Back in 2023, I tracked down an early-1950s Jim Harvey electric mandolin for the Harvey family. I met Ric Baugus, the son of the original owner, “Willy,” in a Denny’s parking lot in Newport, Kentucky. The mandolin was in pretty poor shape, most notably with a nasty repaired neck break (“that was me—when I was about six I jumped over the couch roughhousing with my brother, and landed on the mandolin and broke the neck,” said Ric), and a bunch of missing screws and parts and bent and broken tuners.
The Harvey family wanted to bring it home to have in the family, so I told them I knew THE guy to do the restoration: Garrett Immel (yes, the guitarist of the Ghastly Ones/Satan’s Pilgrims, and also one of the top special-effects makeup guys in the entertainment industry). Garrett restored the Paul Buskirk Harvey doubleneck for me almost fifteen years ago, and he did such an amazing job bringing that guitar back to life, I knew he was the man to take on this job.
In typical Garrett style, he could have done it the easy way, but chose to do it the right way. He made a new replacement neck for the mandolin, used the original fingerboard and headstock cap, and then when he refinished the entire instrument, he aged the binding and the lacquer so that you can’t really tell what’s old and what’s new. He completely rewired the instrument, made a new pickguard for it, polished all the metal parts. He told me it was finished, and when I went to pick it up, I couldn’t believe how damn good it looked (compare to the “before” pic of Ric holding the instrument when I met him in Ohio). Incredible work!
You never know with Garrett, because the guy is so damn talented with everything he touches, but he says he plans on doing more high-end instrument restoration work like this in the future. In the past, his work schedule working for such shows as The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad (and a hundred other movies and TV shows) have kept him from working on guitars other than a few for me and a few for himself and the bands he plays with. It’d be great if he could share his luthier talents with the world, he’s one of the best I’ve ever seen! Howard and Flower Harvey—you won’t believe how great this thing looks when you see it in person.
See more photos at Deke’s original Facebook post!
