Standard Mandolin Revisited

I made my first, what I called, “Standard Mandolin” about 10 years ago. As I’ve not made a Standard for a while, I thought that I’d make one and at the same time, try out a few new ideas.

One thing that I’ve noticed about many of my fellow UK luthiers is, the tendency to use guitar tuners on their mandolins. So, I thought that I’d try them on this build, in case I’ve been missing a trick!

The first thing to do was to slightly redesign my head-shape and make a full-size model of it, to check the tuners’ spacings.

I wanted to ensure that all the tuners are aligned and spaced perfectly, so whilst making the model head, I also made a simple drilling jig. It has two holes; you drill through one and insert a pin. Then you can drill the second without the jig moving, then move the pin and drill the third hole etc.

As you can see, I’m using Gotoh minis in black. I’m a big fan of Gotoh; so reliable and well-made.

Apart from the hole spacing I’ve also made the head 12mm longer, this is to visually balance the chunkier looking tuners.

And here’s the finished head with its Brazilian rosewood overlay, looking very cool, if I say so myself!