Electric Mandolin Part 1

I’ve just started building a new solid-body electric mandolin, haven't done one for awhile.  I’ll be documenting the process in a series of YouTube videos. Here’s the first episode: hope you find it interesting.

Cheers Gary

Nava Electric Mandolin now complete

 

As you can see above, the latest e-mando has now been completed and is looking (sounding and playing) rather lovely, if I say so myself! Photos below, thanks for looking.

Electric Mandolin Build Part 4

The fretboard has been sanded to its compound radius and dot position markers inlaid. Next the mandolin can be fretted. 

Once the frets have levelled, ends bevelled and polished etc, I start shaping the neck.

Many hours later and after a good clean-up, here’s the result……

And, one of my favourite details!

Electric Mandolin Build Part 2

As you can see, the e-mando’s neck has now been made. Here’s its story…………

The neck is laminated to aid stability. The bulk of the neck is from bird’s eye maple with a central core of Tasmanian Blackwood.

And the head is spliced on.

Whilst these parts are being glued-up, I make the head logo inlay. When it’s possible, I like to cut through the head overlay before it’s glued to the head itself. Inlaying rosewood or ebony is relatively easy as any gaps can be filled and are virtually invisible. However, lighter coloured woods are less forgiving and extra care must be taken.

Below you can see that the completed head overlay has been glued on and there are two fillets of cedar running the length of the neck. Under those fillets are two lengths of carbon fibre rods.

And after some shaping and drilling, the completed neck blank.

E mando- putting it together: 2

The next step is to assemble the various components that have wires attached! If you’re making an electric instrument, like a Strat, with all the components attached to a pick guard then things are fairly straight forward. However, if you want to run the wires through the body, things get a bit fiddly! First, I wiggle some green garden wire through all of the holes- this wire has just the right rigidity to allow you to push it, yet it bends around hidden corners. 

Once the garden wire is through, the electrical wires can be taped to it and pulled through the various channels inside the e-mando.

And with all the components fixed down, the soldering can begin. Again, this is fiddly because you have to solder so close to or even inside, the freshly finished instrument. So, you need to protect it- you often find, with multi-core solder, the hot molten flux inside it, will spit and trust me, you don’t want any burn marks!

With all of the electrics in place, the nut gets fitted. This is just a tight-fit, I don’t like gluing nuts in place, for fear of the potential damage in removing them.

And then we’re ready for the strings and for the mandolins first test. But before that! Everything that can be scratched by the sharp end of a string is protected with low-tac masking tape.

Chambered Body, Electric Mandolin 2

The new emando has just gained some beautiful Koa sides. 

I’ve had this Koa in stock for donkey’s years and wanted to use it on something special. The sides have been laminated to the central core using epoxy resin, when you look at the core there is an awful lot of end grain to stick the sides to, so epoxy is clearly the best adhesive to use. And here's the video-

You’ll see in the video that when I glued the Koa on, those Kreg clamps that I mentioned in the previous post, got some use- not in a way that envisaged, but I’ve often found that once you’ve got a new piece of equipment, you end up using it in many ways that you hadn’t even thought of.

Using my new bench extension.........

Above, you can see that all the woodwork has been completed on Dave’s new e-mando; and I must say, it’s looking good. Next stage is to make all the hardware.

 If like me, you’ve ever bought anything from StewMac, you’ll be getting copious offers from them. Awhile back they were offering their “body board” I liked the concept but not the price, so I came up with my own simplified version using a couple of quids worth of plywood.

As you can see it fits neatly on the bench.

It really came in to its own, whilst shaping the neck and head of this solid body. The body being relatively heavy, meant that the instrument kept slipping down in the vice- the bench extension, offered extra support. 

Good inspiration Mr StewMac, thanks!

E-mando completed

Pete’s e-mando is now complete and I must say that I’m incredibly pleased with the outcome. I shan’t say any more and let you judge for yourselves………….