Carving the Soundboard of An Octave Mandolin

[Strathspey]

I'm working with a friend to build an Octave Mandolin a la Stefan Sobell. Any advice on meaurements for graduating the soundboard?

MAtt

[John Bertotti]

Here is a thread I copied a while ago. It was very interesting and should help you out. It is a reply from Michael Lewis that you will need. John

[Strathspey]

Excellent! Thank you.

Matt

[Dolamon]

That was a terrific re-post John. Michael did put it all down. There is one minor thing to keep track of TAKE LOTS OF NOTES. If the instrument works as well as I hope it will, you can duplicate it. If it needs some modification, you'll have explicit notes on what may need to be changed. I keep all my different types of projects in those old black and white composition note books. Cheap and everything is in one place.

Let us know how it worked Matt

[John Bertotti]

I have wanted to record a lot of posts and put together a composition of some of the more informative ones. This would be with the posters permission of course. I realized I reposted this topic and although I don't believe any of the original posters mind I should have asked their permission first. So I do apologize to all involved. I think I will start another post on this in the near future. I don't want to side track this topic. Glad I could help, hope I didn't offend. John http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[WoodyMcKenzie]

I am glad to see that Michael Lewis's informative posts were reposted! My octave mandolin turned out better than I hoped. I was originally concerned about carving such a large diameter top so thinly, especially around the periphery. She has been strung up and the one-piece bridge was fit to get a good action a few months ago. I could not detect any settling of the top then nor has there been any since. I made the arch a bit higher than on a mandolin and X braced it. There is a lot of strength in that kind of structure. You can see it at my projects page:

mckenziemusic.com/projects

Good luck on your octave mando project!

Woody

[John Bertotti]

Woody are there any pictures posted here anywhere? Thanks John