Building: Where do you begin?

[Tremolo]

I'm interested in possibly trying my hand at building...My question is: where do you begin? I know that there is a great deal to know and understand when building a mando.

1. Where can you purchase quality wood?
2. What tools are necessary?
3. What kind of a budget is required?
4. Are there building blueprints, specifications, that exist that you can follow? Instructional Material?

[Chris Baird]

1. Old Standard Wood, Orcas Island Tone woods, LMI, Stewart Mac Donald.
2. Depends on how far alond the wood is you obtain. The rougher the wood the more tooling neccesary. If you start with a kit there is a list at Stewmac.com of the recommended tools. Also search this site for other threads on this subject.
3. Again depending on how deep you get this varies alot. If you go with a kit I would estimate probably 1k or a little less.
4. Stewmac.com has some good blueprints, also Roger Siminoff has some new plans and a new book out.

Good Luck.

[John Zimm]

I would highly recommend a kit by Luthier. His webpage is: http://mywebpage.netscape.com/kawalekd/homepage/

He makes flat-top mandolin and octave mandolin kits. Not only have they received a lot of good reviews here, but Don is also a great guy to deal with.

-John.

[Dave Cohen]

I would start with some reading. Number one on my list is also one previously mention by John Hamlett ("Sunburst"). That book is "Understanding Wood" by Leonard Hoadley (Taunton Press). You could possibly follow that with the "Big Red Books" of American Lutherie from the Guild of American Luthiers, and/or some back issues of Guitarmaker from ASIA (Asociation of Stringed Instrument Artisans). What should be foremost in your mind is that lutherie is woodworking. So you will have to learn how to sharpen and use edge tools. Oops, almost forgot; Cumpiano & Natelson's guitarmaking book is a good and important intro to lutherie.

[Chris Burt]

Dave, A few threads back you mentioned a book that discussed woodworking properties of wood species. I lost track of the reference. Could you give the title and author again?

Thanks,

Chris Burt

[Dave Cohen]

The above-mentioned book by Hoadley is excellent for that. There is also an article by Daniel Haines in the Nov., 2000 issue of CASJ. It was an update of two articles which he had written about 20 yrs before. Ukulele builder David ("Kawika")Hurd had an article in American Lutherie a few years ago, and he also has some good info on wood properties on his website. Another excellent source is the old LMI catalogue, from the time when Todd Taggart was managing LMI. I could be wrong, but I don't think the current German management of LMII puts out anything like that. Consult your nearest long-standing luthier to see if s/he has a copy of it.