Mandolins in progress

[Mike Black]

Gluing in the Virzi in my A4 snakehead copy.

[Jim Hilburn]

First ever rosette.

[Dan Voight]

thats wonderful Jim. What color will be on this one?

[Skip Kelley]

Mike, That little A4 is coming along great! Please let us know how it sounds with the virzi.

Jim, That "first" rosette is awesome! Very nice work!
All you guys on here are such an inspiration.

[ShaneJ]

Beautiful, Jim.

[Skip Kelley]

Heres two pics of work in progress.
The first pic is my poor boy carving machine I made. I had just finished roughing out a maple back.

[Skip Kelley]

The second pic is of my messy work bench(I need to clean it off so I can find things!)

[labraid]

Mandos ahoy, Skip(per)!


Non-art shot, sorry, I'm wavering.

[sebastiaan56]

Dean,

what can I say?, exquisite as usual! Are those the new (old) tuners from Stewmac, any thoughts? What are the buttons made of?

[alltunator]

Jim, that shell has tons o' character, it's really going to be gorgeous with a finish over it. Does the curvature (carvature?) of the top make it difficult to arrange everything into the rosette channel?

Andy

[labraid]

Sebastian,

Those are Schallers.. with my own patented Old World (mis)treatment.
(we've got gold, we've got nickel, and we've got crud )
The buttons are my own that I make, cocobolo. Just happened to match the varnished walnut almost perfectly by itself!

Thanks!

[joshua collum]

This is the top of a solid body eight string electric that i'm working on. This is my first attempt at building. So hopefully it will turn out O.K...if not, i'll throw it away and try again.

[McCandolin]

Originally Posted by labraid

Sebastian,

Those are Schallers.. with my own patented Old World (mis)treatment.
(we've got gold, we've got nickel, and we've got crud )
The buttons are my own that I make, cocobolo. Just happened to match the varnished walnut almost perfectly by itself!

Thanks!

Any hints on that there "crud" treatment?

[Skip Kelley]

Brian, I love the looks of that mandolin! Nice tuner buttons too!
Joshua, Awesome looking first build! Very nice!

[Jim Hilburn]

Hi, Andy.
Since this oval isn't going to be a traditional replica, I felt I could deviate from the standard F-4 look. However, my client does like the herringbone look. I had this abalone that has some of the creamy look that reminded me of the celluloid thats normally used only with lots of translucence as well and thought I'd give it a try.
Instead of making the rosette on a mold, I built it in the channel. The herringbone was pretty straight forward. soak it, bend it into place, hold it there with push pins, let it dry, then I used Titebond to affix it. (Sorry, all you hide glue lovers).
So that left the channel to fill with abalone. I traced it onto paper and segmented it into inch or a little longer sections, hand cut it, ran it on my rotary sander to get close, and hand filed it till it dropped in. As you can imagine, there a quite a few high spots that had to be leveled. That was about the most time consuming part. I could hit the high spots with a flat file and use a riffler in the curves, a lot of scraping and some sanding. I tried to get it so it felt level to your finger tips.
Stop by after work sometime and have a look...and a beer.

[joshua collum]

Thanks Skip! I'll post my progress as I go. I've been so inspired by all the wonderful builders here on the cafe. It's amazing how talented these guys and gals are.

Joshua

[crazymandolinist]

I cannot believe this thread got thrown of the first page!
Quite dissapointed guys....

[D18dave]

Here's my latest update. Glued the back on last Saturday. Won't get to work on her again until this Saturday evening. Hopefully tuners, binding and tail piece arrive in the mail tomorrow

[crazymandolinist]

Itching and scratching to see what that thing will end up looking like! I love two-points!

[Mark Walker]

Skip - I like your magic-marker inscribed 'reminders' on your poor-boy carving machine! I usually have to write those on the palms of my hands!

Your workbench looks like mine - though, alas - mine's currently cluttered with shotgun re-loading components. (Winter trap-league here in Michigan!)

Keep up the great work everyone. I'm so impressed by all the great looking mandolins you people craft!

[oldwave maker]

Hoping to have this one ready to take to st loo for the Tionol in april- Spruce's old cedar carved top, mesquite sides and 1 pc back, mahogany neck, ziricote binding, ironwood fretboard (buffed) and peghead veneer (wet with alcohol), the turquoise shamrock will turn mellow green under the shellac sealer:

[ShaneJ]

That's extremely beautiful and a very nice understated way, Bill. I love it.

[JEStanek]

D18Dave, Keep up that good work.

Bill, That looks great!

Jamie

[D18dave]

Almost ready for the binding. It's supposed to be hear Monday!!! I'm going with tortoise with white black Side-bound strips. I used Ivoroid points to contrast. I hope to string her up in the white in a week or two

[Dfyngravity]

Dave, that two pointer is coming along very nicely. Very clean and sleek, and those F holes look just great. Can't wait to see this one finished....great work!