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Hi all,

I've been lurking for months here, as a way of figuring out how to do a bunch of things that I needed to do on my first build. Thought I'd pass along a few photos of the results.

I'm learning to play along with my son, and as we've got a couple of guitars and I've done some carving in the past, I thought a mandolin would be a fun project this summer. Started with the Siminoff book, but figured that if I was going to build something new, I didn't want it to look like it was from the 1920's (sorry if I step on some toes here). Leaned heavily on Breedlove KF styling with a few of my own touches (at least I thought they were my own 'till I saw them elsewhere).

The thing that really kicked it off was a piece of padauk project wood at Lee Valley, that I used for the fretboard, bridge, up the spine of the neck and all the binding. Pain in the butt to bend, but looks amazing. Sitka spruce on the top, maple back and sides.

Did a few things differently than the book. Built it up without a form, which meant I had to be a lot more careful with the bending. Built up my linings with mahogany and spruce, rather than kerfed linings. Carved out the insides of the top and back first, then the outsides - just seemed a lot easier to me to have flat surfaces to work on.

Overall a low investment in jigs and tools. No forms (means I don't feel obliged to pound out a bunch more of the same shape), pliers to pre-bend frets, cheap plumbing as a bending iron. If you are not careful, this hobby could get as expensive as fly-fishing!

Total time about 120 hours effort, started late April, strung 'er up around Labour day. Great action and tone (at least to my ears), just got to learn how to play the thing now...

I'll let some pictures do the talking...

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Jim Brosseau

Three builds under my belt now...
I'll always be an amateur builder - don't want to turn a joy into a job!

I like it.
Function of the wood piece between the bridge and the tailpiece?

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

...that's a harmonic supressor - it's held on with grommets on the outer courses, with some felt to kill any vibration on the inner courses. Could buy one online (look up Weber Wood Nymph), but I had some spare padauk and maple, so I made my own for about $0.50 in about 10 minutes

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Jim Brosseau

Three builds under my belt now...
I'll always be an amateur builder - don't want to turn a joy into a job!

Very cool body shape that is pleasing to my eye, and it ought to be a crowd pleaser if this little axe ever gets to be played on a stage. I am assuming the top and back are carved.....yes? I think it's a real nice instrument.
Mandos are a lot of fun, and they are serious instruments--capable of producing some wonderful music in the hands of the right player. Or...just producing a lot of fun and good times in the hands of someone learning to play. There's no harm in that! Everyone wins!

Congratulations,
Patrick

Very Nice work . I am sure she will be a joy to play . Can you post a clip of how she sounds for us ? Welcome to OLF and your first post is a homerun !

You know what this means now dont you ? Ya gotta do it AGAIN !!

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Again, very nice work, Jim. I especially enjoyed the "in-progress" shots.

Best regards,
Lincoln

Thanks for the feedback, gang. First time through it can be pretty daunting to 'put it out there', maybe you are all just a lot kinder than the kind of people that like to hang out on other boards

Get an MP3 posted? I'm working on it. I built the damned thing so I could learn how to play, so I wouldn't nearly do the thing justice (ties back to Patrick's 'in the hands of the right player' comment - that ain't me!). I've been dragging it around with me to players I know, so far the feedback there has been very positive as well - great playability, surprising sustain. I'll try to corner one of them that knows their way around the mandolin to play a few licks while I'm recording...stay tuned.

...and have run into a kink in the works as well. I had a set of cheap strings that I used during the build, put them on and took them off a couple of times in the process. For both of these, the E strings both came unwound at the tailpiece, I assumed it was the on/off workout. Strung 'er up with a better set of D'Addarios, and the same thing happened with one of those E strings.

Looking online suggests this problem has happened before, usually with cast tailpieces that are smooth and don't offer anything for the string to 'bite into'. Anyone run into this before? Suggestions? Could go to an alternative brand with tougher loops, have also read suggestions like crazy glue on the loop or to scratch up the post on the tailpiece - yuk!

_________________
Jim Brosseau

Three builds under my belt now...
I'll always be an amateur builder - don't want to turn a joy into a job!

Looks great! Congrats and welcome.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I like your bending setup. What is the temperature range that you can get with this heat gun setup? By the way great job. It looks great...Mike

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Another day, another dollar.

Thanks, Mike.

I never took any temperature measurements, other than the fact that the pipe got really hot, really fast. After a couple of minutes I could spray water onto the vertical pipe and it would sizzle off immediately. The pipe holds the heat well. I've got no doubt that it could handle the full thickness of guitar sides.

The heat gun is a brute, with a listed temperature range of 500-750 degrees F, I used it set to about the halfway point by slightly closing the intake on the side. Can run it for an hour or more and it doesn't even flinch. Probably a cost that's up there with a dedicated bending tool, but I had it lying around (actually, a neighbour gave it to me) and it works great.

The maple was a breeze to bend with almost no browning (and I could take that right off with 120 grit), and the big thing for me compared to a lot of homemade bending setups was that there was no open flame to worry about.

The padauk, though, as others have indicated on this forum, was a serious pain in the butt to bend, even for the thin pieces I used for the binding.

_________________
Jim Brosseau

Three builds under my belt now...
I'll always be an amateur builder - don't want to turn a joy into a job!