Nava Archtop Mandolin Demonstration

Well, here’s a treat for you! Craig, the new owner of archtop #4, sent me a video of him putting the mandolin through its paces. Amanda and I were delighted to receive it and really enjoyed hearing Craig's playing; hope you do too!

Thanks again Craig.

More on French polishing.

Here’s the next video in the series. You’ll see how I’ve started to use oil to keep the pad lubricated and stop it from sticking to the tacky polish. I only advise using oil once there is a good build-up of shellac, so that there’s no chance of the oil coming into contact with the bare wood and contaminating it. I like to use sunflower oil, but of course that’s s personal preference.

Archtop #4- In the white.

This week, I completed setting up archtop #4 and got it playing “in the white”. In case you’re wondering, “in the white” is a phrase pinched from violin makers. They get their instruments playing before applying the finish, which of course transforms them from white (i.e. natural colour of spruce and maple) to that orangey brown that they like. Funny though, I thought that if the back and sides of this mandolin had been made from, say quilted maple, some makers would stain it, to get the same colour as the sapele.

In case you’re wondering, the blue tape is to stop any oil from the new tuners seeping into the unfinished wood and contaminating it.

Top Plate I

I’ve been working on the top plate for the latest archtop. For this one, I have some superb Sitka spruce (not easy to say quickly).

The two halves were joined with same method as I demonstrated in my back plate video, taken down to thickness and the profile cut-out so that it fits into my jig, which holds the wood firmly whilst I carve it.

However, being a slab rather than a wedge, there’s too much waste to just plane, so first step is to use my Wagner Safe-T-planer. 

As an object, I love its heavy duty casting but no matter how many times I use it, it’s always with trepidation. What’s always more dangerous with wood working machinery compared to metal working, is that you fed the work into it with your bare hands. But with so much wood to remove, it’s a sensible option.

Once I’ve got down to this kind if stepped profile, the rest is done with planes, scrapers and sanding, as you would have seen, again in one of my previous videos.

Here you can see the how tight the grain is on this Sitka.

And then flip it over and work on the other side (sounds easy eh?)

Walnut Archtop Mandolin; in the white

The last of the fettling has been done and the mandolin is playing very nicely.

Tomorrow, it gets taken apart and the polishing process begins! In the meantime here are a few photos……

Putting it together

Here’s the latest video on the making of my walnut archtop mandolin. The construction of the instrument itself is complete and now is the time for the hardware to be fitted and to make its first sounds!

Archtop Tailpiece

Here’s the tailpiece for the walnut archtop mandolin. You’ll see that there’s a thin green line running through it; this continues a decorative theme that the mandolin will have. I like to get the tailpiece made before the back is glued on to the rim, that way I can drill a hole for the jack socket and support the end-block to eliminate any chances of splitting.

Walnut Archtop: head

One of the things that I’ve been working on this week is the neck for the next Archtop mandolin. The neck itself is made from bird’s eye maple and the head overlay from some spectacular Claro walnut. Here are a couple of photos and a video of the process.

The videos for the what is now "Jeremy’s Archtop" proved to be very popular, so I thought I’d do a second series and look at some different aspects of the build.

Archtop Mandolin season finale!

As promised here is the last episode in my Archtop build series. I should add that the mandolin has found a home and it was a real pleasure to meet Jeremy and his wife when they came to collect it at the weekend.

Nava Archtop Mandolin

The Archtop mandolin is now complete and I must say that I couldn’t be more happy with it. The next one is already on the bench! Below are some photos for you. Video to follow!