You’ve got to have vision!

When I saw this rather sad looking scribing block on sale for 50p at the local car boot sale, I knew exactly what I wanted it for.

To cut the rebate for the archtop’s bindings, I made up a cradle to hold the body steady. The scribing block allowed me to check that the edge of the top plate was at the same height, all- around prior to routing………..

The video will be out soon!

Top plate video

Here’s the second instalment of my archtop mandolin videos. In this part you’ll see all the work on the top plate; carving the shape, cutting the sound holes and fitting the tone bars.

Fretboard markers

So, with Brendan’s mandolin having a black and red theme, there seemed only one choice for the fretboard markers.

After a good few hours of carefully marking out, cutting and sanding; 6 red diamonds or is that rubies?

Fast forward a couple of weeks and the fretboard is now glued on to the neck.

And the finished fretboard.

Fancy a night out? PHIL HARE GIG

I just wanted to alert you to a great night of guitar playing that PHIL HARE puts on annually in March Town Hall. This year’s line-up (apart from the excellent Phil himself) is:

ANDRE KRENGEL & ROLAND KRAUSE , TOMMY LOOSE , BEN SMITH & JIMMY BREWER and MARK SOMERS 

Saturday 21 October 2017

Doors open at 6.45pm for a 7.30 start

More details here 

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You’ll remember that a few weeks ago I re-fretted Phil’s Signature guitar? Well, here’s one of Phil’s latest videos playing that guitar, complete with new frets.  Absolutely wonderful!

When Phil came over, he took a liking to a one of my really early (1978 at the London College of Furniture) classical guitars that was languishing in my workshop. So, I gave it a once over and passed it on to him. And here it is! Thanks for posting this Phil; great to see the old girl getting the attention she deserves.

Youhei’s mandolin revisited

Some of you will remember this lovely quilted maple mandolin that I made for Youhei in Japan.

 

I just stumbled across this delightful YouTube video of Youhei playing it.

Thanks for posting Youhei; great to see you both in action!

Top Plate II or, “I want a pin router!”

The ideal way to cut the “F” holes in a carved top is to use a pin router which, of course, I don’t have. So, let’s make one! I’ve had a drill-stand knocking about for years which was made redundant when I got a pillar drill, so I that’s a good start.

I wanted to mount my Dremel in the drill stand and fortunately found a chap in Germany who makes just the thing- an adaptor for CNC routers with a 43mm outer diameter and the correct thread for taking the Dremel.

 

This is a brief explanation of the process, as in reality it took many hours of thought, design and plain old trial and error to get a perfectly clean cut hole.

 

Eventually, I arrived at this final set-up.

You’ll see that the cutter is aligned with a pin. This pin is a guide for a template which has the exact shape that’s required cut out. The soundboard is mounted on the template and the sound holes cut out.

And here we have the finished soundholes, as you'll see, not quiet "F"holes. Note that the holes are bound with black veneer; not easy to do!