Latest Standard Mandolin Completed

The latest Standard mandolin has been completed and now living with its new owner.

Below are some photos of the finished instrument for you.

Back together again

There’s been good progress made with the restoration of the Guyatone. Both the neck and fretboard have been reunited with the body and it’s beginning to look like a guitar again. One thing that struck me about doing this kind of work is, that the more time and care you put in to a restoration the less it looks like you’ve done any work!

Back on track!

Well, here we are, back on track, a new body! Mahogany core with book-matched figured maple top and back.

The joys of working with wood!

New Standard: in the white.

Now with a bit more Macassar! Not only looking smart, but sounding good too! I'll leave the mandolin to settle for a while, strip it down and start the finishing process.

Back to the day job!

Just finished shaping the neck of the next Standard mandolin and I think it’s looking pretty smart.

Adirondack (red) spruce top, figured maple back and sides, sapele neck and everything else you can see is Macassar ebony. 

Guyatone LG50 update

The Guyatone project is progressing well. In the latest video, you can see how the carbon-fibre reinforcement strips were fitted in to the neck.

I have been searching t’interweb for information and various parts. I found this photo of an old Bell Musical Instrument Shop catalogue from the 60’s. 

Bell were a music shop based in Surbiton, just south of London; I can remember having one of their catalogues when I was a lad and drooling over WEM amplifiers and Watkins guitars. The LG50 in this one, must be later than mine as the pick guard is larger (and would have covered the holes I mentioned in the first video?) and is made from pearloid. Interestingly the price is £25, around £800 to 900 today.

Unfortunately, the original tuners aren’t usable but I managed to source some very suitable replacements from Project Guitar Parts; coincidently these are sold as replacements for Watkins guitars.

I also found these period correct knobs:  one thing that I really like is that they’re off-white so match the pick-guard. So many repro parts are cream in colour and that would be too dark for this guitar.

Although I’m not a great fan off relic or distressed components, I decided that the strap button that I wanted to use was just too shiny to blend in with the tailpiece and had to have a bit of work done to it!

So far, so good!