Official Luthiers Forum!

Hey guys, any thoughts on the best reference book for the building of mandolins?

Thanks,
Trev

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http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

My favorite is Graham McDonald's "The Mandolin Project". Very simple but complete explanations on wood selection etc. and gives several options of basic design(e.g. Flattop vs. archtop) he also has a book on bouzoukis that is very good if a bigger instrument is desired. If I could go back in time and start over I'd go with these two.

I built several flat top mandolins from "The Mandolin Manual" by john Troughton. That's a good book too. He has instructions on building a flat top mandolin, mandola and octave mandolin. All pretty much the same thing with different size bodies and scale lengths.

The first book I bought was the Siminoff ultimate Bluegrass mandolin which includes full size plans of an F5. It's very detailed and gives a lot of information on wood selection, jigs, materials for binding etc. It's a little dated though and gives ideas for gathering or fabricating certain materials and parts that are easily obtained from online suppliers these days. I personally found the information in the text too detailed, so much so that it just scared me away for several years before actually building. It also just focuses on the F5 and the only mention of other mandolins, as I recall, is to say why the F5 is better. But, if you want to build an F5 it's a great book.

Ray

If you are really serious about building mandolins, I'd highly recommend taking one of Roger Siminoff's courses.

I have recently completed my first mando build http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=41911 and used the Graham McDonald as a reference and the plans.

I would definitely recommend it, though I did find that it was a little thin on details in some areas, but as long as you already have build experience you should have no problem filling in the gaps as it covers all the main more mando specific areas.

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Nick

Follow my musings on getting started in luthiery http://www.tredwellinstruments.co.uk

If you want to build an archtop, you can check out American lutherie 76 & 77 . They have a great 2 part article by Peggy Stuart on building an archtop mando with Don MacRostie. Lots of up to date information and photos.

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http://www.cushmanguitars.com/.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain

Mandolin land is a funny place. You have the die hard "if it aint a archtop Gibson clone, preferably using Loars dimensions, then it aint a mandolin" crowd. Then there is the bowlback "Emberger or shame" school. Then there is the rest, "Cool... bent top oxymagonal shape man.." rest of us. If you are part of the rest you cant go past Graham McDonalds books. He certainly has a very wide perspective on the instrument. If you are Lloyd Loar tattoo guy Siminoff for sure. His web backup etc is first class. For the bowlbacks I havent found a great English resource yet although there is a build going on on the Mandolin Cafe that is superb.