Mandolins in progress

[JEStanek]

Very nice contours and flame there, Geoff.

Jamie

[Dan Voight]

Just finished this F peghead binding

[Dan Voight]

and I just finished the tortoise bound F peghead tonight

[Jim Hilburn]

Buffing day.

[Ed Goist]

Gorgeous work Jim!!
I am very glad there are eight holes in that headstock and not four...Otherwise I'd be having a serious attack of TGAS right now!

[Max Girouard]

Nice Jim! What tuners are you going to put on this?

[Jim Hilburn]

Wavs

[GKWilson]

OUCH Jim. That's so sweet it hurts my teeth. Love that headstock too.
Dan's also. Tortoise. WOW.
Gary

[Max Girouard]

Wavs

Nice, I was asking because I saw those nicely bored bushing holes. Do you have piloted bores for other tuner sets?

[Jim Hilburn]

You can get infinite combinations of boring tools from suppliers like MSC, you just have to figure out what works. I have a pretty good selection, but the one Stew Mac supplies for Wavs also works pretty well for Grovers. They're a little loose when you first drill them but after finish they snug right up.

[OldGus]

Wow Jim, You have really got the mandolin building thing down. I bet it'll sound great! Good to see your on top of things as well, Dan, looking good. I know yours will sound great as well.

[Jim Hilburn]

Gus, if you want to see who has mandolin building down go have a look at that latest Fletcher Brock F-5. That should have 3 pages of comments.

[Jim Hilburn]

Ummm...quilt!
This is like one of those pictures where if you stared at it cross-eyed you could see a horse or ship or something. But here you have to look for the "inny" and outy" sides.
I did use Photoshop to up the contrast but when you use a plane on this stuff it really shows up good.

[Doug Edwards]

wow, that quilt is crazy nice.

[lauri Girouard]

Sanding this one today...........

[hank]

Unbelievable depth like topographical maps of the trees interior.

[lauri Girouard]

I don't know if I should call that piece quilt or flamed. Most unique piece of Big Leaf we have come across. Here is another interesting detail of how the grain lines on the sides almost match up to the grain lines on the neck................

[Charles E.]

Nice detail Lauri. You guy's are really putting out some nice stuff.

[Max Girouard]

Thanks Charles!

Here is a mando we are about to finish up. It will be a "house demo" mandolin so anyone in the area, feel free to give us a ring or shoot us an email to come give it a spin. Sitka top and birdseye maple back sides and neck. We also plan to bring it to Grey Fox this year.

[Steve-o]

That's some sweet looking birdseye. Nice staining job.

[StevenS]

Enjoyed Saturday night with three blondes and a redhead!



Steve

[Kip Carter]

I'm extremely partial to redheads... See you turned their world upside down as well. Nice!
Kip...

[Marty Jacobson]

Here are some pictures of my latest project. A production optimized mandolin that will sell for a relatively low price, but still retain some important features. A couple of the odd or interesting things about the design are:

The sides are laminated out of three layers of the same wood as the back and neck with a maccassar Ebony center stripe. Sometimes a curly maple layer for contrast. This rim is very dimensionally stable and very strong.

The rims also very easy for me to make using the strap winch and fire hose + compressed air contraption seen below.

The top and back are joined via the neck and heel blocks, which index positively together within a thousandth of an inch.

Dovetails are tested and neck angles verified before any assembly. Then the sides are "wrapped" around the top and back. The top plate color coats can be sprayed before the neck is mounted if needed.

Also, there is no kerfing. The plates have a smooth radius down to the rims. Makes it look really clean inside and, in theory, is beneficial to volume and tone.
It does make my free-plate tap tuning frequencies a little different than usual but I do my important adjustments on false rim fixtures anyway.

More to come later this week as I finish the first two instruments.

[Max Girouard]

Nice, I really like that neck joint, and that stripe in the fretboard is way cool!

[Jim Garber]

Martin, I can see that you are an industrial designer. Your site is interesting beyond just instruments. Your Basilisk mandolin is certainly striking. Are there unusual structural aspects to that or to the building of it?