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Here is a video the customer made of them unboxing this instrument:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwaMO77M_1E

And here is a video of them playing it:
...

Just to close out this thread, I put a couple of washers on the truss rod (why didn't I think of that) and was able to get the relief set up. I left it with .008" clearence under frets 6, 7, and 8...

There is lots of spruce growing in Northern Italy and several suppliers who cut and sell it. As far as I know all spruce in Europe is the same species, but growing in different climatic conditions...

Sounds about right to me ;)

And yes, they are bugger to hold if you make the top wide enough to resonate near that low C. Mine is guitar bodied which is easier to hold, but sometimes I wish I'd...

It sounds really good to me especially for the classical-type piece you played. My old friend Martin Jenkins played a Mandocello which he christened the "Swine o phone" probably because it was a...

Good stuff!

Just for interest, I have paid $1500 for the snakehead Jr. (There were two others available, two for 2,000 and one for 1,700. Only one was in the same excellent condition as the one I bought.) ...

Nice workmanship. Good deep bassy sound.
Bill

Dunno, they can be a popular subject for a still-life. ;)
181965

Wow that's quick.... looking good there.

Looks good so far! The headstock is certainly the trickiest part of these, so if you can do that, you can do the rest. My preference is to use a compound headstock angle, which for me is a little...

Should work. Looking forward to hearing how it sounds.

https://i.imgur.com/Z1VBW4a.jpg

Most of the surviving instruments of this type (which are mandolins rather than mandolas) have tied frets, but some have fixed metal frets, which were perhaps added...

Haha, yes those angles will make your brain hurt - the way you did yours was pretty much what I did, which is to say a small ebony fillet under the bass side. Certainly not my idea, I think it came...

Ok, Tonydxn et al: after you solve this luthiery puzzle the next level it to create a fan-fret Gelas model mandolin. I think I might have to take some dramamine for that one. :)

Here's our friend...

tonydxn, let me suggest that you might want to discuss your project with Bernie Lehmann here in Rochester. He made me a fan-fret, five-course mandolin/dola that came out very well. Like you, he...

Yes I designed and made the tailpiece - it's just a bent piece of bass sheet with curly maple over. The pins aren't required to hold the strings in, as the underling brass has a keyhole shaped slot...

Puttin' on my bifocals, this type of post is the kind of post that I look forward to. The exploration of building something out of the ordinary, the nay-sayers who are sometimes grumpy too. Its great...

Not so similar to yours, but here's mine:

181083181084

Well that is a valid point of view. But I happen to like the sound of a K-5 style (Gibson nomenclature) mandocello just fine.. Some years ago I made 4 mandocellos out of arch top guitars and I...

For me, the advantages for a 4-course instrument are:
1. Looks epic, harp vibes, yeah?
2. Allows you to use a shorter scale length on the treble side, where most of the complex melody usually...

The gist of what Dave found and I applied to my mandocello is this:
The top and back plates of the Gibson design do not couple as well as they could with the air resonance because they are too small...

Tony, look up a past thread by Cafe users Walt and Joe Mendel. Joe made Walt a badass mandocello. The bracing was much beefier than yours, especially along the direction of the strings. Your plan is...

That is what the entire mandolin cafe has turned into these days- a bunch of grumpy old men talking about mandolins.

A wise old man should understand better than most the limited amount of time...

I have been fascinated with the larger mando family instruments in the past, and made a few mandocellos based on an archtop guitar body. I think they look good and sound great but it takes a...