Peter’s Mandola

In one of the previous posts you’d have seen the start of the tailpiece for Peter's mandola; here is the finished item, a juxtaposition of Indian rosewood, brass and stainless steel!

Also, I mentioned cutting the fret slots; here’s that fretboard being glued to the neck.

And here’s the front view with the compound radius put onto the ‘board, position markers inlaid and fretted.

And the back view…….

…..As I said previously, this mandola has been commissioned to match the black walnut Standard mandolin that Peter had awhile back. Eagle-eyed readers will notice that the mandolin had a walnut neck with maple laminations, but the mandola’s neck is a kind of negative image; maple with walnut laminations. Why? Well, there’s about 17% more tension in a set of mandola strings compared to a mandolin and the neck is also longer, so maple, being just that wee bit stiffer, makes a sensible choice.

 You’ll also notice that at this stage the neck is still square- just my preferred way of working!

Mando… la & cello

Like many luthiers, I cut my fret slots using a special type of mitre box with various scale length templates.  

Here's my modified StewMac jig.

The fret slot templates are commercially available and are machined extremely accurately out of stainless steel, to ensure that the instrument is in tune with itself.  The trouble with this kind of jig is that you can be limited to your choice of scale length by the templates that are available.

For Peter’s mandola, I wanted to use a 410mm scale length which needless say isn’t available “over the counter.” So I was very pleased when I came across Carlos at  GW inPortugal who makes templates to fit the StewMac jig and was willing to custom make one for me at, I might add,  a reasonable price!

And here’s the mandocello; it’s just been set-up and I’m now working on some pin-point capos….more on those later!

Mandocello and more..........

Here are a couple of photos of the mandocello, now that it has been fretted and had a good clean-up.

You might think that this one is taking a long time to build…..and you’d be right! Although most aspects of the instrument had been designed before the build started, you simply can’t figure out everything until you see certain parts constructed and in front of you and that is why it’s a slow process building a one-off.

The next step is to make the tailpiece and although I’ve made quite a number them, this one, being a heavy duty ten-string version, needs some designing too.

You’ll notice that there are two ‘pieces being made, the second is for Peter’s mandola. Peter purchased Standard V from me in 2013 and he’s now commissioned a matching mandola. Always grateful when a past customer comes back for more!

Here are a few photos of the body now that it’s been bound.

Also I’ve been working on the design of a guitar for Roland, which is going to be a really interesting project. More on this one later!

Roland has also commissioned a mandolin, so at the moment I’m just preparing various components.

Looks interesting eh?

Mandola and Octave Mandolin, now completed!

Adrian’s mandola and octave mandolin are now completed and below are some photos for you.

And here’s a video with a short demo just to tease you!

 There are a few more photos on my website and details of pricing for those who are interested ;-)

Mandola and octave mandolin components

Here are the last few components for Adrian’s mandola and octave mandolin. The bridges have removable bone saddles; although I always set-up my instruments, to what I consider the optimum, you never know if someone at some point will want to raise or lower the action and a removable saddle does allow for this.

Those with keen eyes will notice that although the tailpieces look similar, the octave’s is slightly longer in both directions. For the side that anchors the tailpiece, this is entirely aesthetic and for the string side, this is to reduce the amount of open string between the saddle and tailpiece. Both the nuts are bone too. I’ve tried various synthetic materials, but always come back to bone.

Octave and Tenor: neck and neck!

Apologies for the pun! As you can see, both of Adrian’s instruments now have their necks and fretboards fitted and both have been fretted. The tenor’s neck has been roughly carved and will get its final shaping next week, whilst the octave’s is still square.

Whilst fretting, I’ve been using a fret rocker to test whether or not each fret is level with the previous one. I don’t know who invented the “fret rocker” but I bought mine from a chap in Portugal, who sells them on eBay. 

The differing lengths of the edges allows you to compare only three frets at a time (if the middle one is high then the fret rocker rocks) as you progress up the fretboard and the frets get closer and the straight edges need to be shorter. Checking each fret individually ensures that they are all seated properly.

 Apart from checking whether or not frets are level, it makes a great mini straight edge for all manner of checking.