Non-conformist idiot here could use a support therapist ... ;)

[Rob Meldrum]

I'm going to chime in with a brief observation. The first question to answer is this: do you want to play an instrument or do you want to become a proficient builder of instruments? If it is the latter you are int he right area. If it is the former, then here are my thoughts.
1. Pick an instrument that is easy to learn and you can sing along as you play. If I were choosing a first instrument to learn as an adult beginner I would go with guitar, baritone ukulele, ukulele and mandolin, in that order of preference. The baritone uke plays like the top four strings of a guitar but has a smaller neck.

2. Learn to play by taking lessons or sorting through the variety of youtube lessons and pick the ones that look best to you.

3. Have fun.

4. If you think a ukulele sounds shrill I'm not sure why you are looking to build a mandolin. :-)

[PT66]

You have rejected the idea of buying a ready made instrument. Many people believe it would be cheaper to build something then to buy it. This is only true IF you count your time as free and IF you have all the necessary tools. I have thousands of dollars tied up in tools that I have purchased over the last 50 years. Just buying the right materials for this project would cost a couple hundred. Your plan has errors in it and you don't want to learn the design parameters for a playable instrument. Try this over at the Luthiers Forum and see if you get better results.

[Jaqaliah]

Building a musical instrument is about art AND science. The baritone at Allen Guitars was a steel string instrument with a fixed bridge or electric. You can't build a workable instrument from mythology. I can recommend some reading but that take time.

I accept what you are saying. Can you tell me why when I called and described what I was looking to make - an acoustic lute in my voice range, they recommended I get a fret board slotted using their service at this length and label: 27.750" Baritone. They could have sold me any length and instructed me that the label was about the instrument and not the range of notes comparable to the human voice. They did not need to mislead me. So, why would they do so?

Have you tried the banjo builders forum?

I am familiar with four string African Banjos made from gourds. That certainly would correspond with the Law of Moses to build alters of uncut stone or earth lest by raising your tool upon it you mar the natural beauty thereof, however - it would not meet the parameters I set for using the Golden Section as the design parameter.

Occasioanlly people like this come around I guess. They feel the need to be someone they really aren't, as to be impressive or something.

I stated what I needed. I was asked for the rest.

I would in no way ever build this fella an instrument.

Nor would I want you to since you are more concerned with denigrating others than promoting the good.

Missouri luthiers

Bookmarked.

I do find your analysis, influences and dreams very interesting ...

It is about the application of the Golden Section. The same formula that builds the rose, describes crystal, formations, decay ratios, the communications of bees, the paintings of DaVinci (he did that on purpose). In college I tested the proportions in presentations on papers. Those where I used the ratio to set the shape of my paragraphs and page, the size of my type, received higher marks than those that I typed straight out. It is hard wired not only into nature but into our nature.

In a strange way, you want immediate gratification. Lots of contradictions here, in my way of thinking. To me the path to actually learn the skills and make this "perfect" instrument would be part of the joy of making it exist. Yes, it may take years, but you seem to feel pretty strongly about this project.

It isn't quite immediate. I have been waylaid by life for several years now. This location was recommended to me by a Luthier out of Texas whose stuff I came across looking for help. And I used to have a processive personality, before I got married, bankrupt, divorced, and disabled. There is a lot of wonder for former things that isn't coming back. Just a fact.

Interesting, if somewhat disjointed, history lesson. I believe you may have neglected to tell us about your personal motivations and why you want to build stringed instruments.

For profane experience, space is homogenous and neutral; no break qualitatively differentiates the various parts of its mass. For religious man, space is not homogenous; he experience interruptions, breaks in it; some parts of the space are qualitatively different from others. The manifestation of the sacred ontologically founds the world. Religious man cannot live except in an atmosphere impregnated with the sacred. ~ Mircea Eliade

You may be limiting yourself by restricting your interest to the insular world of mandolins.

The mandolin and bouzouki families are the only thing around in volume that comes close to what I am attempting. Though both are generally made to be over complicated and given too much make-up. It is sort of like a Michael Angelo or a Picasso (in his red or blue period) - certainly worth their market, but not suited to my chicken coop.
It is amusing that in an age prompting our individuality, we can all be just like everybody else. Like, it is hard to be Jewish in a town that only sells ham sandwiches. Like promising 319 million people they can all be president when they grow up, but really what are the odds of being that individuality? Just how many openings are there for that anyway? So we toss on this year's version of a Nehru jacket, 29" bells with leaves, butterflies, and flowers climbing the hem, dexter hiking boots, denim motoring cap, and biker wallet and march out to be different just like everybody else who bought their clothes at this year's version of Monkey Wards.

... with ordinary fingers.

I have short wide fingers and short wide palms - at least compared to all the mass produced gloves and glove patterns. Which is why I have to crochet my own.

I am going to guess you got precious little concrete guidance from either of these. I took a run at them, and found that while fascinating, they were both way more dense than they needed to be.

Well, I wasn't trying to make concrete. I was calculating the expression of the sacred. As to what you would call concrete. I have found very little that was functionally to the point or entertainingly ethereal. Most was technical fluff in the form of pseudo-legal jargon that isn't really meant to say anything because committing to an actual statment might make someone blame you or more often it was a long description written by someone who felt they needed to write about what they did but were more accustomed to doing than writing and had absolutely no clue how to build successive phrases and clauses to a point.

[pit lenz]

Gentlemen, I truly admire your patience and good will to help this new fellow forumite.
Guess I would have given up my positive spirit to help him "wrangle his demons" already.
I'm curious to see, where this is going....

[Rick Lindstrom]

Gentlemen, I truly admire your patience and good will to help this new fellow forumite.
Guess I would have given up my positive spirit to help him "wrangle his demons" already.
I'm curious to see, where this is going....

It's been an interesting diversion, but I'm done until the OP quits dispensing academic techno-babble.

[Jaqaliah]

I'm sure most of them are as frustrated with me as I am with most of them. However, a few here seem to actually get it. I kind of feel like the Fung-shue Architect trying to explain to the Foreman that planting evergreens on the north side of the house reduces heat loss and saves the homeowner money. But because it is something thousands of years old it just ain't right, can't work, and all that superstitious mojo is for crackpots.

It's like the community I live in. While I was alderman I and the mayor put together the first library here in over 100 years. We did this completely on donations. Not one penny of tax payer money went into this. Not one government grant. Shelves were donated from private schools that were upgrading there equipment, books and equipment were donated from individuals and companies from coast to coast, locals purchased candy and soda to cover the cost of the paperwork. The electricity for the lights was $4.00/month. But we were thrown out of office because we were wasting tax payer money providing a place where kids could do something like read books instead of vandalize abandoned buildings. O, wait the library was in city hall which had to be open anyway, so we are still paying the $4.00/month for lights. So maybe we just hate people because they read books. Sorry, my late uncle was a librarian for the state of Illinois. My late aunt was a librarian and school teacher. My mother is a library technician. I'll take your hate because I am academic in my motivation, because I am guided by principles which are religious and live in a sacred world. After all, I was 9 years old before the extermination order on everyone of my religion was lifted in the state where I was born.

Now, I explained what I was after. I gave the basic background for it. And you asked for the rest. Then you refused to accept it, denigrated me for it, and belittled me for thinking outside the prefabricated box. Goodbye.

[Rob Zamites]

And just to clarify OPs use of "1.414....." versus the Golden Ratio:

1.414.... is the square root of two.
1.6180339... is the Golden Ratio

So OP isn't really clear on his maths either since neither has to do with the other. My first cittern, interestingly enough, was built by Brian Dean, and based on the Golden Ratio. And, like Rick, I'm done here.

[Bertram Henze]

If I understand the OP's requirements correctly, the cheapest approximation for him would be to buy a guitar, remove every other string and tune the remaining strings ad lib.

That solution would bear no resemblance of a mandolin family instrument, but the search for such a resemblance may have caused much of the confusion, and may have been futile in the first place.

[fscotte]

A closed thread is a good thread.

[Pete Jenner]

I'm going to miss him.

[fredy]

I think this is garbage! An educated man living in the outback no skills no car. When I was born on the island off N C we had few adminitys school was I=6 party line phone and travel to the main land for food What we didn't have we did without or made and there are lots of homemade instruments in the hills of Nc. I feel that if you really want something you find a way and not wine about what you can't do this guy has no clue!

[Jim Garber]

It is about the application of the Golden Section. The same formula that builds the rose, describes crystal, formations, decay ratios, the communications of bees, the paintings of DaVinci (he did that on purpose). In college I tested the proportions in presentations on papers. Those where I used the ratio to set the shape of my paragraphs and page, the size of my type, received higher marks than those that I typed straight out. It is hard wired not only into nature but into our nature.

Perhaps/Maybe/Possibly this may be the luthier who understands what you are wanting. You may try contacting him to see if he would work with you and vice versa: Ray's Root Works

Quote off his site:

Unique design with shell-shape back or traditional flat back. Created in the shape of golden ratio (Fibonacci sequence).

Perhaps he can build you a fretted, three-string version of this one: The Root

[Perry Babasin]

Bizarro Padma

[JeffD]

a long description written by someone who felt they needed to write about what they did but were more accustomed to doing than writing and had absolutely no clue how to build successive phrases and clauses to a point.

I think that is accurate. As a counter example, I remember Robert Graves "The White Goddess" and while it was similarly fascinating and similarly dense, the writing was compelling and the I really wanted to "get it".

[Rob Zamites]

He's still watching this thread, FWIW.

[Rick Lindstrom]

Actually, Da Padma might be just the guy to connect with him intellectually and spiritually and float his boat. So to speak.

[JeffD]

He's still watching this thread, FWIW.

Aren't we all.

I am hoping we are able to help him, or at least help him see whether or not we can help him.

[Rob Zamites]

Well, he PM'd me to let me know that I could continue lying about him, basically. I think he needs more than a luthier, TBH, but everyone has their story, all of us included, and his doesn't concern me further.

[Rick Lindstrom]

Well, I guess he actually warned us in the title to his post.....

[Rob Zamites]

Well, I guess he actually warned us in the title to his post.....

Which part?

[fredy]

He Pm me also and talked about his doing the work of GOD. What A idiot lives in the outback has no skills probably doesn't eat meat walks in sandles and a robe and is building a cross somewhere. I'm a disabled vet -Dad was a preacher. I was kicked out of the church for going into the military trying to defend our way of life and lost interest in anything about the churches and his God while there, been careing metal in my body for over 45 years. and Yet people like him are walking upright wish he was here so isis could help him

[John Arnold]

Can you tell me why when I called and described what I was looking to make - an acoustic lute in my voice range, they recommended I get a fret board slotted using their service at this length and label: 27.750" Baritone.

Physics. With a stretched string, you need a certain length to produce a certain pitch efficiently. The best tone in the world is of little use if you don't have sufficient volume to be heard.
I used the Golden Section to design some instruments while I was in college, but soon discovered that the application was purely arbitrary, and did not serve to make them better. I also used the cube root of two, with similar results.
The reason I would not be interested in helping this cause is simple....it is too demanding, and the chance of a desirable outcome is small.
I have found that it is sometimes easier to build it myself, rather than helping the helpless.
This reminds me of the old adage.
Shop rate:
Basic: $50 per hour.
If you watch: $75 per hour.
If you help: $150 per hour.

[PT66]

I don't have a problem with the golden ratio thing. I thing a body that big would be hard to play. I think the sound hole is too small (I know that a balalaika has a small sound hole. Have you heard one?). If you are playing melodies you don't need 16 fret clear of the body ( as you go up the scale you move to the next string when you get to that note). Consider the guitarron. It has a short neck in order to place the bridge in the correct location. You can use a fixed bridge like a flat top guitar for any number of strings there by no need for tailpiece. The three factors that control the pitch of a string are length, mass and tension. If you make a string heavier you can make it shorter and get the same pitch (within limits). The G string on a guitar and the G string on a mandolin are the same pitch with the guitar scale being nearly twice the length.
You said there are no luthiers near by and a carpenter refused to help. May I suggest a cabinet maker. The would have more of the right tools.

[PT66]

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...=double+octave this thread is about an "out of the box" project I did.