Does anyone have a PDF of E-Mando plans??

[Englishman]

I'm building my first 8 string mandolin and I need some plans for a rough guide of size and scale. I've built many guitars and basses and I have a specific style in mind but I don't know about body size and neck length. Anyone help me out, please?

[sonic]

I found various guitar drawings that I printed off and used as my template.
For the neck in particular the fretboard I used fret2find iirc you can put in all your sizes nut bridge etc (it doesn’t do eight strings so I used four) it gives you a PDF you can print to scale. I stick it on my fretboard and cut the frets through the lines. It’s very accurate
What shape are you looking at using?

[Englishman]

The shape is going to be a scaled down Les Paul. So far I've calculated the body will be 10 x 13.75. I ordered a slotted ebony fingerboard from LMII with a 13 7/8" scale so I can probably figure the rest of it when that arrives. Just wondering how long the neck blank should be etc.

[sonic]

I built mine with 19 frets with a bolt on neck the blank was maybe six inches longer than the fretboard. If you are using four on a plate tuners then you need a couple of inches between them and the nut plus maybe half an inch after them. Are you going for a wrap around bridge or using a tailpiece and floating one?

[sonic]

This is the fretboard template tool. It will give you an accurate shape to work from. http://www.ekips.org/tools/guitar/fretfind2d/

[Englishman]

I'm going to try and use the Gotoh 12 string bridge and eliminating the two outside saddles.

I'm going with a zero fret on the board.

Thanks, useful stuff there.

[sonic]

I believe I used this site https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.e...templates/amp/ for my SG solid bodied five string octave and the four string mando. My daughter has tuned as a Uke as the nut is too wide for me.

Edit to add url

[Englishman]

This seems reasonable, anyone used one?

[thistle3585]

Buy Melvyn Hiscocks book "Building and Electric Guitar". It will walk you through the building process.

[Englishman]

Well, here's just some of the guitars I've built from scratch, I'm pretty confident with the process.

[sonic]

This is the last one I built, solid body with a piezo in the bridge and the magnetic pickup.
My first the SG five string I used a guitar building book for reference it is effectively a scale down version of a six string guitar.

[MikeEdgerton]

Well, here's just some of the guitars I've built from scratch, I'm pretty confident with the process.

You should take a look at the ones that Andrew Jerman makes. They are excellent.

http://www.crossroadswood.com/index.html

[thistle3585]

Well, here's just some of the guitars I've built from scratch, I'm pretty confident with the process.

Very nice. I guess I'm not sure why you'd be asking for plans with your obvious skill set. I don't know of any electric mandolin plans on the market. You might start with a flat top acoustic mandolin plan and draw your body on it. My approach was to take the dimensions off an acoustic instrument that I felt comfortable with, scale a guitar body down to those dimensions then figure out where you want the fretboard to join the body and you're all set. Almost all my instruments are based on a single scale length and fret joint location which will determine the bridge location. I build a batch of necks at a time then put them on whatever body that a customer requests.