Official Luthiers Forum!

I saw where my son Brad has posted some pic of a Guitar and thought you might like to see one of our mandolins. Its not flawless but, I've never made a flawless one. This is the first one I've built in 5 or 6 years. I just wanted to see if I could still do it. It has a really great sound.

Well Melvin, it sure seems like you can still do it!!
Welcome to OLF. I'd love details on the finishing, if you could share. It looks great!

_________________
Dave
Milton, ON

Gorgeous mando!

Melvin!
Welcome to the OLF!

_________________
Support the OLF! Bookmark our STEWMAC link Today!
Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Wow, that's really nice!

And another Welcome to the OLF!

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I have built a few f-style mandolins and I know how difficult they are to build, much harder than a guitar. Looks to me like you can still do it! The inlay is beautiful and I like the one piece back. Great work!

That you all for the good comments. Someone asked about the finish. It is just a basic sunburst that I have used for years. On this mandolin I dyed the mandolin Orange all over. If you want a yellow sunburst dye it yellow first. After that dried I started appling the tobacco brown sunburst with an air bursh. I used water stain here you can probably get a little darker stain using alcohol stain but, it is not as light fast as the water stain. I then applied about 3 coats of thin laquer (Lawrence Mcfaddin) for a sealer and dust coat. Let that dry a day and dust sanded with 320 or 400 grit paper, very lightly just to remove the fuzz, dust etc. Well, then I sprayed 6 to 8 coats of lacquer at 1 hr intervals. Let set for a week or two then level sand with finer and finer grits then go to the buffer. I probably sanded of somewhere around 2 or 3 coat before I buffed it out.

Sweet!

Simply beautiful.....I sure would be proud to own that if I played mandolin. Gorgeous work Melvin, and a sincere welcome here to the OLF. It's our pleasure to see such fine craftsmanship. Thanks for sharing that!

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Melvin,
Great work, you haven't missed a beat. I'd love to see more mandolins builds. I'm tossing the idea of a mandolin build.

Mark, I have heard that building an F style is more difficult that building a guitar, can you elaborate on what makes it a harder build? Grumpy, jump right in here, I know you play and build.
Thanks
Peter

She's a beauty Melvin. Nice colors too!

_________________
jw ( o)===:::

I'm really interested in knowing how you applied the finish inside the curl at the top of the upper bout. I love the look of these F style mandolins and there is no comparison tot he sound they generate. Well done my friend!

_________________
Reguards,

Ken H

It's not flawless he says!!!

It looks GREAT!!

as to mandos being harder than guitars, the attention to detail in a smaller build is more focused. a 3 mm ding on a guitar will be noticeable, but on a mando it'll look HUGE!!!

_________________
My soundclick xx luthier blog xx luthier soundclick

I can tell you a few things that make it harder than a guitar.
The binding (bending to tight curves and such) is a bear. Cutting the channel for the binding at the scroll is done freehand, too.
His tops and backs are carved by hand. F holes cut out freehand, too.
everything is smaller, which makes it more difficult.
Those are just a couple of things, but they add up to a lot of time, head scratching, and nerve racking freehand work. It's good for stress relief!

_________________
Brad Tucker

Very nice! What did you finish it with?
Terry

_________________
It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Gorgeous! Love that finish!

It is finished with Lawrence Macfadden Lacquer.

Melvin, The reason a mandolin is much harder to build than a guitar (flattop guitar anyway) is 1. carved top and back plates, the scroll spirals around rising as it goes with a cove on either side that rises to a ridge. (hard to put in words) The plates are also carved on the inside surface, just like a violin or archtop guitar. 2. routing the binding channels around the scroll, I use a dremel in a stew-mac router base and let the base rest partially on the scrolls surface and freehand to a pencil line. 3. The headstock has a lot of detailed curves where, again the binding channels are a bear to cut. A lot of freehand work there too. Overall, there is a lot more intricate detail involved on a much smaller body. I guess thats why handmade mandolins are so expensive, even a new Gibson will set you back several thousand. There is a friend of mine here in Bristol that builds mandolins fulltime and has quite a reputation among Bluegrassers, Ray Dearstone, check out Ray's website http://www.dearstone.com/ - 9k - I just like to have a project going all the time, be it a guitar, mandolin, or a fiddle. A mandolin will keep you busy for a long time! I've made seven so far.

I'm sorry, my post should have been addressed to psl53 not Melvin.

It looks great, Melvin!

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin