Siminoff or stewart mac?

[ironlionzion]

hello all,
I have never built an instrument in my life but all of the sudden feel like i need to build my own mando...when looking into kits i found my self pretty lost...does any one have any suggestions? i want to put alot of time and effort into this with attempts to get a profeesional quality mando (being a college student i certainly cant afford a new one!)any help will be greatly appreciated..and if i go through with this you will probably be hearing alot from me!..thank you all very much i love this place and all of you...
~STeve

[Exude]

I faced the same dilemma. And I weighed the pros and cons of both, I decided to use the Siminoff book, and build from scratch. The main advantage of going from scratch is I only have to buy a little bit at a time. If you can convince at least one other person to go into the project with you, you can also save on shared tools. That way you have complete control over everything.

- matt in SC

[mad dawg]

Matt -- how did #1 turn out?

[Yonkle]

I have built both a StewMAc and a Siminoff. There are pros and cons to both. The pros on Siminoff is you can pick the type of wood you want and you can pick a 1 piece back ect. The cons are you have to make a "Rim mold" or buy one of Siminoffs 90 bucks. Siminoff also cuts the scroll slot in the inner braceing wood for you so the scroll (inside) is nice and tight. Siminoffs neck joint is not as nice as stewmacs , both dovetail but the Siminoffs needs a lot of tweeking to fit right.
The Stewmac is a good kit, and the Rim assembly is already done for you (bonus). The cons are, you can't upgrade the back to a 1 piece if you want, no big deal, if you don't want a 1 piece back. The wood quality is great on both kits. Siminoff does the graduations on the front and back plates for you (Bonus) with the stewmac you need to do this yourself and should have a thickness caliper to measure, you can buy one or make your own is a lot cheaper.
Overall they are both good and you can produce a high quality mandolin form them, the Stew MAc kit overall is a bit more easy it work with, mostly because of the rim being done for you. The stewmac is a Sitka Spruce Front and Curly maple on the rest. On the Siminoff you have 3 types of Spruce to choose from, Silver, Adirondak, or Sitka. The stewmac will arrive in a few days, the Siminoff you have to wait 4-6 weeks. You can't go wrong with either kit. JD ( You can see photos of both my mandos of other threads) type in KIT in the search.

[Yonkle]

PS> Here is a shot of the rim assembly (Siminoff) You can see in the scroll brace the SLOT is already cut on the stew mac you have to cut this slot. No big deal if you have a belt type saw, I used a coping saw and my slot was a bit sloppy.

[Exude]

So Far it looks pretty good. I am doing my final sanding before finish right now. When it is all done. I will be putting up some pics to show how it went along the way.