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I ordered my wood from Old Standard Wood. This was their Excellent Grade. It has a really nice grain and figure. I can only imagine what their Artist Grade + wood looks like! I'll get that for Mandolin #2 (I didn't want to spend a lot of money on my first one in case I messed it up real bad!) |
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After borrowing some time on a friends jointer, I was able to glue the top and back halves together. This is the curly red maple back. |
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Red spruce top, glued, cut, and shaping in progress. |
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I spent the day working on the spruce top. I used a router bit in my drill press to "stair-step" the rough shape, then carved and sanded to get the final contour (click here to see what I'm talking about - shamelessly borrowed from a back issue on http://www.luth.org ). The outside is almost done. |
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Today I began the top plate thicknessing (is thicknessing a word?). I used my drill press and a forstner bit to cut the plate down to a 1/4" thickness overall, then the rest was done by had with a gouge. I used a 5" disk sander in my drill press to smooth the carving marks. |
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Here's the finished top from the outside. Cutting the F-holes was one of the most nerve-wracking tasks so far. |
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Here's the inside, with the tonebars glued in. They still need to be tapered and thinned. |
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Another big step -- gluing the top to the rim. |
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So far, so good! I've started trimming/sanding the top flush with the sides. It's starting to look like a mandolin!! |
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Bottom view, with the bottom kerfing glued and the tone bars thinned and shaped. I have no idea what to listen for, but it seems to tap with a nice tone. This thing make make noise after all!! |
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I finally started on the back. I used the "stair-step" method again and just about have the outside shaped (except for the scroll). |
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I finished the back, and glued the body together. This is getting exciting - the end is finally in sight! |
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After routing the binding channel (and lots of time with chisels working around the scroll), I started gluing the binding today. |
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Another picture of the binding installation. |
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Here's a picture of the binding around the scroll. Boy was that a pain! |
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The binding on the top is finished and scraped. Here are a few shots. |
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