View Full Version : Now I get it
Spent most of the day making a thickness gauge. Probably take a day to make the 30 clamps to glue the top and back on. So you finish building a mandolin, and you have all the tools you need to make another. Otherwise the tools and jigs are just going to sit there, right? Shame to waste them.
Slippery slope this is......
buckhorn
Sep-23-2017, 10:15pm
then make another.. and another.. and another...
Ivan Kelsall
Sep-24-2017, 3:02am
From Br1ck - "...and you have all the tools you need to make another.". And the skill of course - something that i certainly don't have - at least at age 72, & with no place to build even if i was 50 years younger.
You wouldn't believe how much i envy you guys (& gals) who can 'do it',
Ivan
fscotte
Sep-24-2017, 10:12am
Also realize that the jigs you make now will likely be the same one you'll be using 40 yrs from now. So build them well.
Well, I'm hoping I'll be making mandolins at 106, but don't bet the farm on it. What for sure this Arches kit is teaching me is how reasonable a $4500 mandolin is. Spent all day getting my tolerances on the top plate to within .002 so I can start with sandpaper. I'm sure experience would speed the process, but still, I know why luthiers don't live in Manhattan or Santa Monica.
Skills? I'm hacking as I go. Uncharted territory. My workshop right now is a picnic table. Glorious weather and full sunlight to pick up every little flaw. But I do have a small workbench inside, but my chop saw and belt sander are outside with a tarp thrown over them. I was rather proud of the thickness gauge. Much to my amazement, it reads exactly the same as my calipers.
Ivan Kelsall
Sep-25-2017, 3:32am
From Br1ck - "Skills ? I'm hacking as I go. Uncharted territory." Just like every other luthier who started down the path !,
Ivan
Timbofood
Sep-25-2017, 9:49am
Hey Br1ck, how about a picture of the thickness gauge? Custom built tools are all part of the gig, aren't they? Every boat my brother does seems to need a whole extra handful of special tools. He makes patterns as though he was going into full production, by the time he gets about 80% finished, he's tired of the design! Go figure.
John Kelly
Sep-26-2017, 4:21am
Hi, Br1ck, you have discovered the fatal attraction of building your own instruments. When I retired in 2003 after 35 years of being a teacher I went part-time on an instrument-building course at what was then Anniesland College in Glasgow. Since then I have managed over 35 mandolin family instruments plus three guitars, and have been lucky enough to have the instruments taken by other players.
Making the jigs and other tools and devices is one of the great joys of building, as you have discovered. I too made a thickness gauge from plywood with a cheap but accurate dial gauge I bought at a market for a couple of pounds.
Have fun with your building!
Karl Hoyt
Sep-29-2017, 11:35am
Hi, Br1ck, you have discovered the fatal attraction of building your own instruments. When I retired in 2003 after 35 years of being a teacher I went part-time on an instrument-building course at what was then Anniesland College in Glasgow. Since then I have managed over 35 mandolin family instruments plus three guitars, and have been lucky enough to have the instruments taken by other players.
Making the jigs and other tools and devices is one of the great joys of building, as you have discovered. I too made a thickness gauge from plywood with a cheap but accurate dial gauge I bought at a market for a couple of pounds.
Have fun with your building!
Add me to the list of retired teachers making high quality sawdust in my basement..... i had built lots of instruments while teaching.. so the jigs etc are all made. I've built lots of acoustic and electric instruments... but last winter I built my first two mandolins. I have a bit of an affliction now for small bodied acoustic guitars and now F5's....... The fever seems to be escalating rather than subsiding :-) Good fever to have
CarlM
Sep-29-2017, 11:44am
What do you do with them after you get them all built? Sell them profitably? Sell them for less than cost? Give them away? Keep them? Just curious. I could see this leading to 30 or 50 instruments around the house that do not get played.
Br1ck
Sep-29-2017, 12:32pm
What do you do with them after you get them all built? Sell them profitably? Sell them for less than cost? Give them away? Keep them? Just curious. I could see this leading to 30 or 50 instruments around the house that do not get played.
I suggest that if you can't keep thirty instruments happy, you're not playing enough.
Seriously, I own four home brewed teles , two strats, a P bass, a J bass, a cigar box guitar and a bunch of rythem instruments. I gave away a few more. So with the F style I'm making now, I'll need to build a flatty, an oval hole arch top, a mandola and an octave before redundancy sets in.
I once commented to Frank Ford that I couldn't believe so many luthiers could earn a living, and he answered " most of them don't." You could build a great sounding, great looking, and great playing mandolin and unless you get someone of note to shout your praises, you're not getting the average guy to buy your mandolin. Unless, of course, you literally give it away. If you want to make some spending money in your retirement, I'd learn to do a killer setup job.
It sure is a great way to pass the time though.
Karl Hoyt
Sep-29-2017, 8:13pm
What do you do with them after you get them all built? Sell them profitably? Sell them for less than cost? Give them away? Keep them? Just curious. I could see this leading to 30 or 50 instruments around the house that do not get played.
I have been lucky to sell nearly everything I've built. Sometimes (early on) it was the cost of parts and a few adult beverages... but for the most part I make enough to continue to fund my hobby, take my wife out here and there, and maybe fund most of a vacation once a year.
John Kelly
Sep-30-2017, 12:38pm
I too have managed to get paid for the instruments I have made, and this covers more material, the odd new tool, etc, but were I to try to make a living from it I'd starve! The big pleasure is to have other folk actually playing instruments you have made.
Dusepo
Sep-30-2017, 1:14pm
You'll also learn something new or figure something out each time you build, and this'll spur you on to want to try it out next time.
Hey, the first top brace took me most of an afternoon to carve, the second about an hour. This is only the edge touching the top. I''ll shape the braces tomorrow after letting them thoroughly dry.