Peter’s Mandola

In one of the previous posts you’d have seen the start of the tailpiece for Peter's mandola; here is the finished item, a juxtaposition of Indian rosewood, brass and stainless steel!

Also, I mentioned cutting the fret slots; here’s that fretboard being glued to the neck.

And here’s the front view with the compound radius put onto the ‘board, position markers inlaid and fretted.

And the back view…….

…..As I said previously, this mandola has been commissioned to match the black walnut Standard mandolin that Peter had awhile back. Eagle-eyed readers will notice that the mandolin had a walnut neck with maple laminations, but the mandola’s neck is a kind of negative image; maple with walnut laminations. Why? Well, there’s about 17% more tension in a set of mandola strings compared to a mandolin and the neck is also longer, so maple, being just that wee bit stiffer, makes a sensible choice.

 You’ll also notice that at this stage the neck is still square- just my preferred way of working!