Practice wood?

[BeanJean]

I’ve built four mandolins from kits and I’m ready to make the leap to building from plans. Good wood is rather pricey these days! Would it be a good idea to do a practice build with poplar or oak or???? Has anyone done this? Opinions please.

[sunburst]

Is maple lumber any more expensive than oak? Lots of structural timber (2X10s for example) are spruce.

[Jim Garber]

I am no expert on tone wood but I believe that well-seasoned plain maple does not sound any worse than similar highly-flamed and you are just dealing with cosmetics. OTOH after putting lots of work into an instrument you may want at least some good looking features. Maybe a compromise is best. Also, you have built 4 mandolins already. That is four more than I have built so you are not a beginner. Spend a little more and get some good looking and sounding wood.

[Richard500]

I think it’s safe to say that the expense is in the rough cutting and selection of grain, plus stockpiling and handling. In that sense, it’s already sort of a kit. If you wanted more connection with the whole process, if not too daunting, you could also buy ordinary dimensioned, kiln dried woods and work it down to similar blanks. A mandolin is a pretty small object, so it would not be as huge a task as, say dimensioning and matching wood for large furniture. Especially if you’re headed into carved top territory, lots of handwork is ahead.

[Charles E.]

Lumber store maple, about $8.oo a board foot.

[Tom Haywood]

One possible outcome is that you spend a lot of hours and build a completely satisfactory mandolin on your first "non-kit" effort. Satisfactory in every way except that you used oak or poplar instead of good tone woods. You saved some money, but you gave up a lot of sound. How will you feel about that? Mistakes are going to happen during the build, and you will have to fix them to get to a satisfactory outcome regardless of the price of the wood.

[Drew Streip]

I’d suggest practicing techniques, but not a full build of practice woods. For example, highly flamed maple can be rough carved similarly to poplar, but it’s harder to get a perfect finish-ready surface.

In my experience, oak would not be a suitable carving substitute for maple — it’s splintery and open-pored. Not saying it can’t be helpful, but it’s a different exercise — like doing sprints to train for a marathon.

The good news is, hollowing out a mandolin plate takes so long using only hand tools that simply doing it in the first place is practice enough!

Sounds like you would be best served by taking it one component at a time, and practice specific cuts / techniques on scraps or offcuts as you go. I’m still working on my first scratch build I started in 2018 (two kids since then…time is limited!) but I’ve learned so much by not being in a rush to finish.

I bought all the wood from Old Standard Wood, www.adirondackspruce.com (NFI). When I told them I was doing my first build, they even sent me some extra wood for practice side bending. It was a little plain looking compared to the real deal, but is still more than adequate for my needs, and now I have some usable rims that I could turn into a flattop or other experiment.

[woodbldr]

I had the same questions when I made my first guitar. I decided to use known tonewoods (spruce top and walnut back/sides) but not high-grade woods. There are several websites out there where you can get useable tops/back/sides for a reasonable price. I did pay more than I would have at a lumberyard, but this forced me to take my time to prevent as many mistakes as possible up front. At the end I had a nice guitar (finishing was a different story) that sounded pretty good. I did the same when I made my first violin and will do the same when I start the F-style mandolin my brother has asked for. Since you have made 4 mandolins using kits, my guess is this won't be the last mandolin you make .

[Phil-D]

Take a walk through your local Lowe’s. You would be pleasantly surprised at some of the figure maple in the racks.

[j. condino]

If your end goal is building mandolins made from beautiful curly maple, then you need to carve beautiful curly maple, not poplar or anything else that is cheaper and more convenient. If you don't work on your desired goal, you'll get very good at carving something else and then when you finally go for it, you will be a frustrated gumby back to day one.

That is the same reason I never recommend building from a kit; you don't need to practice the easy glue up parts. You need to learn how to carve a plate, how to bend the ribs, and how to fit a proper joint, but the kit already did those for you; often times they are not perfect, so now you are trying to figure out how to correct someone else's errors. 'Might as well learn how to do it proper from the start.

[Bob Schmidt]

I have taken the opposite approach. With the number of hours that you willput into it, the cost for good tonewood is not that bad, and you will have a decent sounding instrument when you are finished. Mistakes will happen. Learning how to repair them is part of the process, and this forum is a great place to find out how to best deal with them. As James said, if you want to carve quilted maple, you have to use quilted maple.
Good luck on your build.

[SBJ]

I built my first mandolin out of soft pine and a repurposed maple cutting board. It wasn't a complete build but I learned a tremendous amount about wood and using small tools. While building three more since, I practiced building, carving, and finishing techniques before executing them on the project. What I started to learn was that woodworking skills help, but the main thing you have to learn is patience!

[John Bertotti]

You could also look to a location sawyer. Mine had a large selection but is usually cutting for quantity so you have to search more when looking for a specific direction of end grain.

[Richard500]

Made a ‘duh, of course’ discovery the other day that might relate to diy wood sourcing. Away for these many months from shop and bandsaw, I needed to make a long ripcut, resawing a board to thin it. Having only old handsaws here, I was surprised (duh) that a blade that’s 6” wide not only cuts quite straight, but also easily. Of course the saw was sharp and set pretty well, but I realized that not everything had to be done with power and a delicate setup.
As a long time fan of scorps, drawknives and other bypassed tools, should have realized this years ago.