So, where are we up to?

So, where are we up to? Nadim’s guitar is going through the French polishing process and it’s starting to look very pretty!

With the constructional work on Nadim’s completed, I’m back to working on John’s mandolin- the neck has gone on this week. The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that John’s Standard isn’t quite standard as it has an “optional extra” in the way of a herringbone rosette.

I’ve also just completed the external mould for Adrian’s octave mandolin and you can see its shape/size in comparison to my mandolin mould. We decided that his tenor mandola would be built to the same shape as my standard mandolin. My mandolins are quite big, so using the same shape for the mandola seems a sensible thing to do. However, the body will be about 15mm deeper and the sound hole a bit larger which will lower the natural resonance of the body.

 In order to keep the two instruments matching, both sets of sides and the head overlays have come from the same set of guitar sides.

The sides have just been bent and will dry out, clamped in their respective moulds.

As far as the ornamentation is concerned Adrian wants clean lines, so both instruments are being built to a similar spec as the Standard mandolin, but with the upgrade of my handmade tail pieces. You can see the soundboards with their bound sound holes below. 

Hard at it!

All of the constructional work has now been completed on Nadim’s guitar. These last few stages have been really hard work in the current hot and humid weather conditions; it’s no fun wearing a dust mask at the best of times!

 One of the last details is making the bridge and one incredibly important aspect is ensuring that it matches the curvature of the soundboard. I find it best to the fit the underside of the bridge blank to the soundboard before it has been shaped to its final profile; that way you don’t tend to round off the corners which can lead to gaps.

 A white pencil makes a good indicator of any low spots, also it helps to use feeler gauges to check for any gaps that are difficult to see.

With the bridge shaped. I’ve started the French polishing process.

I’ve just the glued the carbon fibre rods into the necks of Adrian’s two instruments. As the necks are a bit longer and as there is more tension in the strings compared to a mandolin, I’m using a deeper (and hence stiffer) section of carbon fibre on these two.  Also with the OM’s neck being even longer than the tenor’s I’ve decided to use an adjustable truss rod as well- belt and braces! It was my intention to make a simple Gibson style rod until it was pointed out to me that Touchstone Tonewoods supply a great range of short length double action rods (thanks Tavy!).

I’ve been using Touchstone Tonewoods for many, many years and I must say that since they have got their on-line ordering system sorted out they are incredibly efficient at getting stuff out and at answering any queries. Give them a go and tell them Gary sent you!