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Made a mandolin for one of my favourite musicians, it was a struggle but pretty fun. I think it turned out well...

Torrefied Lutz/Walnut with ebony board and bridge. Didn’t have time for pics, but it has an adjustable bridge whereby a drop in saddle can be sanded from the bottom like an acoustic bridge. Will repeat. The coolest thing is that if I can sell these things for a reasonable amount, my wood supply just went up as I have about 150+ beautiful lutz tops with knots and sap pockets that can’t be used for guitars...




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Nice one Ed, looks like a lot of fun and turned out great.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Very nice mandolin.
I like the design. It might sell well with the irish music crowd. If you upscale it you could also use that design for octave mandolins and bouzoukis.
I guess you have to be careful about going in too many different directions, but if you can manage to still build things efficiently, diversifying has some benefits. As you mentioned, being able to use pieces of wood that would otherwise go to waste is a plus. What was once kindling might now be an "AAA" grade top. If you do resawing it also allows you to make better use of off cuts that are too short for guitar wood and select pieces you might otherwise pass up.
Another benefit I have found is that it keeps things "fresh" - It provides some relief from doing the same things over and over and offers some mental stimulation, which I think ultimately improves everything we make.

Looks nice. I made on for my self about a year ago and I just love the thing. In fact I think I like the sound of the 'flat top' mandolins better then the carved top ones. They ring loud! I know what you mean by wood too. I have orphan backs and tops that can be made into mando's, and ukes.

The novelty aspect was most refreshing, that's for sure. Tthe most frustrating part was fretting the FB. I was under a real tight time limit when I blew the first neck, ended up having to pull an all nighter the night bfor delivery.

Straight from the plans from the Graham MacDonald book, except for the bridge...

I'd like to build myself one someday.

Nice! What did you finish it with?

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

Wipe on varnish...

Very nice!

Thanks! I'd like to do more and see if I can apply some science to it, rather than just speccing from a book...but even done that way it sounded considerably nicer than any mando I've head IRL, though they've all been supercheap junk, so...

Very nice! Thanks for posting all those construction photos.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

No worries. There's a bunch more if you have any specific questions. The FB radius jig was from this project too...

If you’ve got someone local with a cnc machine PM me and I’ll send you a 3dm file for cutting an A style archtop mando. This is a long scale Octave I did from the same file.

That's pretty cool!

Do you prefer the arched over flat soundwise?

I'll keep the offer for the file in mind if I ever get to building one of those...

I don’t know if I can answer the sound question without some AB testing over a beer or three. I do think the archtop looks cool though.

It sure does, though seems like a lot more work, even with a CNC...

Are the plans in the book by Graham McDonald titled "The Mandolin Project: A shop guide... " or in his other one? I was considering buying a paperback for $14.88 (used).

It was 'the mandolin project'. Plans are not to scale, but you can download full scale plane from his website, you just got to bring a ruler when you print them off...

https://www.facebook.com/10000378382379 ... 931598186/

I was quite pleased by this...

You should be, for sure. Looks and sounds like a success to me.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter