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I've done 3 mandolins now, each specced just a tad different. Where do you guys carve the flexibility into your top/back plates? Do you concentrate at the recurve, the center, or the entire plate? What would happen if you carved most of the flexibility at the center and made the recurve stiffer?


In my mind I see the plates as "bouncing" or flexing at the recurve, not much different than a speaker cone. And then there's the question of deflection, which I've started doing recently. It seems a deflection measurement would directly measure a plates flexibility.

I have never done a carved top .... so take this for what its worth

It seems to me that you would want the flex more around the recurve , simply from the amount of string tension at the center . To thin in the center and you would create a possibility of topcollapse at bridge .

OK guys who know their stuff , correct me !

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