Back to mandolins!

It’s back to mandolins! Now, making instruments isn’t all about fancy rosettes and French polishing! Whilst waiting 24 hours for the glue to dry on Alan’s fingerboard I got on with some of the more mundane stuff and made up the end and tail blocks and the solid linings for the next three mandolins. Because of the way I make linings, each instrument needs 8 lengths!

I’ve been shaping the neck for Alan’s mandolin- he wanted a maple neck on this one. This maple has a really nice figure to it, which means it’s difficult to shape! Like all wood workers, I prefer to use edge tools wherever possible, but the flame figure plus the fact that I laminate my neck so that the grain runs in opposite directions, makes it virtually impossible to use a spokeshave. So here’s my arsenal- rasps, abrasives, a dremel and a scraper.

You can see how the pattern makers vice comes in to its own again.

As far as abrasive paper is concerned, silicon carbide paper is my choice- it has no grit as such and therefore, even the rough stuff, doesn’t leave deep scratches. I like to use 120 for actually removing wood and then work up to 500 before applying any finish.

Here’s Alan’s mandolin “in the white” as they say. There are few design details that Alan specified and as you can see they worked well!