My latest Octave completed.

  1. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Have just posted a couple of pix of my latest project I have completed, an octave in Philippino rosewood and spruce top with purpleheart bindings. 540 mm scale. This one is going soon to Edinburgh to its new owner. Sorry to see it go!
  2. Gerard Dick
    Gerard Dick
    Someone in Edinburgh is going to be very happy.
  3. Jim Baker
    Jim Baker
    Tell me a bit more about your build John. What spruce did you use? X bracing, ladder bracing? Dovetail joint or bolt on? Strut rod or other type of neck stiffener? Thanks
  4. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Hi Jim,
    Thanks for your interest in the instruments. The tops I use are generally sitka spruce which I buy from a luthier friend who is a guitar builder. My bracing pattern is x-braces with 2 finger braces and a bass brace. I arrange the braces so that the x-braces support the ends of the bridge. The back is generally two ladder braces. Neck joint is dovetail and I plane and trim this to give me an angle of about 3 degrees so that I can get sufficient height at the bridge to allow a good string break angle. The truss rods are non-adjustable and are made from 6mm square steel bar, wrapped in masking tape before embedding in routed slot. On mandolins I tend to use a 5mm square steel bar. So far no neck problems have been noted - though I have been building octaves only since 2005.
    I have photos of instruments on Picasaweb, but the seem to be not accessible to public view, because originally I had marked them as private and it seems that you cannot then switch over to public unless you delete the whole album and re-post under a new name. There is access however through my website http://www.luthierjohn.co.uk if you go to the instruments pages.
    Hope this of some help/interest to you, and thanks again for your contact.
Results 1 to 4 of 4