Electric Octave Mandolin Neck

**Gabe I.** · Jan-17-2019, 7:16pm

Hello everyone,
I'm interested in building an electric octave mandolin from existing guitar parts. The one issue I'm having, however, is finding a neck that would be suitable, with around a 20" scale and appropriate width. Any ideas? Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Gabe

**jim simpson** · Jan-17-2019, 9:11pm

A mini Squier strat is 22.75" scale. There are other models/brands as well, close enough for your desired scale. Swap out the bridge with an electric mandolin bridge:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Silver-8-St...BUfz:rk:1:pf:0

You could change out the single coil pickups to blade style. The headstock gets trickier, you could plug the existing tuner holes, cut the sides in order to glue wings on, then cut to snakehead shape, glue a thin overlay material, trim to shape, drill for mandolin tuning gears and add string trees due to shallow angle.

Pictured is one I did in the method described.

**Gabe I.** · Jan-17-2019, 10:57pm

Thank you very much for the very informative reply! What did you do with the nut? Completely replace it or modify it somehow?

**jim simpson** · Jan-18-2019, 10:28am

Gabe, You're welcome! I made a new nut. The spacing is kind of dictated by the bridge which means your G and E courses are set in a bit from the edge of the fingerboard. That's not a problem for playing just plan it out before you start slotting the nut. I had a spare bone blank that I used.

**darrylicshon** · Jan-18-2019, 2:46pm

I have a mini epiphone flying v that is 20" scale. I have read an article about making the neck thinner , but I haven't tried that yet they used a belt sander. I also have a octave strat that I bought it has a really wide neck and the string slots are in pretty far from the edge, it works fine just doesn't feel as nice as my other octaves. I thinking about thinning the neck, if I had the right tools I would have already done it.

**rudy44** · Jan-18-2019, 10:20pm

I wrote this "how to" article posted on the Emando.com website detailing the conversion of a mini-strat to an electric octave mandolin. You could use the same techniques on many different conversions:

http://www.emando.com/builders_activ...structions.htm

**Herman Munster** · Feb-25-2019, 7:27pm

Originally Posted by rudy44

I wrote this "how to" article posted on the Emando.com website detailing the conversion of a mini-strat to an electric octave mandolin. You could use the same techniques on many different conversions:

http://www.emando.com/builders_activ...structions.htm

Wow very cool .Very nice to see this is being done .Im going to attempt doing a tenor guitar pretty much the same way but using a kit. Dave