Eastman MD515-BK-LTD Limited Edition Black Gloss F-Style Mandolin #0105

The percussive bark required to cut right through a dense bluegrass jam is exactly where the Eastman MD515-BK-LTD establishes its dominance. Underneath the hood, tone bar bracing works alongside a premium, hand-carved solid Adirondack spruce top—a massive acoustic upgrade over the standard model. By switching over to Adirondack spruce, Eastman injected this F-style with a massive amount of headroom and volume, ensuring your chopped rhythm chords sound incredibly tight, dry, and percussive. When you back off your pick attack, it yields a remarkably sweet, ringing resonance with smooth trebles and a focused woody low end, proving it's just as comfortable floating through Celtic melodies or old-time fiddle tunes.

Visually, this limited-edition F-style throws it all the way back to the golden era of the late 1890s, mimicking the iconic aesthetic choices of Orville Gibson’s earliest hand-built pieces. The body sports a striking Truetone Gloss black top finish paired up with a classic diamond-pattern rosette and crisp ivoroid top binding. To keep it feeling fast and natural, Eastman paired that polished gloss top with a fast satin finish on the solid maple back, sides, and neck. This results in an incredibly honest, classic silhouette that looks like a prize family heirloom on a stand but behaves with all the road-ready stability of a modern performance tool.

In the hands, it behaves like an extension of your own technique, offering a smooth, comfortable platform built for serious speed. The maple neck is capped with an ebony fingerboard and carved to a comfortable 12-inch radius, giving you a completely predictable playing surface up and down all 23 frets of Jescar wire. An adjustable compensated ebony bridge working with a custom Eastman cast aluminum tailpiece ensures that your string energy is cleanly transferred straight into the top, optimizing sustain and response. Complete with rock-solid Pingwell geared tuners and housed in a hardshell case, the MD515-BK-LTD is a specialized, high-performance machine built for players who want punchy vintage authority and completely unique style.

SPECS
Top Material: Solid Adirondack Spruce
Back Sides: Solid Maple
Fingerboard: Ebony
Neck Material: Maple
Bridge: Adjustable Compensated Ebony
Bracing: Tone Bars
Scale Length: 13 7/8"
Finish: Truetone Gloss Top With Satin Back And Sides
Nut Width: 1 3/32"
Fingerboard Radius: 12"
Fretwire: 23 Jescar FW37053
Body Style: F-Style W/ F-Holes
Body Dimensions: 26 11/16" X 10" X 1 7/8"
Truss Rod: Single Acting
Binding: Top
Binding Material: Ivoroid
Logo: Pearl Headstock
Inlay: Pearl Dots
Rosette: Diamond Pattern
Side Dot Color: Black
Hardware Color: Nickel
Pickguard: None
Tailpiece: Eastman Cast Aluminum Tailpiece
Nut Height: .018"
Tuners: Pingwell RM-1583N-26A
Strap Peg: Ebony
Strings: D'Addario XT Phosphor Bronze 1140
Action Height: 0.060"/0.050"
Case Type: Hardshell

To hear this limited-edition black-top mandolin in action, check out The Acoustic Shoppe's Eastman MD515-BK-LTD Mandolin Review for a firsthand look at its premium features and resonant tone.

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