New H5 mandola

**Steve Roberts** · Dec-03-2010, 11:51am

It took 15 months, but I finally completed an H5 mandola I made for my teenaged daughter from a Roger Siminoff kit. The sharp eyed among you will notice many of the numerous and several mistakes I made, but cut me a little slack, this is my first attempt at a mandolin familly instrument. I just hope that the mandola does not get nominated for the Worst Scroll of the Century competition.

I put a Virzi tone producer inside, and I think that the sound is great. To hear the instrument, here is a You Tube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEQAnan_OWY

Please keep in mind that I am a banjo player, not a mandolist.

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A note on the peghead inlay. My daughter has Van Gogh sunflowers and a crescent moon on the walls of her room. So I attempted to copy them in pearl and abalone on the front and back of the peghead.

She has turned out to be a very fine viola player, so she is excited to learn a new instrument with the same scale length and tuning. The pick, and playing chords, are foreign to her, so we are travelling to Pittsburgh later this month for a lesson with the great Charley Rappaport.

Thanks for letting me brag.

Steve Roberts
Cleveland, Ohio

**billhay4** · Dec-03-2010, 11:56am

Darn nice job, especially for number 1!
Sounds good, too.
Bill

**James Sanford** · Dec-03-2010, 12:26pm

Looks good and sounds good too. Keep at it.

**hank** · Dec-03-2010, 12:55pm

I YI I!!! Very handsome #1 Mr. Roberts.

**Jean Fugal** · Dec-03-2010, 1:19pm

dern nice job
jpf

**Ben Milne** · Dec-03-2010, 5:55pm

Hopefully your daughter realises how lucky she is...

Dads can be super sometimes...

**Bernie Daniel** · Dec-03-2010, 8:38pm

You did a beautiful job in my opinion and it sounds just great too! Did you use the top & back graduations from Siminoff directly or did you do you modify them with your own graduations?

I agree your daughter is sure lucky -- and I'm sure you feel lucky to have her as well.

**trevor** · Dec-04-2010, 9:21am

Steve,
Very nice. Don't worry, you're not even in the running for worst scroll, not by a very long way.

**JEStanek** · Dec-04-2010, 10:53am

Very fine work, Steve. I'm sure any of us would be proud to play that, I would. Your daughter got a great gift that she can return to you in tunes. I really like the voice you made there.

Jamie

**Steve Roberts** · Dec-05-2010, 4:53pm

Thank you all for your nice comments. Bernie- I stuck pretty closely to the Siminoff mandolin book, with allowances for the larger size of the mandola.