@Bryan Kimsey I noticed your mandolin is scooped. I've been thinking about scooping the extension on my KY-1500. I keep my action set pretty low & I used to hate the extension because of all the pecking sounds from my pick tapping the fingerboard. Over time I've gotten used to the extension, but I still occasionally hear pick pecks on my recordings. Other than stopping the annoying woodpecker, How will scooping affect the overall feel & playability of the mandolin? P.S. Hmmm...…….scooping an extension. Sounds like another idea for a video.
It won't affect it at all. My daughter has a KM-1000 and I scooped the extension on it. The way I did it was stupid simple. I just held it up to the curve on the belt sander and sanded off the frets and extension. BUT, I left the fret tangs in and that way it looks stock. From 5' away you can't even tell it was scooped. Just getting the fret tops off will automatically give you 0.035" of clearance and any scoop from there is a bonus. They don't have to be DEEP scoops at all. If they do, you're using too much pick. :)
@@Bryankimsey lol That's awesome!! I wouldn't have thought to use the sander. It's perfect for the job & would give you more control than a Dremel. I enlarged a sound hole in a cheap guitar with a Dremel about a yr ago. I had to trim some of the fingerboard to blend it better. It had a longer than normal fingerboard & it stuck out over the sound hole worse than Tony's. I blended it well enough that it fooled a guy that worked for guitar center. He bought it knowing that I had worked on it. A scoop wouldn't be much more difficult than that. Doing it with the sander would greatly speed the process as well. I like the look of a clean extension. If I do mine, I'll only scoop it till I get rid of the fret slots. You're right. There's no need to go an further than that.
