Nava Fretted Instrument Archive

On the side bar, you’ll find a new link to another blog that I have just started. I’ve decided to put together an archive of as many of my fretted instruments as I can.

Why? A number of reasons

 I seem to be making more and more mandolins and wanted somewhere to record my guitars, without over loading my website.

Some of my old instruments seem to be surfacing and I’m getting requests for information.

I’d also like to encourage anyone who has one of my early instruments to send a photo; in the early days I didn’t have a camera and much work was unrecorded.

And I thought it might be fun! 

On the bench

With Tristan’s and John’s mandolins completed, I’ve been concentrating on Tony’s Standard Plus. All the binding and purflings are done; I used some highly figured maple for the bindings, so once polished they should shimmer nicely. I love the combination of walnut (English in this case) and maple. Also the tuners that I’m using have ivoroid buttons, so the maple should complement these too. 

The neck and fingerboard went on over the last few days; so it’s now all coming together.

 E-mando

At the moment, I’m keeping my New Year’s resolution and working on the e-mando.

There are a few design issues that have slowed me down. I’ve been trying to decide whether to use loop or ball-end strings; the choice of which will dictate the tailpiece design. I’ve finally decided to go for ball-end; this way you can use electric guitar strings which are more widely available. This will make it easier to make up a set of custom gauge strings. I’m considering using heavy-ish trebles and light-ish basses, say 11-36? I’m hoping that this will help to give a balanced output from the pick-up.

And here’s an arty photo of a rosette that I recently made- you can’t beat a sharp plane!

Two new Nava mandolins

Below you can see some choice photos of the two latest mandolins that await delivery. Here is John’s cocobolo twin-point with the custom tree inlay and Tristan’s maple Standard No.IV. Two more instruments that I’m proud to send out into the world; hope that you like them too!