Tuesday, May 28, 2013

You must watch this! The Dandy Horses

You may remember Sean’s cocobolo twin-point  that was completed November last year? Well, you can now see it being played as it should be, by Sean, in his rather wonderful band “The Dandy Horses” Enjoy!

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Saturday, May 18, 2013

Standard Mandolin V: complete and for sale

I’ve just completed “Standard” mandolin V (i.e. this is 5th mandolin built to this design).  If you wish you can read a totally independent review of Standard III by its owner here-
And here's what they are saying on Mandolin Cafe about this one;
So, number V has: American Black Walnut back & sides with maple bindings,
American Black Walnut neck with maple laminations and carbon-fibre reinforcement strips
European Spruce soundboard with a bound soundhole,
You may remember that I’ve introduced a thin black line around the soundboard? Looks good eh?
Rosewood, compound radius fingerboard with MoP dots & side markers, and wide gold evo frets

Burr Walnut head overlay with Golden Age tuners
It has an open-pour shellac satin finish.I really like the look of this one and it plays very well too: I only wish I could play better so that I could do it justice in my demo videos! And here is that video:
It’s on sale now at 770 GBP which includes a Hiscox case; shipping for the mainland UK is an extra 30 GBP. If you’re interested in owning this mandolin, contact details can be found on my web-site.

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Friday, May 17, 2013

Acoustic Soundboard; interview


Apart from Jacob keeping us amused, I haven’t posted much lately as most of my spare time been taken up with an interview for “Acoustic Soundboard”, an independent UK based acoustic guitar forum. If you’re interested in reading it, click on the link below.


Also, why don’t you become a member; it’s run by a group of very friendly, hardworking enthusiasts?

Thursday, May 09, 2013

Welcome Jacob!!


I’m afraid that not much has been happening in the workshop recently;  Amanda and I have been distracted by this little fella! Here is our new Grandson, Jacob; the latest addition to the Nava range!

Friday, May 03, 2013

Herringbone back strip


I’ve just inlaid the back strip into the back of Nadim’s guitar. As part of the Phil Hare signature guitar’s spec., there’s a decorative rosewood herringbone strip running down the centre of the back. You can put a decorative strip right through the back, when you glue the two halves together, however for a marquetry style strip, I prefer to inlay it.
The first thing is to route a slot about 1mm deep along the centre of the back; this should give you a nice clean groove for the herringbone to sit in. I prefer that the herringbone is glued in with epoxy; as the herringbone is a really snug fit, you don’t want to introduce any moisture (in the form of wood glue). You’ll find that both slot and the herringbone will swell just enough to take a snug fit to, “No way, where’s the hammer!” And you don’t want that, hence the use of epoxy.
 Clean-up is with a nice sharp plan and hay presto!

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