Jam's Mandolin

[Akula]

Ok, I wasn't really going to post anything about this, or the rather mundane strat-type I'm working on at the moment. But something radical happened to me in the workshop yesterday, and if I post this build then it's a good excuse to share my anecdote with the fine people of Project Guitar.

 

So I was routing out the pickup bays in this dreary strat. I've got the template taped and clamped down to the body, and I've drilled a bunch of holes to remove material before routing. Nonetheless, it's still a wise idea to spin the router up and plunge it into the timber, so it doesn't catch and tear out upon start-up. I got into the "woodworker's stance" - feet a shoulder's width apart, legs slightly bent, hips locked, then I started up the router and bent my knees to keep my body locked in position to brace the powerful router in my hands.

That's when my belt buckle popped and broke. 

Now, I don't know if you've ever held a fearsome machine in your hands, spinning a sharp cutting tool at high speeds, with your pants dropped around your ankles, but it's quite the experience! Needless to say, I stopped the machine safely, put my skinny ass away, and hobbled back to the house to find another belt. If anybody is considering becoming the Naked Chef of Luthiers, I don't recommend it.

 

 

Anyways! Now I've gotten that off my chest, I'd like to share this non-guitar build of mine. I'm going to build a mandolin. 

 

 

I'll be taking a rather unorthodox approach to the construction, notably by avoiding to bend the sides. I'm a selfish luthier - the guitars I build for myself, I build it because I want it, and this time I want a mandolin. What I don't want is a ton of specialised acoustic-building equipment, namely bending irons and gobar deck, in my tiny workshop with limited space. Mark my words: I shall soon invest in all this stuff, build an acoustic guitar, and become part of that particular club. But a mandolin is probably too fiddly and challenging an instrument to begin my acoustic journey with, and so this mandolin will be what electric guitar builders call "chambered".

 

I've got a bridge, nut, and a rail pickup in the post. A lot of stuff like fretwire and tuners I have in the spares drawer. May even try my hand at fabricating a tailpiece from steel sheet. I've picked up a board of Meranti, and resawed it into body and neck blanks, and I'll resaw an offcut of maple to make the tiny fretboard. I've been working on my CAD skills, too, I haven't even drawn this on paper not once! 

 

 - Jam

[Asdrael]

Not going to lie, half way in I thought this was going to be a circumcision story.

 

Nice build plan tho. Seems more solid than your buckle.

[Bizman62]

I love horror stories with a happy ending. While reading about the buckle popping I first imagined that it bounced under the rotating bit and got cut into a thousand shrapnels which were then shot all around your body.

Goes to show that no matter how embarrassing you may look, keeping your calm is essential to prevent real accidents. Well performed!

[ScottR]

On 5/6/2024 at 6:56 AM, Akula said:

So I was routing out the pickup bays in this dreary strat. I've got the template taped and clamped down to the body, and I've drilled a bunch of holes to remove material before routing. Nonetheless, it's still a wise idea to spin the router up and plunge it into the timber, so it doesn't catch and tear out upon start-up. I got into the "woodworker's stance" - feet a shoulder's width apart, legs slightly bent, hips locked, then I started up the router and bent my knees to keep my body locked in position to brace the powerful router in my hands.

That's when my belt buckle popped and broke. 

Now, I don't know if you've ever held a fearsome machine in your hands, spinning a sharp cutting tool at high speeds, with your pants dropped around your ankles, but it's quite the experience! Needless to say, I stopped the machine safely, put my skinny ass away, and hobbled back to the house to find another belt. If anybody is considering becoming the Naked Chef of Luthiers, I don't recommend it.

That made me laugh out loud.... and then sort of gasp in horror at what might have been. Very cool headed to not give into instinct and try to grab the falling pants.

I applaud your project. I made me an electric mandolin a few years back with a P-90 style pickup actually designed for a mandolin.

What a fun little instrument! It's a blast to run through your pedals.

 

Cheers!

SR

[Akula]

It was frightening! I mean, think of it this way: if something goes so badly wrong with a plunge router that it comes in contact with your groin area, chances are your denim workpants aren't going to save you. But still, routing with your nuts hanging out - that's a hell of a scary moment!

 

I glued up and cavitied the body blank. Here be a shot of the underside of the top half before the back was glued on. I'd like to point attention to the alignment dowels in the neck and tail blocks, they helped align the outside body shape template with the inside cavity template. There's a 12mm R roundover on the outside and a 6mm R roundover on the inside, so I needed a way to ensure they matched perfectly. Excuse the mess on the underside of the top - I foolishly routed away much of the surface area for the router to ride on. A lot of that fuzz got cleared up with scrapers to leave a flat and uniform top.

 

Top half got conjoined to the bottom half, routed to body shape with a template riding on the alignment dowels. Then I did the roundover, and after that a binding channel. Binding won't be added until a little bit later on, but I wanted the groove done sooner rather than later.

 

Stacked neck heel, scarf jointed headstock, and the tiniest little fretboard I've ever slotted. 

 

And there we go, two components of a stringed instrument. 

 

 - Jam

[Akula]

Got some work done on this one, despite trying to keep the shop fairly dust-free for finish work on that mundane strat. 

 

 

I used up a few bits of spare binding, white for the fretboard and faux abalone for the headstock and eventually body too. New tricks I tried out include tucking the headstock binding underneath the fretboard binding, and including the fretboard binding around the nut. Had to slightly trim the bone nut to fit - used the bench grinder and it stunk out the whole place for hours. 

 

Semi-hemi fret ends on a bound fretboard. The fretwire is some huge jumbo nickel wire I had left over from another build. This whole thing is basically a way for me to use up leftovers while consuming some of my idle time, with a very small budget. I spent about $35 on the timber, ten bucks on a bridge, five bucks on a nut, etc.

 

 - Jam

[ScottR]

Jumbo frets on a mandolin!

The first one I made was one of those StewMac kits. It made a nice instrument, but the frets that came with the kit were no bigger than paper clip wire. I found it difficult to fret, and they were not particularly stable after being clipped back to fit over the binding.

So I fixed that on the electric one I made for me. I didn't go full jumbo, but they were medium tall. Much better!

I applaud the jumbo!

SR

[Akula]

15 hours ago, ScottR said:

Jumbo frets on a mandolin!

Distance between frets 23 and 24 is something like 5mm, and the fretwire is 2.5mm crown width. There's very little wood showing between them! Of course, playing a mandolin up to two octaves is rather pointless, too, I just had enough fretwire for 24 frets and figured I'd see if I could do it.

 

I made a little boo-boo while routing the mortise at an angle - the template slipped. I'm better than this. Anyways, I routed away the mistake to the dimensions of the neck tenon, plus extra on both sides, then glued in some offcuts. Clamping was fun, had to stick some quick-grips in upside down, which had me flinching anxiously.

 

Then I installed some faux abalone binding to hide the fact that I'd screwed up. I reckon this'll look alright once it's all done.

 

Oh yeah, I did something new with the pickup mounting. I didn't want to go for a pickup ring, or even a pickguard, so I figured a way to direct mount from the rear. I glued a plug to the end of some aluminium tubing, drilled a hole in it for the pickup screw to go through, then mounted those to the rear of the mandolin. It works exactly the same as a mounting ring or pickguard, but from the back. 

 

The pickup, obviously, is slanted on quite an angle to catch all four courses of strings. It looked really strange on the design but I'm warming up to the aesthetic now.

 

Binding, and stain.

 

And the neck is set.

 

I'm stuck on the choice between tung oil or wipe-on poly for the finish. Poly will be more shiny, I guess, but oil just feels great. I've read a lot about how oil finishes dampen the free vibration of a soundboard, and why not to use them on acoustic instruments, but my hollowed-out chunk of timber doesn't really count as a "real" acoustic instrument. Or, I could go get some shellac flakes and try my first french polish.

 

 - Jam

[Bizman62]

1 hour ago, Akula said:

Then I installed some faux abalone binding to hide the fact that I'd screwed up. I reckon this'll look alright once it's all done

It already does, looks like intentional. Don't tell anyone you didn't plan it!

[ScottR]

On 5/25/2024 at 6:40 AM, Akula said:

Distance between frets 23 and 24 is something like 5mm, and the fretwire is 2.5mm crown width. There's very little wood showing between them! Of course, playing a mandolin up to two octaves is rather pointless, too, I just had enough fretwire for 24 frets and figured I'd see if I could do it.

True. Imagine trying to fit 29 in there like Gibson does.

SR

[Akula]

I went for wiping poly as a top coat. Given my unlikelihood to be bashing this on the stage at the next punk rock show, I figured a light poly would sufficiently seal the timber and provide a bit of protection. 

 

The headstock took finish spectacularly. The grain filler sucked up the stain and went jet black, really cool look, considering this timber cost me less than a case of beer. If keen eyes spot an issue with my tuners, just remember that I successfully removed 8 cheap tuners from circulation in my spares box!

 

Think we've got a mandolin here!

 

Well, that was fun! Last job - learn to play the bloody thing...

 

 - Jam

[Andyjr1515]

Superb!   Bravo!! 

[LFlab]

Very cool project!

Inspiration to learn how to play:

https://youtu.be/zVyEPAMpwDc?si=uCBTNaK5W3sCFqvm