New build strung up and playing in 15 hours of bench time...

[j. condino]

I took a few photos of one of my new students, Steve, and his Griffith A5 style inspired new build that we just started working on. By lunch on day three, we had about 15 hours total bench time invested and we put his top on my test rig and were able to string it up, play a few tunes, and do about 90% of the voicing in real time. After we made a few mods and were happy with that, we took it off the test rig, and glued it up on the actual working ribs. 'Pretty cool to be able to bypass 100+ hours of unknown work effort, string up, play and make modifications to your mandolin, or decide it was a piece of junk crazy idea and make up a new one!

I gave a detailed workshop on the process at the Guild of American Luthiers convention and the ASIA conventions a few years ago and it was all laid out in a nice article in American Lutherie magazine if you want the whole story.

The photos show it on the test rig and then the next day glued up on the working rib garland. I've been using this for about four years now and often have the new owner come to the shop and we voice it for their ears, not mine. It has changed my whole approach to building....

After lunch we used my dovetail jig and made a kick a$$ fit in about 20 minutes:

https://vimeo.com/149088032

j. condino

https://www.facebook.com/Condino-Str...6588557518578/

[j. condino]

Here are a couple of updates on Steve's build a few weeks ago. After getting it pretty close on the test rig and stringing it up, everything got dismantled and the parts go together with the working neck and rib garland.

Lookin' pretty nice for our first build together!


j.
www.condino.com

https://www.facebook.com/Condino-Str...?ref=bookmarks

[sliebers]

That looks great James. I like your methods and jigs for building mandolins. Very smart. I would really like to take a class from you sometime.