Got my IV kit, now what?

[5dayBreak]

Since I'm new to the world of building a mandolin, I thought I would ask the pro's a couple of quesetions. I just received my A model IV kit (plus the book), and need some advice on what tools to invest in and the best place to buy them. It looks like it could be some fun, but also little intimidating when you thumb through the Siminoff book. Any advice other than "step 1: open the box"(I got that far) would be greatly appreciated.

[otterly2k]

Well, my best advice would be to familiarize yourself with the search feature of this website and look for previous threads on building the IV kit. There have been many of them, including some specifically about tools.

I did a quick search and here's a link to the results page to get you started. link

[5dayBreak]

Thanks, I had done searches for a while, but didn't come across the right thread until you put the link up.

[Larry Simonson]

Having built one of these kits without a step-by-step direction sheet I'd start working on the top's outer final contour being careful not to round the edges next to to binding rabbet. When done, sand, scrape, and/or plane the underside of the top to final graduations. Step 3 is to fit,shape, and glue in the tone bars. step 4 is to attach the top binding. That should keep you busy for a few days. Good luck, these make pretty nice instruments.

[rhetoric]

Well I'm not done yet but here's my pattern so far. Look at book to figure out where to begin... feel like it's not enough information... search the IV threads and find out it's scraping. Then read a bunch of scraping threads and a few on burnishing and one on a thickness caliper and then some on building your own and then some on competing opinions on thickness tolerances and etc. etc. etc. Then when you're pretty sure you're finished there, then you do some searches on the next step which leads to a zillion other things you need to search. And so I've done that from scraping to binding and headstock and I'm still working on headstock.

I seriously wonder how anybody learned anything pre-net.

[5dayBreak]

The input's great. Which tools should I start out buying? my birthday's Monday and I have a girl looking to buy me some gifts.

[mandolinrick]

For an IV kit, a Sears 3D Sander comes in handy for thicknessing the top and back: Sears 3D Sander

Cabinet scrapers and Sloan finger planes can also be used.
Dremel comes in handy for various tasks.

And lots of clamps! Some titebond glue might be needed as well.

You'll have a lot of fun with the IV kit! I've put together one and have another one to do (but I have to finish a couple other projects first...)

Rick