Happy New Year to you all!

First thing’s first- Happy New Year to you all! I’m back in the workshop and firing on all cylinders- let’s get some instruments built!

Brendan’s Mandolin Part IX

Brendan’s mandolin has gone through the set-up process, prior to being French polished. You can see the tailpiece that I’ve made for it below. I’m really pleased with this design for my tailpieces- I feel that it’s the last piece in the jigsaw as far as my twin-points go.

The under-saddle transducer has just been fitted. There’s always a nerve wracking moment with each instrument and for this one, it was drilling the hole through the soundboard- making sure that I’m in the middle of the reinforcement patch and missing the cross-bracing.

The pick-up is a passive Headway unit, which works really well; you need an external preamp, but that’s much more preferable to having a 9V battery inside the mandolin. The wire is routed through the bridge, so the only outward sign of a pick-up is the jack socket.

Standard mandolin III

Standard mandolin III is almost complete and ready to be set-up “in the white”. Hopefully it should be up for sale in about 3 weeks.

Next batch!

And in between all of this I’m preparing the tonewood for the next batch of instruments- John’s koa steel string, Alan’s cocobolo twin-point and a maple baritone uke! That should keep me out of trouble for a while!