(bright upbeat music) (gentle music) - I moved to this farm a little over 40 years ago.

I've been out here about 41, 42 years.

Moving here, there was a machinery shed that I thought that'll make a nice shop.

I think I got kind of interested in the guitar in high school.

It was during the folk revival of the 50s and 60s, and I was interested in that music and trying to learn that.

My name is Don MacRostie.

I own and operate Red Diamond Mandolins here in Athens, Ohio.

I graduated college in '66, and that was around the start of the Vietnam War, so I wound up in the Navy.

I was in Vietnam.

I was on an aircraft carrier.

I got out of the service in '70.

I decided to use my G.I.

Bill and go back to college.

I came to Ohio University.

I enjoyed not only, you know, going to college, but I loved the area.

I saw a lot of the county and a lot of southeast Ohio, and I've been here ever since.

My sister-in-law had a mandolin, so I was looking at that and I don't have a lot of space.

It'd be a lot easier to build a smaller instrument.

So that's how I picked the mandolin.

I was thinking about a name that I could put on the peghead, and I was reading a book about a fellow who in the 1800s was traveling Europe hunting Stradivarius violins.

And one of the names of the Stradivarius violins was the Red Diamond.

And I said, "Ah, that's a name.

I'll use that."

I've been building for close to 50 years.

I've seen how instruments come through to the audience, and there's an instrument that seems to for bluegrass music really project out a sound, and that's the Gibson's of the early 20s.

They were signed by Lloyd Loar.

- Don MacRostie is one of those guys that was always on the search for the secret formula to the best sounding mandolin, and in my opinion, he found it.

What sets Don's mandolins apart from the rest, in my opinion, is the constant pursuit of the golden era sound.

And when I say that, I mean the mandolins of the early 1920s that were manufactured by Gibson.

He's come up with this really interesting process of measuring the flexibility of the top and back of some of those legendary mandolins, and then using those measurements to kind of guide his own process.

(water spitting) - When I build mandolins, I start out with the sides.

I make the blocks, I bend the sides, and glue them up into a rib assembly.

That's the first step.

And I even put the linings in that allow the tops and the backs to be attached to the side.

Then I'll carve tops next.

The tops will be carved and glued on, and at that point, I'll voice it to some extent.

That means make it of a flexibility that will produce a good sound.

It's the combination of the arch shape, the flexibility, the species of wood, and many other things that produce a sound.

Once that's done and the neck is fitted in, I'll glue the back on, which makes the rib assembly, the body assembly, very rigid.

And then you can put the neck back in it, and set your angle, and finish up the neck.

It'll get a fingerboard.

It'll get a peghead for mounting tuners and decoration of the peghead.

It's traditional for a good mandolin to have a darker finish.

It's a sunburst, they call it.

So it's a shaded finish from a bright sun in the center, golden, to a darker edge.

Once the instrument's completely done, you put strings on it.

I was building mandolins in mid 70s, and it turned out that there was a company here in Athens that did instruments.

It was called Stewart MacDonald.

And then I got into product design with them.

I was able to do things there because of my prior building experience.

And the things that I was doing there, I was able to bring home and better do my building.

For bluegrass and a lot of other styles of music, the F-5 mandolin is what's desirable.

It's beautiful.

The design is incredible.

It's attractive.

A lot of people buy kind of on reputation, and if I build instruments that really please other people, I get customers.

People are excited about playing music.

They want a good instrument.

They love it, and they share with their friends.

- I think Don is helping to strengthen the arts in Ohio by building the best instruments possible.

And I would consider Don's mandolins to be some of the best in the world.

You see him across the bluegrass scene.

Alan Bibey, a really great bluegrass mandolin player, plays his mandolins regularly.

Josh Pinkham, another amazing kind of world-renowned mandolinist, plays Don's mandolins.

And it makes sense that his mandolins are some of the best in the world because he is a sensitive person that way.

You know, he can see what you need and what you're looking for in an instrument and wants to make a product that fills what you need.

It almost feels like a family relationship when you purchase an instrument from Don.

I own two Red Diamonds, and when I look at every nook, and cranny, and corner, everything is just perfect.

There's not a single thing out of place.

And it's really interesting to kind of look at a mandolin and then hear the sound that comes off of it.

The lows are rich and sustaining.

The highs aren't too shrill.

They're very glassy and bell like.

So it's really interesting to play a Red Diamond compared to some of these other mandolins.

There's life in every single note all across the fingerboard.

Not only is he building the best instruments that he possibly can, he's bringing attention from around the world to central and southern Ohio through the kind of craft that he's chosen in his life.

And I think that's really important because it brings fresh musicians and fresh perspectives to this region, and then they take a little bit of Ohio back with them whenever they take one of his mandolins.

- And as I started building mandolins, I started learning to play mandolin too.

By playing, you're able to understand musicians that you're building for.

I play with a couple of guys regularly right now.

We've played together for 40 years probably.

Music has allowed me to buy a farm, raise a family, and love what I do.

There was a term back in the 60s that I latched onto.

It's called right livelihood.

And it meant what you're doing, you know, in your working life has to be right or, you know, contribute to the planet, the world, the neighbors, and not be destructive.

And I think that building instruments and playing music is right livelihood.

I was able through both employment at Stewart MacDonald and my building to do well, you know, to have a good life.

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