Holes...........

I’ve been slowly making progress with the next archtop mandolin. One thing that helps enormously to get the top plate to its correct thickness, is drawing a grid on the wood and then accurately mapping out the dimensions. You can then see exactly where you want to remove more material; I did this 3 or 4 times until I was 100% happy with it.

With the top plate at its correct thickness, the sound holes can be cut-out (I can’t really call them f holes, can I?). I spent a long time, on the last archtop, working out how to set-up a Dremel to cut the holes; that time invested paid off as it took a fraction of the time to produce these ones. Although you could cut them with a fret saw, I need their surfaces to be perfect in order to be able to neatly bind them.

I feel quite strongly that the holes should be bound; it protects the softwood edges from accidental damage, strengthens and helps to lessen any risk of cracking at the holes, stops moisture escaping via the end grain and looks jolly nice too!

The black veneer had to be bent using a soldering iron as a small improvised bending iron.