One of our favorite builders, Rolfe Gerhardt of Phoenix Mandolins is displaying his wares at the Newport Guitar Festival in Newport, Rhode Island August 4-6. This event draws together other major innovators in guitar and mandolin construction in this hemisphere and beyond. New England area connoisseurs of tone, exploit this unique opportunity to see, hear, and feel a vast assortment of high quality instruments and talk one-on-one with their makers.

In particular, check out the inlaying and prime Neoclassical woods and construction of Rolfe's "Daisies." According the Phoenix website, "The idea of making the entire mandolin the "canvass" with inlays of daisies on just the ebony parts took six months from imagination to paper. The actual work of cutting out the designs and inlaying them into the ebony took probably seventy hours, one solid week for nothing but the fingerboard. When it was all done, the green stain shaded into black seemed the way to go with gold and black hardware on the tuners."

View image: Daisies

The Newport Guitar Festival is being held on at the Hyatt Regency and Conference Center in Newport.

Posted by Ted at August 5, 2006 11:58 AM