Saga AM-10 A-Style Kit...

[Perry Babasin]

I had fun this last weekend. For months now I have been working on a 1934 Martin R-18 archtop guitar with and for my Son (It is coming out great BTW!). Been anxious to get back to mandolins and while waiting on some parts for the Martin, I broke out this AM-10 kit I bought a couple of years ago. I have used some of the parts for other projects but I was looking at it and realized the top was pretty thick. I had parts and built a thickness caliper and scraped, carved and sanded the top into this. I'm kind of excited, I think it could be a good sounding instrument. I've done some repair and refinish but this is my first kit build. I'm making it for my Grandson...

[Bernie Daniel]

I had fun this last weekend. For months now I have been working on a 1934 Martin R-18 archtop guitar with and for my Son (It is coming out great BTW!). Been anxious to get back to mandolins and while waiting on some parts for the Martin, I broke out this AM-10 kit I bought a couple of years ago. I have used some of the parts for other projects but I was looking at it and realized the top was pretty thick. I had parts and built a thickness caliper and scraped, carved and sanded the top into this. I'm kind of excited, I think it could be a good sounding instrument. I've done some repair and refinish but this is my first kit build. I'm making it for my Grandson...

I hear you and carry on!

I'm nearly done with one of these very kits right now and if it sounds good when I string it up I'm going to customize it with inlay and put it away for my grand daughter!

What did you use to graduate the plates? I see you are using the same Siminoff map as I used.

[Perry Babasin]

Hey Bernie! I've had this kit for a couple of years and wasn't that impressed when I first saw it. Somewhere along the line I decided not to build it and used a couple of parts for some other repair projects.

Recently I was working on an old reverse scroll Regal with and for my grandson and decided that the work involved probably wouldn't be worth the end product. I dug the Saga kit out and started looking at it. The wood actually looked pretty good, and when I measured it, the top was a lot thicker than I had read about here on the cafe. By working on the inside of the dome and the outside recurve, it measures out very well, in fact I can still carefully take some more off the top.

As to technique, I kind of have a unique situation. Because of a mild medical condition I have to approach some tasks from a different perspective. I have a bunch of scraping devices that I use liberally (including a pocket knife, ha,ha), and although I've read that builders don't seem to like to use sandpaper so much, I use sandpaper a lot. I have several different sanding devices, including a drill press with a flexible disc attachment. I saw that Ellis video and now the Collings video where they are using the same kind of setup to shape the dome. Because of this I'll probably never build from scratch, which is OK because I like the traditional forms anyway, and I don't think there is anything particularly glamorous or artistic about hogging out a bunch of wood, I'll work from kits. With my background in the arts (and crafts) I'm all about the finishing anyway. Some day I'll get a really good kit!

[Folkmusician.com]

The mando is looking great so far. Honestly I am most impressed with your thickness caliper. It never crossed my mind to use a C clamp. It looks like it was meant for it, right down to the ridge for a bench vise to grab on to!

[Perry Babasin]

Thanks Robert! I bought the gauge at Harbor Freight, after reading about it here on the cafe. I was planning on making some wood frame contraption and saw the deep extended C clamp. It looked like it could be easily adapted, and it was! I like the bench vice mount too!

BTW, my wife and I went to the Whitney Peaks in Reno a few weeks ago and saw Mandolin Orange and the Wood Brothers. Excellent show and a potential great venue for Americana/Roots music. Next time we're in town we'll come by and see you. We go to Tahoe all the time!

[Folkmusician.com]

Whitney Peaks is doing a great job on the new direction and renovation. I hope it is successful for them.

If you are ever over on a Wednesday night (7-10pm), try "Brasserie Saint James" just down S. Virginia. It is a craft brewery/restaurant. Wednesday night is Bluegrass night with "Strange on the Range" playing in the back tap room. It is a very small room with a great friendly crowd. The first time I went, I managed to meet just about everyone within the first hour.

Tahoe/Truckee is my second home. I try to head up once/twice a week during the warm months. Let me know when you will be in town, maybe we can catch a show or something.

[Perry Babasin]

Well... I recently retired and decided to dive into a few projects that have been lurking in the shadows for years. One of them is this AM-10 Kit. I did a lot of hot-rodding the components and even installed triangular shaped kerfing and longer tone-bars. I worked a lot on graduating the plates top and back. One big concern with these kits is the neck joint failure, so I decided to go crazy and installed a hardwood dowel bracing system for the neck joint (that will never come apart, even if I wanted it to). I antiqued and relic'd the hardware as well; with airbrushed color and a hand-rubbed tru-oil finish. This thing sounds way better than it ought to. This is going to my now 15 y.o. grandson!

[Perry Babasin]

I think some of these photos are huge so here are reduced versions...