#1 Retro cylinder top mandola

[Tavy]

My first baby was launched into the world at the local jam yesterday...

Cylinder top (and back) design, sitka and spruce with recycled bedroom furniture neck (mahogany probably) and amboyna veneer pickguard and tailpiece cover. Rosewood fingerboard and binding throughout. 17" scale and 14th fret body join - with almost no neck heal to speak of that makes it very playable indeed

Anyhow here's the images:




And for good measure, I'll stick my neck out and let you hear it too:

[Mandocarver]

Really nice, Tavy, and a great tone already. It's hard to tell from the photos - is it a real cylinder front/back or a normal induced arch? And what's the finish.
Well done, I bet it had some admirers at your jam.
Dean

[Tavy]

Really nice, Tavy, and a great tone already. It's hard to tell from the photos - is it a real cylinder front/back or a normal induced arch? And what's the finish.
Well done, I bet it had some admirers at your jam.
Dean

Thanks for the comments Dean - the top was originally going to be a Howe Orme style cylinder profile - but I chickened out slightly so I could start with the top over-thick and then slim it down later - I've added the profile I used below - basically I took the Howe Orme style profile and smoothed it out a touch so the curves were less severe - the basic S-shaped-curve is still there though. The finish is shellac - but rubbed out to a shine rather than French-polished - I just thought I'd try it that way for a change

Overall, in spite of the many and varied mistakes in this one - some of which do hamper the sound unfortunately - I think the basic design "has legs" and I hope to get the chance to improve upon it sometime!

[trevor]

Wow! Looks and sounds great, well done.

[Tavy]

Wow! Looks and sounds great, well done.

Thanks Trevor - that means a lot coming from someone with your instrument collection

[Steve Sorensen]

Love the tone! And beautiful too! Well done.
Steve

[Jim Garber]

Agree with the above. Lovely understated look to it. Wonderful.

[JEStanek]

What a beautiful voice. Looks smart too.

Jamie

[billhay4]

Nice instrument! Nice tone.
bill

[Jim Garber]

basically I took the Howe Orme style profile and smoothed it out a touch so the curves were less severe - the basic S-shaped-curve is still there though.

In would think that that design would be quite labor intensive but that I wonder if the result might not be so different from a standard, fully convex, induced arch? Do you think it was worth the extra effort?

BTW was this top also carved? I believe that the Howe-Ormes as well as the cylinder back Vega mandolins and guitars were steam bent.

[Tavy]

In would think that that design would be quite labor intensive but that I wonder if the result might not be so different from a standard, fully convex, induced arch? Do you think it was worth the extra effort?

BTW was this top also carved? I believe that the Howe-Ormes as well as the cylinder back Vega mandolins and guitars were steam bent.

Good questions - the top is bent not carved - but it is thicknessed so that it's 4-5mm thick around the soundhole and down the centre line and nearer 2mm in the recurve area (not much pressure on the this top). In terms of construction there's no more difficulty in making the top and braces than any other ladder-braced design - the thing that took a little time was cutting the sides down to fit the top and back profile - that would have been much easier if I'd been able to work out in advance what shape the sides should have been - I'm sure there's a CAD program that would do that, but for a one-off it was quicker to just make the sides straight and then use a big nasty rasp to hack them into a shape that fitted the top and back. Of course one you have one instrument you can always use it as a tempate for others...

BTW I'm not sure whether Howe Orme steam bent or not, but Nigel Forster builds his by just bending the top over the braces. That's what really encouraged me to try this design out.

As to the "does it sound any better" question - no, probably not in this version, it is my first build after all and like I said there are some issues (certainly neck angle, maybe bracing design and top thickness) that I can hear hamper the sound, on the plus side I know what to do to fix those... so I guess I'll have to build another.... sigh... my hope is that by adjusting the geometry of the same basic design you can move the sound from Celtic-flattop like to Gibson-archtop like and everything inbetween - or maybe not - who can say?

[Jim Garber]

I actually own a couple of violins that use a similar principle. These were designed by Frank M Ashley of Brooklyn, NY around 1915. I have more info on this web page.

What you can't see is that unlike standard violins, this one only has two ribs and they vary in width.

[Tavy]

I actually own a couple of violins that use a similar principle. These were designed by Frank M Ashley of Brooklyn, NY around 1915. I have more info on this web page.

What you can't see is that unlike standard violins, this one only has two ribs and they vary in width.

Interesting! So basically Mr Ashley and Howe Orme got patents for the same idea? Good to see the old patent office hasn't changed much over the years!!

[Chip Booth]

Looks and sound great!

At 50 seconds into your video I thought you were going to bust out "Are You Experienced"

[Tavy]

Looks and sound great!

At 50 seconds into your video I thought you were going to bust out "Are You Experienced"

Ah man that Jimi stole all my best tricks

[Ben Milne]

Sounds and looks a treat!! I trust you'll enjoy your #1 for years to come.