Things are getting busy

The electric mandolin has been sold and is now residing with its new owner, Gordon. The American black walnut mandolin, Standard V, is still available; this will probably be the last “Standard” for a while (until 2014) as I now need to concentrate on an influx of new commissions.

Mandolin For Sale

You can see below, that Nadim’s guitar and John’s mandolin are coming together nicely, the bodies are complete and now await their necks.

 I tend to use very little machinery in my workshop, but I have just recently treated myself to a 12 inch disc sander. Fellow woodworkers will know that planing end-grain can be a real pain and this is where a disc sander comes into its own.

It proved great for squaring up the heel of Nadim’s neck prior to marking out the dovetail.
One of the main reasons for getting the sander was to cope with truing up the “end” of my mandolins before the neck goes on. You can see that you have a combination of the end grain of the neck block, bindings, back and sides and soundboard that all have to be flattened, square and true, without any splitting. The sander does a grand job!

Whilst these two instruments are being constructed, I’ve been working on the design of the next two instruments; a double commission for a matching octave mandolin and tenor mandola; more on them in due course...............