a high End maker off the wall. I should edit that out. I don't want to poop on a brand, you know, but you know, it's, it's, it's, it's pretty eye opening when, you know, I've got some really great instruments that have been maintained and set up properly. And then when you play the same sort of instrument at retail place and you're like, whoa, this thing sounds terrible, but you know, the potential of it and you need somebody to get somebody like you to bring the potential out of a, of a, you know, an instrument.

Well, that's why I, that's why I like working on stuff that is, you know, made during those times where they, where they really were trying their best to make things as well. It's just, I mean, I mean, just culturally, people's expectations changed over time of, you know, there, there was at one time there was an expectation that you bought something and it ought to last for a long time. And that's. The business model certainly changed. And it's not all, it's not all on the, you know, consumers have their, they, they take their, their share of the blame as well. But, but it's certainly, it's certainly more rewarding to me to take something and put it, you know, undo the bad things that have happened to it and put it back to its fullest potential. That's much more rewarding to me than to take something that was never made right in the first place and then have to go back and kind of try to re engineer all of the poor choices that were made in order to maximize profit, in order for it to be something beyond what it was ever even, you know, meant. Meant to be.

Yeah. And you know, you can't really necessarily probably even fault the people who were working on those instruments at the time. When you're working for a giant company and their expectation isn't necessarily quality over quantity. You know, somebody's just doing the job they're paid to do to feed their family.

You know what I mean?

It's not, they might want to do a better job. But you know, you got somebody telling you, I'm not worried about you doing a better job, I'm worrying about you doing a faster job. Like, yes, that's a terrible concept.

Yes. Well, I did, I did have a short stint finishing drywall. And I'll just tell you that was, that was one of the worst pairings of a worker to a job all of history.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've thought about fixing some drywall. I'm just like I'm going to hire a professional on this one.

There's.

I'll gladly pay somebody good money to do that, because who.

It's a.

That's.

If you would have hired me, it would have looked perfect, but it would have taken a really long time.

What. What is something that you figure you learned from George versus something that you learned at the school? Because I'm sure both of them are filled with different sorts of knowledge. You know, I would assume George is a little bit more like, you know, real world, like, dealing with this stuff every day, vintage stuff after it's been built. You know, what's like one thing you learned versus the other compared to those two?

Well, it's just. It's just that's. I guess that's a. Stuff that's a completely different sphere of. Of knowledge, I guess. You know, George knows what the. What the good stuff is. And if you. If you get out over your skis with him and start trying to defend something that's not worthy of defense, he'll just take the guitar out of your hands and go and put a different guitar in your hands and say, you know, here, play this. And that's the. You're like, oh, okay, understood. Like, end of. End of debate. So that it's. It in the. In a school, you know, like Red Wing, it's. It's more of like a theoretical debate. And, you know, with George, it's. It's all right there. It's all. It's all, you know, every. Everything. Every kind of guitar that you might want to look at is, you know, under the roof right there. And so you can just go. Go and get it.

What was. What was the first crazy mandolin that you were like, whoa. That you worked on when you were at Groons?

Well, you know, I started there. I started there in. In 2006. And that was, you know, lures and ferns had. Were really just kind of blowing up, like, really had just really gone way up in value at that time. And it was kind of a. It was kind of a bubble, but there was a. The price really bumped up. When it did, things just came out from everywhere to be sold. And so there. There was a run where, you know, I was just. I was seeing different lore just all the time. There's. And so that certainly rearranged, you know, my perception of what a mandolin could be. And that was when I realized that some of my early attempts needed to get buried in some deep graves.

Do you think it was the Internet that kind of started that bump? Like, people Were like, oh, man, these lores are worth a lot of money. Or seeing the. The fact, you know, because before, like. Like in the 90s, you know, you'd hear stories about, like, a guy went out to a. You know, I'm from Michigan, so it would be a farm, and like, some lady was selling a guitar at a garage sale that her husband bought, and, you know, it was a 62 Stratocaster that they bought for a hundred dollars. And, like, those days are long gone. You know what I mean? With ebay, anybody can find a price. But do you think that was what kind of made that price really jump?

I don't. I don't know that that's what made the price. I don't know. I don't know what made that price jump. I mean. I mean, the whole. The whole economy was kind of in a bubble that was. Right. You know, when the housing market collapsed and the, you know, banking and lending and everything like that. So sometimes, like, when the. When the economy is going crazy, people look at musical instruments as, you know, some way to. When it. When it's just going up and up and up and up, it kind of creates a feeding frenzy in the. In the instrument market. But certainly there's. There was a lot of people that probably shouldn't have been in that market and that, you know, I mean, the value of Lora still isn't. Still isn't as high as it was back then.

Yeah. I remember the first time I went to Carter and I played a. Played a lore, and it was $225,000.

I'm just. I'm just finishing up some work on one that. That I worked on a lore that I worked on and worked on it in 2008, and then I worked on it again in 2010, and it's gone through several different owners since then. But I know. I know what it went for originally, and it's not. Not that now.

Now. When did you start building them with your name on the headstock? Were you still at Gruins then?

No, that was. I started doing that. That was. That was kind of why I left there was so that I could. Could focus on that. And so I kind of kind of built, you know, for about. About 10 years or so. Kind of on and off, back and forth between building and repair. And it is. It's a. It's hard to flip this switch. Repair work accumulates so fast, and you get. You get covered up with it and you get behind. And so when you're. When you launch into doing A batch of mandolins, you're just all in that you can't. The way. The way that your shop flows and the way that you set things up is just different. It's a. It's just a totally different workflow and you need. You need to maintain momentum when you're building. If you. If you grind to a halt, it's so that you, you know, break off and have to do other stuff than. It just. It just extends that finish line longer and longer and longer, and it's no. It's no good. So it's. It's difficult to. To just stop answering your phone and people come to rely on you and they, you know, you want to help them and people that you like and people that you have, you know, good relationships with and everything, but you have to. To get. Get instruments built, you really kind of gotta take the submarine down to the bottom of the ocean and just kind of stay there for quite a while.

Now, when. When you. When you left there, did you like, did you. Did, you know you were gonna build like, a mandolin or some mandolins for someone or some people? Or, like, how do you flip that switch from going. Because I'd imagine, you know, you probably could still be working at Gruins doing repairs because you're a great repair person and people rely on you. You know, what was it where you're like, okay, I just got to build my own.

It was something that I just always wanted to do ever, you know, ever since I came to Nashville, really. It was. That was kind of just always on the. And I was. Even. I built. I built several instruments while I was working at Groons, just in. In, you know, in the. In the off hours. And. And I wanted to do more of it. And so that was. It was just. It's. It's. It's an itch that it kind of gets in your. Gets in your blood and. Yeah, you see, you see, you see, you see the instruments that you like, And I wonder if I could do that.

So then do you go and decide like, you're going to build a batch of them or did you start with just one?

You know, I did them and, you know, did them in, you know, two batches of two or three or four. I think. I think I might have built a few singles. And then I kind of went to, you know, batches of like, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 sometimes. But I think Randy Wood once told me that he could. He could build. He could build two in the same time that he could build one. But if he Built three. That was too damn much like work. And then I, and then I told that to George and George told me not to listen to Randy.

How many, how many have you built so far?

Like 4,40ish. Not that many. Not that many. There's. There's. There's more, there's more in me, but like I said, it's hard to flip the switch get. I'm at least, the. I'm at least a year out to finish the repair projects that are sitting around here right now. And they don't. The float and it doesn't slow down. So that's. It's hard to. Hard to keep everybody happy.

Yeah. Well, dude, there were big names when I was at your shop. The couple times there were. You know, I don't want to reveal names of players, but they were big name players with really nice instruments. Like, oh, that one right there. I'm like, what? Oh yeah, well, that one right there, I'm like, what? It was amazing, man. So you obviously have a great reputation for your repair work as well.

Well, that's Nashville for you.

Well, I'd imagine there's a lot of repair people in Nashville though, and may not have some of the names you had hanging up there.

Well, that I have been fortunate to work for, you know, a lot of people whose music is, you know, that I've appreciated and you know, kind of grown up listening to. And so it's always, it's always fun to, to get to get to know those, you know, those people. It's sometimes, sometimes it changes the nature of your listening to their music by the time it's all said and done. Usually usually works out good. Usually works out good.

Oh, that's funny. What, what do you think you learned from. From number one to say, let's say number 40 or whatever your, your last complete build is? Because I would imagine like, like a musician each you, you get a little bit better at something each time you attempt it. You know, what's something from day one to. Or instrument one to instrument 40 that you were like. Or is there a bunch of things that you kind of learned that made you a better builder?

Everything. It's just. I mean it's. I wouldn't even remotely begin to claim that I have it all figured out, but it. I certainly understand how the instrument works a lot better than I did. Understanding the. Understanding the role that all of the different components play of. Like what. How they affect it, how they affect the strength, how they affect the way that force is applied, how they, how they, how different things can change the sound. What, what effect those things have. The role that different woods, you know, that affect using different types of wood in different places has all of those, all of those types of things that, you know, when you're first starting to build it, you just, you're just, you're just trying to, you're just trying to get a mandolin shaped object out of the end and hopefully it functions and all of that. And you know, if you have some success at it, then you're, you usually, that's, if you usually initial success is a happy accident and you, you know, then you try to repeat it and you try to try to figure out why, why something worked or why something didn't work. And, and that's a, it's a slightly different process for you. I mean, you can, you can learn a lot of that just by doing repair work. But it's, but it's different when you're, when you're building it, when you're, when you're doing the restoration work, you're, you're playing the hand that you were dealt and the constraints are already there. You know, you know exactly what it is that when you're building, you have a, you know, much more choices that you can make and sometimes the amount of choices that can be made or can be overwhelming. So narrowing that down, narrowing the focus kind of, you know, once, once you can perform the basics of it, then you can really kind of hone in on, on the details a little bit more.

If you had to build a mandolin just for your choice, everybody's is completely different. Obviously what tones they're looking for, what sounds they're looking for. Well, like, what type of wood would you use? Like top and back, one piece or not? And what kind of finish? If it was up to you to build like the mandolin for you, what would you, what would you use?

Well, you know that it's a question of what you want to, what you want out of the mandolin. You know, the, The, the role, you know, mandolin occupies a certain space in a, in a, in an ensemble. So if you're, if you want an instrument to be played in a band where you're occupying that territory, it has to cut, it has to, it has to have a bite to, has to be able to get through other, other instruments and, and be heard, which is a challenge. So that's, I mean the, the recipe for that is, is really hard sugar maple back insides and a top that is capable of producing a lot of energy. And there's different species, but it's you know, a really good red spruce is, is tough to beat. There's, there's a, there's other ways a person could get there, but that's a, that's a, that's a winning combination. But all wood is certainly not created equal. And you can, you can, you can build a lot of red spruce, sugar maple, mandolins that just don't, don't have it. And that was, I guess that was the one. A big thing I learned is that if you want good wood, you have to, you have to go get it. Like you, you can't just, you can't just, you can't just order up some wood off the Internet. And you might, you might, you might get lucky. You might get some, some good pieces in there. But if you, if you sit and tap on 20 different, you know, red spruce billets, you, anybody could hear it. Anybody could hear and feel the difference between wood that has got, got some, got some life in it and wood that doesn't. And if you're, if you're, if, if you don't, if you don't go through that process, it's just really hard to get wood that is consistently good. You can make, you can make a lot of mistakes and if you have, if you have really exceptional wood, you can, it'll, it'll forgive a lot. It won't forgive everything. Right. Right. But you could, you could make a, you could make a pretty rough looking mandolin that might really sound good if you have, if you've got good enough wood.

What about finish on it? Because your finished work is, I mean, the finishes I've seen of yours have all been pretty beautiful, man.

Well, thank you. That, the, I know that like the area where you live can be pretty tough on a spirit varnish finish, but they're, they're, they're not the most. I mean, I, that's what, and that's what, that's really. What I prefer is spirit varnish. Meaning what it, what is a varnish? You know, spirit varnish is just resins that are dissolved in, in alcohol and the alcohol evaporates and the resins are left. It doesn't cure in the same way that oil varnish does, which is by polymerization, you know, exposure to UV or, you know, the use of chemical dryers to create a chemical reaction that is, is permanent. And you know, eventually spirit varnish can polymerize. But anyway, blah, blah, blah. The, you know, Gibson used that, Gibson used that extensively through the teens. They hold up great like, like those, those, A lot of those Finishes are still in quite, quite good condition and they're still serviceable, they're still repairable. They can be applied very thin. You can adjust the properties of it to whatever you're looking for if you can. You can make it softer if you want. You can make it harder if you want. I'm a big proponent of leaving the wax in shellac and seed black. It's a, to me at that, that adds the flexibility that spirit varnishes need. It kind of softens the, the luster of it a little bit so that they're not quite so. Quite so shiny. You know, it builds a little faster, it provides a little more resistance to the checking and all those types of things. So that's, that's what I like there. There's, you know, I've seen great results that people get with all different types of finish. So the, the skill in the application is certainly a key, key factor of it. I mean, you could, you can make good finishes with, with lacquer, you can make good finishes with oil varnish, all kinds of things. But, but it, you know, it plays a role in the, in the sound of the instrument. It's, it's the, it's the icing on the cake. And it tempers the way that wood is going to vibrate. So I like to keep it, I like to keep it thin and, you know, something that is flexible enough that it will stay on there and not. Not crack off and, you know, hard enough and durable enough that it can still vibrate well and not inhibit the instrument.

That's great. That's. It's so. There's so many. God, I want to build a mandolin so bad. I just like, I love this stuff, man. I'm just like, amazing. I'm. I'm so in awe.

I'm almost, I've almost talked myself into it.

So you have a very interesting relationship with one of what I would say. I mean, probably one of the most popular top builders right now is obviously Stephen Gilchrist. I mean, his mandolins are in the hands of some incredible players and they go just as fast on the used market, as you can see. One click on it and it's gone. And you kind of began. You said, this isn't written down anywhere, but you're kind of like the go to via Steve for repairs on Gilchrist. How did that relationship come about?

Well, that I met Steve first shortly after I started at grooms in 2006, which was when he was just transitioning. You know, he has historically done, you know, he builds his, his instruments and then ships them over here and does the final stages of assembly and setup and delivery and everything here. It's complicated process to ship all those instruments and get them here in one piece. And it just goes. It's a process that works a lot better for him doing those final steps here and ensuring that all of those things are done properly. And, and he gets to see everybody and interact with the customers. And so he, he, he started doing that at, at Groom Guitars shortly after I started there. And so every year, you know, he would be there for a couple weeks and it was, it always just completely changed the, the atmosphere of the shop to have him in there to have, have somebody of his skill and ability, you know, just being able to watch how he's doing stuff. And a lot of the stuff that he does is. It's just totally different than the way that, you know, that other people might do it. And it's so much that is formed because he's in. You know, when he, when he, when he started, you couldn't just send away to Sumac for, you know, a solution to every, every problem or perceived problem that an instrument builder might have. You had to figure things out for yourself. And he went through a, you know, a very, you know, elaborate process of figuring things out for himself. And so watching, watching how, watching what he was capable of doing and, and how he did it and everything was just, you know, very eye opening. Just. It changed the way I thought a lot about how things could be done or, you know, why, why you might do something. But so I, I got to know him there and just kind of continued to, you know, build that relationship over, over the years, you know, I've worked on a lot of his instruments. I really enjoy working on them. It's exactly the type of instrument where when something has happened to it, you can undo what's happened to it and put it back to the way that it, you know, that it was to begin with. And it can go on its life of being a great instrument. But so he's. Since, since Walter and Christie left Carter Vintage Guitars, that was where. That was where Steve was doing his, his batch finishing. And now that they're gone from that. His, you know, Christie was his importer and his, you know, kind of representative in the US So a couple years ago he asked if he could, uh, could come here to do that work. And of course I said yes immediately. So, so for the last few years, he, he comes here to the shop and I've got a bench for him and he brings all his. His stuff and does all of that work here. So it's a. It's a. It's a lot of fun to have him. And of course, again, you know, if you're used to working by yourself, like, having somebody else in the shop is totally different, but also having that somebody else be Steve is. Is totally different.

Yeah, he's a great guy, man.

Yes. And of course, all. All of the mandolin players in the universe come out, you know, from their hidey holes and come over to the shop. So it's. It's always a lot of fun.

When I interviewed him at Carter, it was like tripping over famous mandolin players, walking. Walking around the store. Timo some O', Brien, some McCurry's. You know, it was. It was awesome, man. Now, and also during COVID Didn't you have. Didn't. Were you the point person for one of the shipments? Because he couldn't get over.

Well, he was. He was. He was shipping some instruments individually during that time, rather. He. Yeah, he. There was a couple years where he didn't come here because of that, and that. That experience just kind of reinforced why it was necessary to come here in the first place because, you know, some of those instruments got slightly damaged, you know, in transit from heat and, you know, other things. So, So I was. I did. I did, you know, go through some of those instruments and, you know, do the setup on them and, you know, do the French polishing of all the little boo boos that. That happen in. In transit and, and that type of thing.

That's amazing, man. To be entrusted. I mean, that says a lot about you, to be entrusted by the, you know, somebody like that with these. Because I saw him go through that process. It was amazing to me to watch him go through that process and talk about the process at Carter. Like, he's not leaving until every. Every person that he built a mandolin for is 100 satisfied. And the fact that you could see what that meant to him and how much pressure he put on himself. So for him to trust you to do that is like put a feather in your cap.

Well, I, I'm. I'm honored to. To have to be able to do that. I certainly, I certainly put a, you know, a lot of care and effort into trying to make sure that those instruments are as good as, you know, something that. That Steve would do. So, yeah, that. That's been a. It's been a great relationship. I've certainly learned, you know, so much from. From him of. He's. He's Also just a great, you know, storehouse of historical knowledge about. About Gibson instruments, too. He's. He's been through so many of them. He's been, you know, restored so many of those lores and knows a lot about it. So it's.

It's.

It's really great to be able to. To ask him questions. And originally, sometimes. Sometimes I would ask me, or sometimes I would. I would ask him things, and the answer that he would give me was so far from what I thought he might say that sometimes I thought he was messing with me.

Oh, my God.

And I had to learn a lot to get to the point, like, where the answers that he would give me to questions made sense. Sometimes he would. Sometimes he would just say, oh, you just do it like this. And then. And then, you know, you'd see something that might. You might suffer through for hours, and you watch him do it in a couple of minutes, and you're like, what? Like, if he hadn't. If he hadn't seen it, you wouldn't. You. Like I said, that's sometimes. Sometimes when I ask him things like that, I was like, is that real? Is he just messing with me? No. No, he didn't. He doesn't really mess with you, but you might not understand it. You might not understand the answer, but it's real.

I remember. I think it was. Sharon Gilchrist told me one time she might say it on this podcast or. I can't remember now, but it was like he. She was at a festival or something and needed some work done, so he took it back to, like, the hotel or the motel or whatever, and, you know, just. It was. She was just like, oh, my gosh, what's going to happen here? It was, like, very crude setup, and it was an absolutely perfect fix, you know? Yeah. She said it was amazing.

It is amazing. Like, you're playing a serious away game. If you take, like, a briefcase full of tools and get on an airplane and ride 23 hours across, you know, to the opposite side of the planet and show up and just immediately start working at, you know, at somebody else's workbench, and I couldn't do that. There's no way I could do that. That would bump me off my game. But he's been doing it for so long, he's accustomed to it, and it's amazing to watch what he's able to accomplish in a few weeks while he's here.

Do you have an instrument? Is there one mandolin that stands out for you that you've played? I mean, you've played, who know, countless mandolins, but is there one that for you? You're just like, I want to build mandolins that sounds like this one.

Well, I do own one of Steve's that I like an awful lot.

Yeah.

And that is, it's from, it is from 2001 and it just kind of has, it has all the things that I like and it has the sound that I like and the finish and the wood and the right neck angle and a flat board like it, like it should be like the good, like the good lord intended.

I'm also a flat board fan.

Yeah. So that one, I just keep that one out in the shop here and pick it up and play it and go back and forth and just always reminded of that that's there. And it kind of always, you know, gives me a little, a little juice to play it for a little while and know that it's possible.

I love that. What's some advice you would give? I mean, you've probably seen some crazy stuff and I would imagine some stuff that's pretty preventable as well, you know, for people listening. What are some tips for just like care and maintenance that you can do at home that would save them any potential repairs or things they should never do? Probably more importantly, to make sure that they protect their instruments.

Ah, okay. Let's see. Well, humidity is, that's a major factor. You know, the instrument is made of wood. It absorbs and releases moisture. When it absorbs moisture, the top goes up. When it releases moisture, the top goes down. You know, they're. The instruments are pretty tough, but it really varies from instrument to instrument of what they can tolerate. Some of them respond, you know, a lot more than others. Some of them, some of them don't care that much what you do to them. You know, if you think about the fact that, you know, lures were built and people didn't have air conditioning or climate control of, you know, much of any kind, and they heated their houses with coal and wood and all those other kinds of, you know, things that can. And to see how many of them survive that without, without serious damage is, you know, impressive. But not all of them are that lucky. And so I have a, I have a serious ax to grind with the type of humidifiers that people use that are the sponge based ones, especially if you put them into a, a vapor impermeable case like carbon fiber, fiberglass, something like that. The. A lot of people just kind of reflexively humidify their instruments during the winter and those type of humidifiers can very easily run the humidity up to like 70 or 80% or even higher inside of a case, and then whatever, you know, and then you take it out of the case and into a dry environment and it just, just, just shrinks. And it's just, it's a, It's a violent disruption to its state of being. And. And then you put it back in the case and it's. So, it's that, it's that back and forth, it's that push and pull that causes cracks to form, that causes cracks to spread, that causes seams to pop, that causes braces to pop loose. Like the instrument is much happier being stable. Now, of course, there's a, There's a low point where the instrument is too dry for too long. Something is going to give, it's going to crack. But generally speaking, they're happier if they're not subjected to just constant back and forth. You know, extreme humidity changes that I usually tell people to. If you can, you know, control the climate in your whole house, if that's not possible, pick a room, use that room. The. If you can't do that, if you're, you know, those packs, you know, are probably the next best thing, the humidipacks, just because they, they control humidity both ways of high and low. They have, they have a shelf life, and so they'll stop working depending on how extreme the conditions are. But those are kind of a. More of a last resort now. You got to take instruments out and play them because that's what they're, what they're made for. But sometimes people make it harder on the instrument than it needs to be by kind of over, over caring for it with the, with the way that they're humidifying it.

I love the story about Sam playing in Colorado and thinking he would just put the horse in the bathroom with him when he took a hot shower. Terrible idea. Terrible.

I wouldn't recommend that.

I believe he said he didn't recommend it anyway, so that's great advice.

That's a. But that's, that's an extreme environment, though. So you're, there's, there's, there's not, Not a lot you can do to get around that one.

So the, the humidipacks, you think that's probably the best case scenario for somebody to, to humidify in the case?

Yeah, the packs are. Yeah, they. I mean, they, I mean, the, the. The. Where you want to start in all this is as in, you know, an accurate digital hygrometer. If you're, if you're Trying to change the humidity without knowing what the humidity is, you're, it's probably not going to go well.

What's the, what's the perfect humidity for. For an instrument in, in all the environments in, in your opinion or is that actually. I guess it wouldn't be your opinion might be fact actually for it.

Careful. I think that it has a fair amount to do with the state of equilibrium that the wood is in when the instrument is built. If you build, if you build your instruments really dry, they're going to be happiest in that, in that environment. That's just, that's the least amount of movement. If they're, if they're built really swampy, it's probably where it's going to be the happiest. Most things most, you know, for most conditions, 40 to 50% is, is, is a happy place. You can go higher than that, you can go lower than that, it's still going to be okay. But that's where, that's kind of where. That's where I like things to be. That's where I try to, I try to keep my shop like between, between those. If it's, if it's a. Over that for a little while or under that for a little while, it's, it's not the, not the end of the world. But that's a, that's a, it's an interesting question. I mean some, some people think that instruments sound better when they're, when they're wetter. I, I tend to think they sound a little better when they're drier. But that's, that's, that's, that's in the realm of opinion. But.

Well, this is a perfect segue. Then for the final question, an opinion based question. What is your favorite beer?

Well, that's, that's contextual too, you know.

Absolutely.

Sometimes they're just so, so wet and cold. They go down so fast it hardly matters. Other times, yeah, you know, you want one of those kind of thinky beers that have a lot to consider. If I was gonna, if I was gonna go get a beer right now, it'd probably be a Deschutes Black Butte Porter. I'd say not too hoppy.

So if you're sitting around with that Gilchrist playing that mandolin, that's, that's the beer.

Well, beers aren't allowed in the shop.

Oh, good call. Good call. Probably for the best. For multiple reasons. Man, this has been great, Hugh. I really appreciate you taking the time. Where's the best place for people to, to find you if they want to reach out to you for anything, what's the best way for them to do so?

Well, There's a website, HughHanson.com. you can send me an email through there and I'll get it. I'll answer those emails.

I can attest to that. I can bet.

Important? No, no,

man, I. I appreciate it, buddy.

Okay, well, yeah, you too. It's. It's great to talk with you, and I appreciate you having me on.

Absolutely, man, and thank you for that. And next time I stop by, next time I'm in Nashville, I should be there in a couple months here, so I'll holler and see if you're around.

Please do. You're welcome anytime.

Oh, thanks, man. All right. Thank you so much to Hugh for doing the podcast. I think he could probably figure out now why he's so renowned in the Nashville repair world and his mandolins are killer. I hope he starts building some more after this conversation there. They're amazing instruments.

All right.

And again, new merch available online now. Just go to mandolinsbeer. Com, hit the shop button, and it will take you there. Have a fantastic two weeks. Happy and safe. Fourth. Cheers, everybody.