I am honored to work with Bruce Weber as an endorsing artist for the last 21 years, and genuinely blessed to have him as a friend. After he sold Weber and started building again, I went with his new company, Montana Lutherie.
The First Fern Story
One of the things Bruce suggested during my Sound to Earth visit, planning the first custom build, was to have me play a piece that would demonstrate different aspects of my performance technique, and allow Bruce and his colleagues to see and hear how I use the instrument first hand.
His first recommendation; a cedar top. He had some very special cedar that he thought would compliment my style of playing, and the particular flatwound strings that I preferred at the time. I didn’t learn until several years later that the tree this cedar came from, was originally cut in 1910! We chose some wood for the back, and I gave him the three pieces of heavy charcoal explained below.
I received that first custom Weber Fern April 5, 2005. When I first opened the case I was struck by the superb workmanship. Beautiful wood, incredible colors, impeccable finish work in every detail.
A very special feature of this Mandolin is a pickguard, armrest and truss rod cover made from the only wood that could be salvaged from the Andrew Pool (my Great-Grandfather) homestead cabin outside Greycliff, Montana. A forest fire had consumed the cabin in 2003. In June 2004 I traveled with my daughter Kelley to Greycliff, to visit the site.
Below is a pic (#1) of the homestead cabin when I first visited the site in October 2001 just before the CMSA convention in Bozeman, Montana. At that time the cabin walls were still standing over about 80% of the structure. My Grandmother, Pansy Genevieve Pool rode the horse that pulled these logs up the mountain as her father cut the trees down for the cabin. She was about twelve years old at the time.
Next is a picture (#2) of the cabin site taken during a visit in 2004, after a forest fire had reduced the cabin to ash. We were able to find only three pieces of charcoal left with any weight (Pic #3). One was about the size of a large softball, and Bruce Weber was able to get enough usable wood from this piece for a pickguard (pic #4), armrest, and truss rod cover for the first Fern, and later, a pickguard for Big Horn Octave Mandolin he built for me. The Bighorn pickguard (pic #5) is finished in clear lacquer, and the scorched edges of the wood comtrast well!
The addition of special woods with family history, made these custom instruments even more special. The last picture (Soprano Mandolin) was taken on Bruce Weber’s workbench after he fit a custom armrest and pickguard, made from walnut harvested on my father’s farm.
