#1 is finally finished!

[Steve Etter]

Well, its taken me almost a full year, but #1 is finally finished!

[Steve Etter]

And a couple more...

[billhay4]

I know the feeling, Steve. Mine take forever.
Good job. How does it sound?
Bill

[Steve Etter]

Thanks, Bill. I'm quite pleased with the sound of it. The bass is quite a bit stronger than I am use to and the treble might be just a little muted. From what I'm hearing, though, there is no doubt this is my player now.

Steve

[JeffD]

Cool looking mandolin.

[Eric Hanson]

Very Nice!
How does it feel to have a new addiction?

[JEStanek]

Congratulations. Looks great.

Jamie

[G. Fisher]

I like the double ridge on the scroll.

[Caleb]

Beautiful. If I had an F-style mandolin it would look like that. Very nice work. I also like your taste in books.

[grassrootphilosopher]

Soundclips, soundclips...

And from the way you pay homage to Hans Brentrups´ photos and the choice of books in the background I propose some lyrical music.

[Ronny]

Wonderful work !
And thanks a lot for sharing it with us through your blog !

[Steve Etter]

Thanks everybody.

I am kind of proud of the double ridge on the scroll. While I have no doubt this has been done before, I have personally never seen or heard of it. I wanted to do something original and, if you look at my blog back when I first got started, this is pretty tame compared to what I originally planned.

I really enjoyed doing the blog, too. When I started seriously pondering the idea of building, I found a few similar blogs but most of those were from kits and others were by true professionals. I figured if my experiences could in any way help the next guy who is wanting to build one from scratch, then hey, I should do it. Pay it back and a little forward.

As for sound clips, I don't know that I have the equipment to do it justice but I will give it a try anyway. My playing definitely does not do it justice.

The painting in the background of the photos is actually an original painted by my Mother-in-law, Helen Lowe, who is fairly well known here in East Tennessee. I did not know that Hans was a painter, but now that I do I will be checking out his work.

Steve

[Kirk Albrecht]

Very nice, Steve. I have all the stuff on my workbench (Except finish) for my #1, but it's a kit, so kudos to you! Now I need to get to work!

[Cathal Whelehan]

Very nice looking mando.

I particularly like the back with the dark/light halves matched together (at least they give that good v. evil effect in pics 4,5 and 6 of the original post).

I do think I'd have problems playing it though with those course spacings at the nut (especially the G and D).

Great books too, even if they look as though they've never been opened.

[Steve Etter]

Cathal,

Yes, the spacings on the G & D strings do seem a little wide, but they feel fine to me. I attempted to match the spacings laid out in Siminoff's book, but its very possible that the grooves moved a little off target when I cut them.

An yes, the books are...well...a bit "newer" than they should be. I'll have to talk to the wife about that

Steve

[Skip Kelley]

Steve, great work! I like the looks of your mandolin. You know there is no turning back now! Building is additive!

[Trey Young]

nice job, that double ridge on the scroll is really cool looking...