Rick Turner's "Build A Mando In 4 Days" Class

[EdSherry]

Over the past two weekends, nine of us took Rick's "Build a Mandolin or Ukelele in Four Days" class at the Crucible in Oakland, CA. Four mandos, four ukes, and one Octave Mando (mine!). Six men, three women. Three of the class members teach other classes at the Crucible.

Rick had done a lot of the work beforehand: necks shaped, fingerboards cut out and slotted, tops and backs joined and cut to shape, sides prebent.

Basically, the mando builders: glued the sides to the neck, glued on and shaped the top and back braces, installed the kerfing around the top and back, glued the top and back onto the sides/neck, glued on the "wings" to the pegheads, drilled holes for and installed position dots on the top and sides of the fretboard, installed the frets, glued on the peghead veneer, cut out a peghead shape, finish-shaped the neck, drilled for and installed the tuners, shaped and slotted the bridge, installed a nut (the instruments used a zero-fret design) and cut the nut slots, installed the tailpiece, and strung 'em up.

Three of us also installed some pickups and endpin jacks that I happened to have in my "odds and ends" piles.

The tasks for the uke builders were similar, the main difference being the glued-on uke bridge.

I took mine to a session in Berkeley last night and played it a bunch (and showed it off too!). The tone and volume were both pretty good: comparable to my older Flatiron OM. I doubt it's going to replace my main OM (a Phil Crump) in my arsenal, but stranger things have been known to happen.

Still to do: final setup work after it "settles in" and applying a finish to the instrument (I'm leaning towards TruOil or Watco).

Rick was always available to help with suggestions and (especially) to "troubleshoot", helping to solve problems as they arose.

People came up with lots of creative designs for pegheads, etc. (Mine ended up with a very narrow "snakehead" design.)

Rick teaches the class a couple of times a year in California, and also teaches it down in Tasmania (Australia). There's a brochure on the Crucible website:

http://www.thecrucible.org/downloads/Build_Mandolin_Ukulele.pdf

I highly recommend the class as a "get your feet wet" experience, especially for those (like me) with limited woodworking experience. Thanks, Rick!

[Rick Turner]

Thanks, Ed!

This particular class was a real stretch for me...nine students, three instrument styles, no teaching assistant, but I was really knocked out at what the students came up with. Ed's long scale octo (really an "Irish Bouzouki") sounded like a saz at first, and it was amazing how quickly it warmed up. The body is on the shallow side...I'll go with a deeper body on the next ones...but a number of the other students said, "Hey, I'd like to build one of those, too!"

The peghead design aspect is always interesting to me; I can talk and draw and talk all I want about the paramaters of semi-straight string pull (snake head), clearance, tuners in the right direction, etc., and there are always those "Oh no!" moments (putting the language in a form acceptable here...). But for the students to design the peghead is for them to really take ownership of the instrument.

The hardest aspects are always in the final setup. Everyone blazes along for three days...and then the dreaded cold molasses pour starts. Making string nuts and bridges...laying out the slots, getting the nut slots down to the right depth, even with a zero fret there...this is where it really gets hard. I may set up a milling machine arbor with slitting saws and spacers to pre-slot the nuts; it's the only way I can think of to make this easier and less frustrating for the students.

And this is where teaching is such a learning experience for me. I go away with a deeper appreciation of what I've learned from so many people, and I get to really examine the craft to figure out how to do it better...and easier.

[Jim MacDaniel]

Thanks for the thread, Ed. Sounds like you had fun during -- and after -- the class, and I'm looking forward to joining that class one of these days. Either of you have any pics of the in-progress and finished products that you can post?

[EdSherry]

Jim -- I didn't document mine, but one of the guys in the class took lots of photos of his "work in progress." Maybe he'll send them to Rick.

[mtucker]

Rick, did the special guest make it?

[Rick Turner]

I got so caught up in this and that that I didn't contact special guest. This was the biggest class I've taught solo, and it just had me hopping and barely keeping up with the students...I just didn't have time to put out the invite. Next time....