Mandocello Plans, Specs

I want to build an f5 scroll style mandocello, but don't know where to get the plans. Can anyone send me the specs or point me in a direction where i can find them.

thanks

chad

I don't know of any mandocello plans, but the Lawrence Smart article in a 1998 issue of American Lutherie has a small scale drawing and a (partial) list of specifications. That may be about the best you can do for a 'cello. Check the GAL website.

Here's an idea: Without an example of the K-4 Mandocello "in the flesh", I took a slide photo of a head-on portrait of the K-4 (there is one in Gruhn and Carter's Acoustic Guitars and Other Fretted Instruments and the 2004 Classic Guitar calendar). I then projected the slide onto the wall, enlarging the image until I had a 24 3/4 inch fingerboard scale, then traced the image onto a large piece of paper taped to the wall. From that, I made a plywood template. Obviously this is not totally precise since the fingerboard is not parallel to the top, so there is some error, but for my purposes it is unimportant. I think I used the photo from the guitar calendar since the photo was very nearly head-on and centered properly.
The specs I have are 24 3/4 inch scale (this may not be precise, but it is a scale other makers have used), 3 1/4" thick body, and 14" width (not including the points). Unfortunately (well, fortunately), I have orders for mandolins to fill and haven't built one yet, but the other parts can be scaled proportionally.

I did the same thing that Scott did on an instrument, but in photoshop. It was easier to manipulate.

Watson Bailey has some plans of mandolin family instruments. It looks like a mandola is the largest available on the site, but you might check with them and see if they have a mandocello.

Thanks,

The Lawrence Smart article was helpful and I have seen it before. I'm guessing if i have the scale length for the mandocello and the scale length and the rest of the measurements for a traditional f5 mandolin i can approximate the unknown measurments for the mandocello.

My next question is, if the mandocello is aproximately twice the size of a mandolin, would the plate graduations be twice as thick? Would there be other measurement discrepancies?

Chad