Anyone know of a guitar mando.....

**martinedwards** · May-20-2006, 1:58pm

OK folks, I'm thinking about my next mando build.......

I'm thinking solid rim like a Rigel (not a fan of bending)

flat spruce top, Mahogany back (cheap, once I learn what I'm doing I'll carry on with the dear stuff.....)

round soundhole & braced like a guitar & a guitar type bridge (with pins) with a piezo under the saddle.

Basically from a distance I'll look like a giant playing an acoustic guitar..........

So anyway, will a flattop and a guitar style bridge still sound like a mando or should I go away and lie down?

Anyone ever done anything like this and posted photos?

Thanks!!

**Steve Hinde** · May-20-2006, 2:44pm

Like an Ovation?

Steve

**jmkatcher** · May-20-2006, 3:21pm

I had an octave mandolin/bouzouki built like that and it definitely didn't sound like a guitar. I think the difference was in the details of the bracing.

**bolannta** · May-20-2006, 5:54pm

Stevens Custom Guitars mandolin and Folkparadise mandolin.

**Bill Snyder** · May-20-2006, 7:05pm

Ovation.

I know it does not have the sound hole configuration you described, but it is like some of Ovations guitars. You can read what Ted Eschliman thinks of the Ovation MM68 here.
There are several guitar shaped mandolins with single soundholes, just not many without a tailpiece.

**martinedwards** · May-21-2006, 3:02am

Thanks for the links folks, they're a lot of help....

Think of the lovechild of a Rigel (back & sides) and the ovation (Shape, flat top & pinned bridge)

DARN IT!!!

Now I know It's possible I've no excuse not to do it!!!

**martinedwards** · Jun-09-2006, 2:24pm

Here we go then.......

slightly different from the original idea.

I've milled the back & sides out of a solid block of Mahogany leaving solid Rigelesque sides & neckblock.

The top is spruce (and theres enough left from a classical set for another mando!!)

binding is rosewood.

here it is letting the varnish dry.....

I don't have the right router tool, so I freehanded the binding channel

It's not perfect, but better than it has any right to be!!

**Rick Turner** · Jun-09-2006, 4:54pm

Take a look at Howe Orme mandolins. Go to the Fretboard Journal Blog and then to the May archives, page 3. Also check the exhibit at the Museum of Making Music www.museumofmakingmusic.org and see the news about the Howe Orme show. Also Google for Howe Orme. I've got about 14 of them in various sizes of mando, and then I've got three of the Howe Orme guitars. Lowell Levinger www.vintageinstruments.com also has a bunch. He and I loaned most of our respective collections to the museum for the show.

**Amandalyn** · Jun-09-2006, 4:59pm

There's a guitar shaped Finegold Dell Arte in the used classified section. Listed today.

**martinedwards** · Jun-10-2006, 1:55am

Hey Rick, That's just showing off!!!

**Eugene** · Jun-10-2006, 7:54am

The Howe-Orme mandolin-family instruments have guitar-like profiles, but they still have a floating bridge and tailpiece. The original question was addressing fixed bridges. A great many historical mandolin types built for gut strings had fixed, lute-like, tie-block bridges. In the early-mid 1800s, some even used pin bridges.

Carving back and sides of a single block was a common building technique in the medieval era. It's still common to some ethnic instruments like Saz or charango (at least those that lack fur). It was abandoned by most of the world by the renaissance because the grain run-out along curves is inherently weaker, and the sides are necessarily thicker and heavier to compensate.

**kww** · Jun-10-2006, 7:56am

The tricordia linked in my signature is clearly guitar inspired.

**Amandalyn** · Jun-10-2006, 8:42am

Well the Finegold Del Arte is sold- but here's a pic

**EdSherry** · Jun-10-2006, 11:03pm

The mechanical way in which a guitar-type pin bridge "excites" the top is very different from the way in which a traditional mandolin setup (strings running across a floating bridge, and attached to a tailpiece) works. #Consequently, the sound is likely to be different. #How different depends on a number of factors, such as the brige plate and top bracing.

**martinedwards** · Jun-11-2006, 2:30am

thanks for all the replies folks, I've decided to do a traditional floating bridge on this.

I've already started on the next one (walnut back & sides, spruce top, and I MAY do the pinned bridge on it.....

I dunno yet!!

**Bill Snyder** · Jun-11-2006, 7:36am

Martin I have to admire your willingness to dive head long into your building. To cut the binding channel w/o benefit of a router you can use a

purfling cutter to get the channel even around the top/back of the instrument. You would still have to clean things up with a chisel though. International Luthier's Supply shows one a little over half way down on this page.

**martinedwards** · Jun-11-2006, 8:24am

but then I'd have to....

WAIT!!!!!!

for it to come in the post!!!!!

I'm the most impatient person in the world!!!

My first mando had the strings on it before the Danish oil was dry!!!

**Rick Turner** · Jun-11-2006, 1:56pm

If you think that's showing off, you should see the full display that Lowell Levinger and I loaned to the Museum of Making Music. There are 22 of them down there now, including guitars, and he and I still have more we didn't loan the museum either because they were duplicates or in rough shape. I'm looking at four major restoration project Howe Ormes as I type.

These things are beautiful, and I'm surprised that they are still so unknown.

As for pin or tie bridge vs. tailpiece...I think it's a simple matter of there being so much tension on a mandolin. You'd have to brace a top to the point of killing vibration to make it hold eight mandolin strings at normal gauge and scale length without collapsing. One of the interesting aspects of mandolin (and violin or any other archtop) design is that the pull on the tailpiece and the end block tends to bulge the top up while the down pressure of the strings pushes the top down. In the best of instruments, these counteracting pressures balance out leaving the top quite free to vibrate effectively.

**Bill Snyder** · Jun-11-2006, 3:29pm

Originally Posted by (martinedwards @ June 11 2006, 08:24)

but then I'd have to....

WAIT!!!!!!

for it to come in the post!!!!!
I'm the most impatient person in the world!!!
My first mando had the strings on it before the Danish oil was dry!!!

Then build your own. Think it through and you could build one with a piece of hardwood and a exacto blade or utility knife blade. Or keep doing it the way you have been. You seem to get your mandolins put together pretty quick.

**martinedwards** · Jun-11-2006, 4:29pm

Originally Posted by (Curious @ June 11 2006, 16:29)

You seem to get your mandolins put together pretty quick.

yup, that's because I'm not messing around with archtop carving or even kerfed linings!!

As time goes by I'll probably slow down, once I well, see the need!!

As of today, since december I've build a fretless bass, an acoustic Les Paul, two carved topped Mandos, amd I'm nearly done on the mando on this thread, a resonator guitar and I've started on the back of a "real" mando (with bent sides and everything) using Walnut that's I was given as scrap.

teaching has more free time than I thought!!

and Rick, the idea of pinned bridges is loosing it's appeal. Intonation is just so much easier with the tailpiece concept. Thanks for the theory though, it gives me a good REASON to do it the easy way!!!

**martinedwards** · Jun-12-2006, 10:47am

Strings on for a try out.

This is REALLY Loud and bassy!!

The frets still need polished and the trussrod cover needs to go on. #I've fallen out with Varnish though. #I either need a spray facility or I'm going all Danish oil

**Jim MacDaniel** · Jun-14-2006, 10:03am

Here's an interesting guitar-shaped K.Lee mandolin from guitarsuperstore.com (K-Lee, get it? #

)

**martinedwards** · Jun-14-2006, 11:34am

That looks great, but the soundhole?

as a resident of the shamrock Isle I find that just a little too twee!!

**Jim MacDaniel** · Jun-14-2006, 12:00pm

Agreed -- and if you bring that to a sesuin, I suspect you'd better have a deep repertoire and be able to play your a** off!

When I asked, they told me that they will be glad to build one with a different soundhole, as well as with different body woods. (The model pictured has a solid spruce top, but laminated mahogany back and sides.)