Mandocello build thread

[Pete Jenner]

Cool. Are you going to carve any material from that area outside the holes below the recurve?
I used a Safe-T-Planer in a drill press for the bulk removal. That was pretty quick too.

[Bluetickhound]

That's gutsy, John... I have seen those things and they look like trouble!

[sunburst]

Cool. Are you going to carve any material from that area outside the holes below the recurve?
I used a Safe-T-Planer in a drill press for the bulk removal. That was pretty quick too.

I'll be doing that with hand tools.

[Pete Jenner]

Yes I had assumed that. Mad not to.

[Mandoborg]

I love my Lancelot wheel !! I built a dupli-carver a few years ago that now has turned into a table to put junk on !! It took longer to get that thing set-up right than to clamp the plates to a saw-horse outside and grind away at it with the wheel !!! KJeeps the mess outside as well ! One thing i'm sure you know, NEVER try to push the tool away from you as it digs in real nice and will ruin your piece just like that. I've found if you keep pulling the grinder towards you, and 'pet the Doberman ' you can feather that plate to almost finished dimensions.
This has been an interesting thread. Thanks again for posting this stuff.....

Jim

[tom.gibson]

I've just been testing out an Arbortech Turboplane prior to attacking some big octave mando plates with it. Seems like a really good tool. You can take quite fine cuts with good control.

[sunburst]

One thing i'm sure you know, NEVER try to push the tool away from you as it digs in real nice and will ruin your piece just like that.

I tried that on my 2/4 scrap. I tried to make every non-dangerous mistake I could think of on my scrap wood so that I might (hopefully) know what to avoid when working on the instrument parts! I probably could have cut closer to the bottoms of my depth guide holes, but I didn't want to take any undue chances with a tool capable of this much wood removal when I'm not fully familiar with using it.

Also, Doug (my friend who loaned me the tool) suggested a face shield. That was good advice, but the only face shield I have handy is the one in my fresh air supply respirator. I decided that was no problem, so while I was out in the 80+ degree weather carving away, my air supply pump was in the cool, air conditioned shop supplying me with 68 degree air to breath inside my respirator hood with it's face shield protecting my eyes from flying wood chips!

[Pete Jenner]

John, what is your initial thickness in the centres?

[sunburst]

I set the depth stop to drill the depth holes for a 7mm thickness. The thickness of the plates, after rough carving to near the bottoms of those holes, is from a little over 7mm to a little under 9mm. I'll decide the eventual center thickness as I carve and graduate, depending on the perceived weight and stiffness.

[Pete Jenner]

Ok thanks. Did you drill all the holes at 7mm or just the centre ones?
Can't wait to see what the final thicknesses end up being.

[sunburst]

All the holes were drilled to leave 7mm of thickness. Just a guide for wasting the excess wood from the insides of the plates. The top and back total thickness started out about 18mm, so about 10mm of wood was removed from the centers with the Lancelot tool. That would be quite a bit of work with a mallet and gouge. I'm hoping to start some hand carving on the plates later today.

[Pete Jenner]

Yeah well I did that too. Drilled all the holes to the same depth. Now I'm sorry I did because graduating from there is so bloody hard... on the next 7 plates I'm going to drill the contours to different depths just to get a better guide.

[sunburst]

I don't find graduating from an even thickness to be difficult, and in fact I prefer to do it this way. I'll reduce the thickness evenly until it starts to flex to suit me, then tie the thin area around the outside into the center thickness and that will be close to done. Perhaps a little more "tweeking from there.

[Pete Jenner]

Well I think that's the difference between an experienced pro like you and a newb like me.

[sunburst]

I rough carved to the bottoms of the guide holes, top and back. I suppose it should have been no surprise that the inside of the back is the same tough maple as the outside of the back, but after the easy time the Lancelot had with it, I almost forgot! Once again, the little squirrel tail plane worked well, and together with a finger plane I rough carved to about 7mm thickness.

Here's the top rough carved to a little under 7mm thick.

[sunburst]

The top feels like a little progress has been made, but still heavy and stiff feeling. The back, on the other hand, feels like no progress other than wasting some excess wood has happened. Still feels like a board. I'm thinking of setting up the drill press and drilling another set of depth gauge holes in the back plate at maybe 5mm, and wasting a little more wood before starting to carve and graduate the plate.

[Pete Jenner]

I've got a question along those lines but rather than hijack this venerable thread any further, I'll start a new one.

[sunburst]

To follow through with my threat, I drilled another set of depth guide holes and carved to the bottoms of them. The back plate is now evenly thicknesses to about 5mm. It still feels heavy and stiff, but it's starting to show potential for being a part of a musical instrument. It no longer feels like the top of a Les Paul. (OK, so people can make music with a Les Paul, but not without plugging it in!)


From here, I'll refine the area of minimum thickness (the re-curve area) working on the insides of the top and back plates, then start graduating them and reducing the thickness as I see fit.

[sunburst]

The back is now 5mm thick in the center, 3mm thick around the minimum area, and ready to be set aside until later.

[Pete Jenner]

How does it feel? Any flex front to back?
What sort of maple is it?

[sunburst]

How does it feel? It's starting to move a little, a little flex, mostly across grain. It's loosing the high pitched "clink" when tapped, not so heavy now. Still some carving and graduating to go. It's sugar maple: stiff, heavy and hard. I'm not sure what the final thickness will be, It sort of depends on how it feels as it gets thinner.

[David Houchens]

Looking very nice John.

[Bluetickhound]

I have the same deal with my back plate... I have it down to the recommended 4.5mm center and 2.8 in the minimum and its still just as stiff as can be. Being a first effort, I'm skittish about going any thinner...

[sunburst]

A small amount of progress. Along with the other instruments I'm building now, this thing will need a neck, so...
Here are three squared neck blanks; one mandolin, one mandola and one mandocello, the subject of this thread. I'm saving set-up time by running them through the early stages together. This is the shape of the neck blanks right after I've worked them out of lumber. They were bandsawn out and squared using the jointer and table saw. I've glued some little pieces of wood at the nut position and run them over my slotting cutter in the table saw to cut the truss rod slots more-or-less parallel to the back of the neck rather than parallel to the fingerboards. That way, the rods can be set deeper without danger of being too close to the back of the neck.


Here, I've cut the pocket for the truss rod nut and prepared a filler stick to cover the rod when it's set in place. I use red spruce for filler sticks. It has a very high stiffness to weight ratio so it saves a little weight in the neck, and it is near the neutral axis of the neck so the difference in stiffness between spruce and the maple that was removed is not too significant.


I glued the stick I with plenty of hide glue on both sides, but none on the bottom so that the rod is not glued in and is free to move and do it's job.

[sunburst]

By the way, here's the slotting cutter that I use for truss rod slots. It cuts a round-bottomed slot.