On the bench

With Tristan’s and John’s mandolins completed, I’ve been concentrating on Tony’s Standard Plus. All the binding and purflings are done; I used some highly figured maple for the bindings, so once polished they should shimmer nicely. I love the combination of walnut (English in this case) and maple. Also the tuners that I’m using have ivoroid buttons, so the maple should complement these too. 

The neck and fingerboard went on over the last few days; so it’s now all coming together.

 E-mando

At the moment, I’m keeping my New Year’s resolution and working on the e-mando.

There are a few design issues that have slowed me down. I’ve been trying to decide whether to use loop or ball-end strings; the choice of which will dictate the tailpiece design. I’ve finally decided to go for ball-end; this way you can use electric guitar strings which are more widely available. This will make it easier to make up a set of custom gauge strings. I’m considering using heavy-ish trebles and light-ish basses, say 11-36? I’m hoping that this will help to give a balanced output from the pick-up.

And here’s an arty photo of a rosette that I recently made- you can’t beat a sharp plane!