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I've found quite a few interesting bits of timber recently, and have a collection of assorted hardware scavanged from broken guitars, and seeing as we have recently bought some nice tools (including a router and a scrollsaw) I've been messing about with a view to making an electric (solid body) mandolin. First attempt - I made this neck out of firewood (pine) just to see if it was possible, and to avoid ruining this nice chunk of mahogany that was in a load of scrap timber. Neck Mk2 starting to take shape Found a nice thick piece of dense unidentified hardwood, saved from the remains of a victorian kitchen table, and cut a body shape out too. This was quite hard, as it's too thick for the saw and the router, I ended up cutting from both sides then trimming to shape. Mrs S helped with the body shape - she copied the shape of her Burns bass and then reduced it by half, I'm going to try and make the rest of it as similar as possible too. I also have a piece of maple to make the fretboard out of (and I bought some fretwire on ebay yesterday) and that is as far as I have got. Needless to say, there will be more, do let me know what you think, and feel free to share if you do anything similar - I'm making it up as I go along here so any hints would be great!
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To get a standard A40 this low, you'd have to dig a hole to put it in
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awoo
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,506
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i built an electric guitar from scratch when i was at school using the workshops after hours.
one thing i can say is frets are pretty hard to get right, you need to be precise. they were quite tricky.
quite a fun part to do was the neck, use a spoke shave to cut it to shape.
do lots of measuring and the like, as i found it was easy to screw up but then i was 14 and fairly inexperienced in wood working skills
its good fun, good luck with it!
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93fxdl
Posted a lot
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Posts: 2,013
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jealous of the skills there, working with metal is no problem to me but i just never have got the "knack" of working with wood ttfn glenn
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I like the idea behind this, it's not often you see instruments made from what the builder finds laying around the place. Should be an interesting thing to see evolve, and I'm curious to hear what effect a mahogony neck with an oak (I'm not an expert, but it looks like it might be oak from the grain and pattern) body. Should be seriously heavy too.
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awoo - I've re-fretted a couple of guitars before, it is indeed fiddly! This is the first time for marking out and cutting the slots though.. and yes, I am in full on measure twice cut once paranoia!
glenn - I have no experience of woodwork other than fixing things, this is the first time I've tried making something out of a block of wood.
Volksangel - yeah it looks like oak to me too, but I wasn't sure. Seeing as it is at least a century old it and hard as iron it certainly should have an interesting tone. I want it heavy because it's physically small and I want to try and get some sustain (which an acoutic mandolin lacks).
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To get a standard A40 this low, you'd have to dig a hole to put it in
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From the pictures I would say that is big old chunk of pine/redwood (it is always hard to tell from pics, but the definition between the early and late wood is more akin to a softwood (light and dark growth rings))
Whatever it is, it looks nice and solid, so should give some meat to the sound!!
Nice woodworking skills btw.
Lewis
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Another Scary thread to watch.
Glad Mrs S plays along with you.
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I don't have a spokeshave, and all the power tools are a bit big and brutal so I shaped the neck this afternoon with a hammer and a chisel, a tenon saw and sandpaper... Mrs S got well into it too - she sanded and smoothed the neck and headstock while I used the scrollsaw to cut a scratchpate out of 3mm black perspex The neck is now 90% there Next jobs are to cut the neck tenon in the body, and shape the neck to suit it. And to make a fingerboard to put on top of here, and fret it.... next time
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To get a standard A40 this low, you'd have to dig a hole to put it in
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I see you've even managed to get the cat to help out too. Neck's looking good, nice shape to it now you've got it further shaped.
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More progress today (but very little decorating done) First, I drilled the neck and installed machineheads, and fitted the bridge to the body. Mrs S did some planing and sanding to the body too, it's getting closer to the desired shape, but as you can see from the hole is barely thick enough to take the 1/4" jack socket... Incidentally, the bridge is a stratocaster one, cut down to four saddles and deprived of it's tremelo block. This means that The strings pass through the body and fit from the back. (ferrules are needed - I will make some) anyway, I cut the neck tenon (bit of a nervous moment, but it seems ok) and roughly fitted some strings so I can look at neck angle and suchlike... The neck isn't fitted yet, just sitting in it's slot. Also still need to make a fretboard Other cat not helping in this pic.. It's getting there. I'm happy with how it's progressing.
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To get a standard A40 this low, you'd have to dig a hole to put it in
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I hadn't realised it was so small, how cute is that!
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That is looking cool, and I too hadn't quite appreciated how small it is! looking really good, but good luck with the frets...... hows about slide mandolin On another note, I assume that the length of the neck will negate the need for a truss rod? I can't quite imagine how one would go about drilling the hole for a truss rod, unless you cut a groove in the neck and laid it in before the fret board went down? Anyway, that is by the by. Good work. Lewis
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George, thanks! never seen that before, I'm going to have a read. Lewis, yes, truss rods. I don't need one (acoustic mandolins manage fine without, and they have twice the string tension this is getting) but you are right about how they fit. The rod is fitted into a bowed channel in the neck, with a filler piece over the top, then the fingerboard goes on top of that. Exception to the rule is a maple 1 piece fender neck - this will have a rosewood "skunk stripe" where the truss rod was fitted from the back. Marked out the body so I can rout the pickup and control cavity next. Nice and simple, 1 pickup, volume, tone, jack socket... Anyone notice what the pickup is from?
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To get a standard A40 this low, you'd have to dig a hole to put it in
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could be pitch pine, deffo not oak, oak is very close grained in comparison.
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ChrisT
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,665
Club RR Member Number: 225
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Nice work as above, oak is much finer grained initially thought douglas fir in the first pic
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I think we've established now that the body wood isn't oak (and that I'm not an expert at identifying types of timber) oops. Sorry!
Still, whatever it is is turning out very nicely and has a nice look to it.
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To get a standard A40 this low, you'd have to dig a hole to put it in
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Right then, this evening I... Routed the pickup and control cavities, and finished off the scratchplate *(this may be mk1 scratchplate, mrs S isn't 100% happy with it and there is plenty of perspex) Only just enough room for the jacksocket! I can't really put the fretboard off much longer, can I?
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To get a standard A40 this low, you'd have to dig a hole to put it in
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good thing your not making a traditional acoustic instrument. what was it they used to make the strings from? think the animals in the house wouldnt like that!!
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^ Sorry, didn't meen to come across as harsh.
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