Siminoff book

[Roydw3]

Ok, I just bought the Siminoff book a few weeks ago and it finally arrived today...it took over a month. Well, I read something once on the archives that said the old book has bad plans. I didn't buy the new book but the old book. I am not going to be building from scratch right away...probably will not start my first one from scratch for a year or so...but what is the deal with the old plans? Do I need to buy some different F-5 plans? Who has the best plans or who has plans that you recommend?

Thanks
Denny

[Greenmando]

There was some other errors in the old book as well. The new book is pretty nice, I bought a cheap copy on half.com. There is a thread here in the cafe of a member who drew a incredible set of Loar plans, he has them printed up for sale.

[HoGo]

Denny,
you can pretty much make a mandolin from a kit without precise plans. Just ask here on the cafe whenever you are not certain what to do, and you'll have no problem.
For a scratch building you'll need some reliable plans, though.
Happy building,
Adrian

[Darren Kern]

Denny, Adrian is too modest. He's the guy that Greenmando referred to that created the set of Loar drawings everyone has been raving about. I don't have them yet, but I will before too long. I think most folks here would suggest that if you buy any plans, buy his. HERE'S a link to them on Elderly's site.

[mandomaker]

Roger's new book is an improvement for sure. It has a nice topographical chart showing graduations, which may be available on a per page basis, I believe (from his web page). I would use this along with Adrian's excellent plans, indispensible for those of us trying to get closer to a Loar-type F-5. That, plus read all the old posts some rainy weekend! Good luck!

[Dennis Russell]

Hello: I had to get my two cents in here, I bought the first Siminoff book in 1994, built my first mandolin fromthis book, first stringed instrument I ever built, it looks crummy but it plays OK, I didnt have much wood working skills, I just followed instructions, I didnt have this Cafe to refer to> I wish I did but at that time I couldnt even afford a computer.,, I built the mandolin out of cheapest wood I could find, not going to sell it, no one would buy it anyways. Just follow directions, I had to read the book over several times to learn all the details, good luck Dennis In Yuma Arizona

[Michael Lewis]

Adrian's F5 plan is the best set of plans out there, but that doesn't mean the other plans are not good too. The plan drawn by Ted Davis is good as far as it goes, and the plan drawn by Don McRostie is more complete and detailed. Roger Siminoff's new plan is supposed to be good also. That is not the one in the new book but a seperate set of plans. All these plans have one thing in common in that they were drawn from early F5 Gibsons signed by Lloyd Loar.

The biggest problem with the plan in the first Siminoff book is that the body outline is not the same as the Gibson, so when you try to put your new mandolin in a case it may not fit too well. Other than that it will stil help you put a mandolin together.

[PaulD]

...I bought the first Siminoff book in 1994, built my first mandolin fromthis book, first stringed instrument I ever built, it looks crummy but it plays OK, I didnt have much wood working skills, I just followed instructions, I didnt have this Cafe to refer to> I wish I did but at that time I couldnt even afford a computer...

Dennis; even if you could have afforded a computer, HTML and the Web were just getting off the ground in 1994 so there weren't many resources like this available. Newsgroups had been around for a number of years prior to that, but the closest thing I recall stumbling across in those days was rec.woodworking. MandolinCafe, MIMF, and some of the other Luthiery forums and resources available using Web technology today are incredible resources!

pd