Former New Mexico farmer morphs into master mandolin maker

CABALLO, N.M. To get to Bill Bussmann's house, you take exit 63, the Hillsboro exit, off of I-25, about two hours south of Albuquerque. It gets interesting after that. Instructions for finding his place include looking for a gravel road halfway between two specified mile markers, driving to the edge of a canyon, following the switchbacks to the bottom, continuing past the ranch house on the left and looking for a dozen mailboxes on a big timber. You still won't be there, but you're getting close. Bussmann, 68, and his wife, Susie, live in an adobe brick and stone house they built 40 years ago along Animas Creek in this tiny community...A shed Bussmann once used to process garlic is the heart of Old Wave Mandolins, a business he has operated for 27 years. In this place, crowded now with chisels, gouges, carving knives, hand planes, slabs of wood, diagrams and instruments in various stages of development, Bussmann has turned out 585 stringed wonders — mostly mandolins but also archtop guitars, steelstring guitars, mandolas, octave mandolins, mandocellos and a dulcimer. Usually, they are magnificent works of art, gracefully formed, stained and buffed to lustrous tones ranging from dazzling golds to dark, rich, almost ebony browns and boasting wood grains that ripple and vibrate just beneath the surface of the shine. Bussmann's mandolins range in price from $2,600 to $4,500. "My motto is cheap and built to stay that way," he said. Anyone who has known Bussmann for more than two minutes is aware of his sense of humor. And that being the case, some of his most popular creations have been his whimsical designs. His best known works in this vein are his watermelon mandolins, shaped and colored like a slice of watermelon with a bite chomped out of it. But he has also turned out a mandolin shaped like a chunk of Swiss cheese and a bass guitar formed like a bass fish — a bass bass...more