Hi-Line Living: The making of a mandolin

Stan Wall makes mandolins from scratch.

Or, he used to. He made his last complete mandolin in 2005. After that, a myriad of medical problems led him to put down his wood-working tools until further notice.

A half-made mandolin sits in his workshop, waiting for him to give it life. It will be purple when it's finished, as commissioned by his young granddaughter, who played in small cowboy boots in the yard.

Stan said the first mandolin took him 400 hours to make. Toward the end, he was able to cut that time in half - still, not a quick project.

"I made a lot of mistakes the first time," he said.

He's been playing mandolins most of his life. He said he always wanted a Florentine-style mandolin, which has swooping and curving embellishments on it that traditional, generally teardrop-shaped, mandolins do not have.

Th Florentine-style, or F-model, mandolin was invented by Gibson in 1916.

Stan couldn't afford to buy one, so he bought a book instead: "How to Make a Bluegrass Mandolin."

"When I looked at that, I didn't think I could make one," he said. "There was so much to it. I put it away for a while."

He finally decided that if he ever wanted to do it, he had to try. He bought three-quarter inch boards of maple and spruce from Ohio.

He cut a basic mandolin shape out of the wood with a jigsaw, then using finger planes, he sheared curves into the boards.

Mandolins have a rounded back and the front of the instrument is curved on the inside.

He made templates of thin pieces of wood to measure the curvature of the boards at any given point of the instrument in order to have an idea what needs to be planed more. Or, unfortunately, what was shaved too deep.

Stan said he took woodworking back in high school and really loved it. He built a few pieces of furniture. And couple carpenters used to go out to the farm his family has owned for four generations and help his father with projects.

"They were very particular," he said. "They used a lot of hand tools. They helped me a lot in using tools."

He said "that was about it" as far as his woodwork training goes.

The fretboard, that will be placed on the neck, he buys from China, with the designs already placed on them. He measures and secures the frets himself.

Though his woodworking has slowed, Stan still plays mandolin in Havre with a group he's been with for a while.

Right now, the name of the group is Holly and the Hi-Line Pickers, and they visit the care center to play for the residents every few weeks, he said. They also played at the Fourth of July community barbecue in Pepin Park this year.

He has been playing with the group through its many incarnations for 15 years.

Stan has three grown sons and lives with his wife about a dozen miles north of Kremlin. One of his sons lives on the farm property with his family - his wife and two young kids.

Stan said it was family that inspired him to start playing the mandolin.

When Stan was a month old, his uncle died. His uncle was a mandolin player and his father played guitar; together they would pick songs they grew up with and make new music.

"Dad always said, 'Oh, I wish he was here and we could play some music together,'" Stan said. "I thought 'Man, if I could do that, maybe I could play with him.' Which we did."

He said the mandolin is easy to play.

He travels slowly on foot with his cane now, since a medical issue took the use of his leg. In a bedroom filled with instruments including guitars, banjos and dobros, Stan picked up his go-to mandolin, created with his own hands.

His fingers ran smoothly over the strings and frets, playing familiar tunes in the house his family built.