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I've been wanting to do a carved top instrument for a while now and thought that I'd go for a F style mando. I found a nice board in my brother's house during a remodel and it worked out perfect for the top for this. I'm not sure what species it is. I thought it was spruce when I found it, but after carving and sanding, I'm thinking it is pine. The rest of the body will be traditional figured maple. The shape is close to that outlined in Siminoff's "Constructing a Bluegrass Mandolin", but the idea for the inside form for this was taken from Hans' posting. Anyway, now for some pics of the progress I've made.

Looks good to me so far ! I am not sure how pine will work , maybe someone else can offer a thought . Thanks for posting I look forward to seeing more

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

I got a little more work done on this. I carved out the maple back, not nearly as fun as carving the top. It took me a crazy long time to carve in comparison. I glued the top to the rims, and I've cut out pieces for the neck and they are gluing up now.

Nice work on that back carving , Keep it up . That maple has a great look , it should finish out beautifully.

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

I'm making some decent progress on this. The body is together, the neck is set, I just made the fingerboard today. The next step I am really dreading, BINDING. I haven't really figured out how I'm going to approach this part of the build yet. It is just so much different than binding a flat top guitar. I think I'm just going to build a binding jig for my dremel and take that route. Anyway, here are some pics of the progess. Hope you enjoy.

I LIKE IT~!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Is the neck already set? Ive only built one F style but that was one of the promises I made myself "Dont set the neck till you have bound it"

Nice work, that back is a thriller!

Thanks Sebastiaan. The neck is already set. I'm kind of wishing I hadn't set it yet, but the Siminoff book details installing the neck before the back , so that's the way I did it as well. I made a jig similar to the MacRostie dremel attatchment. I haven't had a chance to test it out yet, but hopefully this weekend I'll be able to get to the binding part of this build.

Ok, so I got the binding on yesterday. It was a long, long day of binding, breaking pieces, and cussing. I have now decided that next time I build an F style I will not be using wood binding. I bound it with a Wenge binding and Maple purfling. I'm fairly pleased with the outcome, but That was extremely frustrating trying to bend and get these pieces to fit with only two hands. Now for a ton of scraping.

I got some scraping done, and the binding/purfling on the headstock. I can't wait to get this thing all sanded up!

I thought I'd update this a bit. Since last update, I have installed the truss rod, installed frets and glued on the fretboard. I have finish sanded everything and have almost finished the burst on it. Just a few more small details to work on, like making the bridge, and letting finish cure. Then I can finally string it up.

Its looking very good , I am anxious to hear her sing . Looking forward to further post !

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Looks great, Andrew! How did you manage to keep the maple purfling white while you applied your sunburst?

Lincoln, I painted epoxy over the bindings/purflings and then sprayed the burst. Then after the burst was sprayed, I scraped back all the way to bare wood just on the bindings/purflings. It was REALLY time consuming. Next time I will just be using plastic so I don't have to do the extra epoxy step. I like how the purfling turned out, but I don't think it is really any nicer than just using plastic for that part.

Thanks, Andrew. I was kind of thinking that sort of thing would work, except that I proposed to use superglue instead of epoxy.

I've got some build coats of lacquer on it now. It needs to be level sanded and then a final coat applied, but I thought I'd show the progress.

It has strings on. I still have to make a tailpiece cover and truss rod cover, but I can finally hear what it sounds like. Now if I could play more than one song on it. I guess now I have to learn how to play it. Thanks for watching my build everyone.

Looks beautifull ! See if you can have a short vid made of yourself or someone else playing so we van hear her sing !

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Here's a quick clip of me playing the new mandolin.

Very sweet sound , excellent work !

Time to start another one , what ya waiting on ?

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

very nice.... great job on the burst too