Abalone Highway

Here is a rare photo of the Abalone Highway which runs through Indian Rosewood………..

Actually it’s the back stripe of Ewart’s mandolin!

And here’s his rosette.

A wet Bank Holiday Monday

With today being an even wetter than usual Bank Holiday Monday, I thought my time might be better spent in the workshop. So, I cleaned up the body of Phil’s twin-point; it’s now ready to have the rebates cut around the edges to take the purflings and bindings. 

And I thought that it would also be a good opportunity to start cutting the abalone for Ewart’s rosette, which I started on last week.

Phil's back

Just glued the back on to the rim of Phil's twin-point mandolin;quite liked this photo!

42 Holes!

42 holes, drilled as accurately as humanly possible! Beginning the next batch of mandolin tailpieces.

Phil’s Rosette

The ugly duckling now emerges as a beautiful swan!

Navazouki Part 4 and more!

With all the woodwork done and having set-up Adrian’s Bouzouki, I’m now ready to apply the finish and that’s what the next video is all about.

In between coats of shellac, I’ve been working on Phil’s twin-point mandolin. I’m making him a dot and diamond rosette. One of the trickiest parts is cutting the diamond shapes; I had a day cutting various inlays a couple of weeks ago, so it was nice just get the diamonds off the shelf and get on with the rosette.

Below you can see the dots and diamonds carefully placed waiting to be filled  with “mastic.”

Of course, back in the day, natural resins, hide glue etc. would have been used, these eventually shrink and the inlays fall out. My “mastic” recipe is epoxy resin with a mixture of ebony dust, earth pigment and a touch of black ink.

We now go through the ugly duckling stage……………

I like to end the blog with a cliff-hanger!