ijerry

After gluing on the fingerboard and nut I touched up the varnish and gave the whole instrument a good final cleanup and wax.

Then it was time to add the tailpiece and machine heads and the instrument was almost finished.

The final-ish thing was to make a bridge – I used some leftover Tasmanian Blackwood and made a bridge, tuning in the strings with stepped forward and back slots.

Finally I got some new strings and strung it up for the first time. It needs playing in but the sound is wonderful and will only get better!

You can read all the steps here
http://fourstrings.wordpress.com/?s=mandolin

This was very well worth doing!

Cheers
Jerry

The sides glued up well, and progress continues – after removing the clamps I gave the sides a quick clean-up with sandpaper to remove glue squeeze-out. Titebond liquid hide glue is great to work with, allowing some slip time to get everything lined up ok, but then once it starts to bind it holds well and dries within a few hours.

The mandolin is now starting to look like an instrument, but it is still fairly rough around the edges. The binding provides a decorative border, but also provides additional strength and protection for the joints. I have been quite worried about the gluing process, because hide glue has a use-by date, and I was half-way through before I read the bottle and found it was out of date by six months. Apparently Titebond put a 12 month use-by date on, but liquid hide glue can last 12-18 months. Perhaps I was lucky this time. But if any components fail I will be buying a new bottle forthwith. I could use the hide granules, but that would involve messy use of double boilers and rushing to use it before it cools etc. The liquid glue is very easy to use, is versatile at room temperature and works well.

Anyhow, I had bought some inlay banding strips at the 2008 Canberra Timber and Working With Wood show with a view to their potential for instrument bindings. The banding strips are about 1.5mm thick and about 6mm wide and 1.2metres long. They are easy to use, being flexible enough to do each of the bouts without steam bending, and thin enough to cut easily with a sharp knife.

You’ll have to wait to see how it looks, as they are still taped in position after gluing, but the early indications are good :-)

The next pictures won’t look much different as I still have to add the bindings for the back/bout interface!

I basically have the back bindings, fitting the fingerboard and some finishing work on the head before fitting it up ready to play – so not long now!

You can see the rest of the process on my Fourstrings blog: http://fourstrings.wordpress.com/?s=mandolin

Cheers
Jerry

Cheers
Jerry

I used a cross-bracing pattern rather than tone bars to get a good bright response with good playability. I shaved the braces to tune the top to G by tapping and shaving until the right tone was achieved. I figured this would give better bass response. But I’m open to suggestions from any luthiers out there!

I also used hide glue – it’s not vegetarian, but it is acoustically transparent – it doesn’t interfere with the sound.

Next up I’ll be making the neck