Working on a prototype of a nylon-strung, four string piccolo mandolin (Cgda, a fourth above a mandolin). Finally strung it up today. It has modified Torres bracing (like a classical guitar) with a very thin top. Went with a floating bridge rather than a fixed bridge, to keep it more mandolin-like. Made a tailpiece specifically for this purpose, of black walnut and brass. Ribs and sides are local cherry. Neck is hard maple, bridge is local black walnut.
Have to do a little set-up work, and try a heavier, wound C string. Will post more about it when it's actually done.
Purr more, hiss less. Barn Cat Mandolins Photo Album
Finally got the neck out of my Kalamazoo KG-11. I first used steam then switched to heat rod. Will be doing a refret, new nut and saddle in addition to the neck reset.
Old Hometown, Cabin Fever String Band
I think the excess string has to exit the head to the sides for the kitten vibe; maybe about 4” each side.
The tailpiece is nice, and novel. Are there grooves in the brass to keep the strings located?
Let us all know when you get the string gauges worked out, and we can hear this one!
Good for you, Richard, you figured out what I was going for with that headstock shape. I like your idea for the whiskers! Here's a photo of it as I was beginning to put on the finish. Note that the left ear is 'tipped', which is the sign of a spayed or neutered feral cat. My barn cats all have the tipped ear, as they all were feral earlier in their lives, but now have a home and an occupation. Here's a picture of the headstock as I was beginning to apply finish.
The tailpiece was an experiment, and I learned a lot from it. Hopefully there will be a next one and if so, it will be slightly wider, and will have the grooves you mention. If this one works out, I'll make a regular mandolin match to it.
I've been terrible about putting up recordings, but I plan to put up a video comparing this one to one of my typical metal strung piccolo mandolins so others can learn from my little experiment as well. That should follow in about two weeks.
Purr more, hiss less. Barn Cat Mandolins Photo Album
Necking again in the shop while waiting for 'monsoon' season to pass. Ebony/quilt, African Blackwood, Brazilian rosewood, Macassar Ebony, brw/curly, ebony, desert ironwood, brw, brw, ironwood. Below is part of the ebay old Kay bass brw fingerboard stash....
Is that from the stash you got from the lady in the other side of the mountain! The violin guy who passed? That’s what one my OldWave Oval A. Best choice O made was when you asked me if I wanted you to use that!
My avatar is of my OldWave Oval A
Creativity is just doing something wierd and finding out others like it.
When someone posted some pics of a 1920s Stromberg-Voisinet mandolin a few weeks back, I was reminded that I had traced the body and head outline of one that someone brought in for some repairs a few years back. Wanting a break from carving the quartet instruments I thought a canted-top, 13"scale diversion was required. Soundboard is Sitka, Back and side Tulip Satinwood, neck is Queensland maple with an ebony fingerboard, Ivoiroid binding. The neck is not carved yet and the back binding has yet to be trimmed. I made the neck with 11 frets to the body rather than the original 10. The head had to be adjusted in length to take some Gotoh tuners, as the original had some patent tuners where each tuner was in a little metal cylinder an inch or so across and was inserted into the head from the front.
http://www.mcdonaldstrings.com
The Mandolin Project on building mandolins
The Mandolin-a history
The Ukulele on building ukuleles
Maple octave back, and one of the f holes. No luncheonettes were harmed in the making of the binding, as far as I know!
[IMG]Untitled by Gary Davis, on Flickr[/IMG]
[IMG]Untitled by Gary Davis, on Flickr[/IMG]
[IMG]Untitled by Gary Davis, on Flickr[/IMG]
Halfway through the violin varnish process on my first mandolin.
The customer who is patiently waiting for this mandolin has expressed interest in seeing some progress photos posted here so I'll go back a little bit and then catch up to current progress.
This is the first Griffith Loar-inspired mandolin that I have made. It is not a replica, but a near copy with custom features making it different from the original.
The back wood was in my wood rack and it turns out to have figure somewhat similar to the Griffith.
The top wood is (of course) red spruce. This piece has some reaction wood. It is very hard and a bit heavy, but I've had good success using it for strong sounding, loud mandolins when paired with hard maple.
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
Here's the back being carved to shape.
After completing the carving of the arches I used these graduation measurements that Bruce Harvie (IIRC) posted online.
Here I'm carving the back to the specified thicknesses in the specified places.
Same thing with the top:
You may notice the "dorsal crest" toward the neck end of the center of the back. It is a feature of the Griffith that we decided to use in this tribute.
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
Rather than using mahogany for the head and tail blocks we went with a much lighter head block wood (paulownia) and a heavier tail block wood (hard maple) to help with the balance of the instrument. The tone bars are red spruce, very close to Loar specs in terms of size, shape and position.
Also, while I usually use solid wood linings in mandolins, we went with basswood kerfed linings as a nod to the original.
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
The carved back looks like this:
Attachment 204552
The carved top looks like this:
Attachment 204553
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
We're using the snakehead shape for the peghead, but it will have a custom inlay when I get it done. As of now I have the logo ready to inlay and I'm slowly working on the main inlay design. We chose a shorter fingerboard (22 frets) rather than the long, 29-fret 'board that was on the original. The frets are Evo gold and larger than the originals.
Attachment 204554
This catches us up to what is actually on my bench as of now.
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
Now that is some reaction wood in the spruce!
I noticed Gilchrists tops often show somewhat stronger summer wood, too. I've got one just like yours (though local european) with such prominent reaction wood that I plan one day to turn into a simple no frills "player" just to test how it will work.
Adrian
Really nice work, John.
For those of us who don't know, what is reaction wood?
Reaction wood (also called compression grain) comes from a stressed, off-balance tree. Often, a spruce tree will grow on a steep mountainside. Each year of the trees youth, it will lean a little down hill and the next years growth will "try" to straighten it back up. Especially the down-hill side of the tree will develop the prominent grain lines and added density that make it "reaction wood". It can also be caused by a tree having one or more very heavy limbs on one side. Basically anything that affects the balance of the tree on the ground so that it is heavier to one side can cause reaction wood, if the imbalance is severe enough. It is somewhat similar to limb wood, though more stable because the effect is not as severe.
As Adrian said, reaction wood can be seen in Gilchrist mandolins.
I've had a lot of reaction red spruce for years and I didn't really know if it was usable, but I began hearing that Gilchrist preferred it. Whether or not that is true, I decided to try using it to see how it would work out. At first I tried wood with only a portion of reaction grain and found no particular difference between the results and my usual results. I then tried a piece similar to this top with reaction grain throughout. It was the thinnest yet heaviest top I had carved at that time and the sound of the mandolin was very strong and loud with good "tone". That has been true each time I have used it in a mandolin, although I would not have expected it.
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
Bookmarks