Saga AM-10 Build Thread

[Whittle]

I finally committed to a stain and finish. I ended up using the Vintage Amber, Medium Brown, and Tobacco Brown stains from Colortone. After staining, I sprayed on a seal coat of shellac. After that dried overnight, I started putting on coats of Tru-oil. What a nice finish to work with! I'm 5 or 6 coats in to the varnish now, lightly buffing with 0000 steel wool in between coats. It definitely has a "handmade" look to it, but I'm pretty proud of it for my first attempt at building with minimal woodworking experience. After I'm done adding coats and it's cured, I'll post a few more pictures of it all done along with a recording or video. Overall, this has been a very nice experience. I've learned a lot, and am looking forward to my next build.

Thank you for the help everyone!

Stain Prep


Vintage amber


Stain on, prior to seal coat and binding cleanup


2 or 3 coats on


4 coats on

[Seattle]

No final picture?

[Whittle]

No final picture?

Oops. Here you go!

[Seattle]

Can you describe the headstock veneer? I assume the one that comes with the kit is the same as on the manufacturer models. Is it black or is it just a darker wood that you then finish?

[Bill Snyder]

The Saga kit has a rosewood peghead veneer - not black. They are easy to remove by heating them up with a clothes iron. They are VERY thin. Maple (the neck wood) underneath.

[Bernie Daniel]

The Saga kit has a rosewood peghead veneer - not black. They are easy to remove by heating them up with a clothes iron. They are VERY thin. Maple (the neck wood) underneath.

I dyed the rosewood veneer on the head plate black to look like ebony -- seemed to work out OK after a coat of clear shellac then five coats of nitro on top.

Also replaced the binding with black and changed out the tuners to Stew Mac Golden Age with black buttons to match.

[Seattle]

I dyed the rosewood veneer on the head plate black to look like ebony -- seemed to work out OK after a coat of clear shellac then five coats of nitro on top.

Also replaced the binding with black and changed out the tuners to Stew Mac Golden Age with black buttons to match.

Nice looking mandolin. Did you take the binding off? I can't tell about the body binding but the neck doesn't seem to have any or did you dye it black?

[Bernie Daniel]

Nice looking mandolin. Did you take the binding off? I can't tell about the body binding but the neck doesn't seem to have any or did you dye it black?

Thanks!

Yes, the neck is bound with black plastic binding. I removed the original white stuff that was supplied -- hard to work it under the frets -- lots of sanding required!

[Seattle]

Thanks!

Yes, the neck is bound with black plastic binding. I removed the original white stuff that was supplied -- hard to work it under the frets -- lots of sanding required!

How hard was it to remove and would it have been possible to remove it and just sand (smooth out) the binding channel that would be left behind (without replacing it with any binding)?

[Bernie Daniel]

How hard was it to remove and would it have been possible to remove it and just sand (smooth out) the binding channel that would be left behind (without replacing it with any binding)?

It's not too hard to remove the binding but one thing to watch for -- the black fret markers are actually short pieces of plastic round stock and they are embedded into the maple of the neck serving to "peg" the binding to the fret board channel.

That is important to know if you are trying to remove the white (old) binding intact as I was trying to do. I wanted the old binding to serve as a template for locating fret marker points in the new binding.

MIGHT be possible to go with no fret board binding as you suggest. But when you pull the binding you will have a 1/32" - 1/16" or so of fret wire hanging over each side which would have to be leveled with the edge of the board. Then you'd have to dress the end of each fret so it would be smooth to play on.

Not sure it would be too big of a deal to sand away the binding channel.

I'd advise letting some more experienced builders weigh in on this idea.

You just don't like the white binding?

[Seattle]

Yes, I just don't like the white binding. I think I'll just stain it and seal it rather than remove it. I'll be staining the double body binding anyway.

[Bernie Daniel]

Yes, I just don't like the white binding. I think I'll just stain it and seal it rather than remove it. I'll be staining the double doby binding anyway.

Should be possible to do I would think.

One other modification that I did on my kit was to to take about 1" off the very long neck heel and then re-contoured it. This makes it a lot eaisier to get to the higher frets.

[Seattle]

How is the tail peg attached? It looks like that has to come off to take off the tail piece (which just has 3 small screws). The tuners look easy to disassemble but I'm not sure if the tail peg just unscrews or whether it is glued on.

[Bill Snyder]

You have to drill a tapered hole for it just like 95% of the mandolins that have an end pin and just about 100% of violins and a fairly substantial percentage of guitars.
It is a friction fit.
There is also the option of getting and end pin that screws on. Just a small pilot hole is needed for them or a non-tapered end pin that has an expanding rubber seal.

[Whittle]

The tailpiece that came with my AM10 kit had a screw on endpin. After installing the tailpiece, I drilled a pilot hole and screwed in the endpin with the supplied Phillips head screw.

[Danidog]

Very nice documentation and build. How does it sound?

thanks,

Dan

[bbcee]

@Whittle, what's your as-unbiased-as-possible impression of the sound? I know it's got to be hard to separate yourself from the pride of making it, but how does it compare to the nice instruments I see in your signature?

[Larry Nixon]

I finally committed to a stain and finish. I ended up using the Vintage Amber, Medium Brown, and Tobacco Brown stains from Colortone. After staining, I sprayed on a seal coat of shellac. After that dried overnight, I started putting on coats of Tru-oil. What a nice finish to work with! I'm 5 or 6 coats in to the varnish now, lightly buffing with 0000 steel wool in between coats. It definitely has a "handmade" look to it, but I'm pretty proud of it for my first attempt at building with minimal woodworking experience. After I'm done adding coats and it's cured, I'll post a few more pictures of it all done along with a recording or video. Overall, this has been a very nice experience. I've learned a lot, and am looking forward to my next build.

Thank you for the help everyone!

Stain Prep


Vintage amber


Stain on, prior to seal coat and binding cleanup


2 or 3 coats on


4 coats on

Well I had been going along fine and then I stained with the amber dy and disaster..blotched terrible...help?

[Larry Nixon]

Well I had been going along fine and then I stained with the amber dy and disaster..blotched terrible......help?

Hmm no answers to this problem?

[Marvino]

People might be associating your pictures with the O.P.'s finished mandolin, your post maybe got a little lost. Maybe start a separate new post.

[houseworker]

Well I had been going along fine and then I stained with the amber dy and disaster..blotched terrible...help?

It looks pretty normal to me, maybe a bit heavy-handed around the fretboard.

You'll find that the wood eventually darkens down to a more even tone through exposure to natural light - keep it out on a stand rather than in a case.

[Houngan]

Hello! I'm building my first mandolin from this kit, and wanted to ask a few questions, if that's all right.

I have some limited woodworking experience (hand dovetailing, table building, etc.) but very little knowledge of fitment and the type of finishing that goes into an instrument. So, first question:

By hand, the neck/body fitting is tight enough that I can't get it any tighter than 1/8" gap remaining. I wanted to ask before I start sanding/shaving or hitting it with a mallet: How tight should a dry fit of the neck/body be before going at it with glue? All the way to flush with a mallet, or short of that, or less force than that to flush?

Second question:

I have Tru-Oil and spray shellac (rattle can from Home Depot) and I've only really worked with Poly and Linseed oil in the past. I'd like to do it properly with no concern for elbow grease, should I be looking at some other method, or would 6-10 applications of either with 0000 scuffing and smoothing in between be sufficient? Also, what's a good final coat/treatment? Polishing wax?

I'm reading other threads as fast as I can, so sorry for questions I'm sure have already been answered.

Matt

[Houngan]

The gap in question:

[pelone]

Fun to read your posts...my first build gave me the confidence to ramp up to buy wood working tools and I now build from scratch.

Some "late to the party" advice on my part. 1. Before installing the braces to your top and while graduating the top from the inside, I would hold the top up to a strong light to determine where material could be removed. As the light penetrates through the lighter toned wood I then had the general idea that I had removed enough wood and could then concentrate my disk sander to thicker areas. 2. If "gaposis" on the neck to block joint, use shims and try to plug and then re-drill holes to receive your dowels. 3. Using wipe on poly with a soft cloth and building up subsequent layers can result in a very nice and smooth finish.

Whittle did a lovely job..Now----keep up the good work and plunge into another build.