Re: making an octave instrument out of an already existing mandol
What they said. Octaves of much-shorter-than-guitar-length scale tend to go out of tune quickly as you move up the neck, as evidenced by occasional comments here on Martin's tiple design, which is sort of a cross between baritone ukulele and 12-string guitar (and has 10 strings).
In other words, 12-string guitars, IMHO, don't get too badly out of tune as you go up the neck, but on much shorter scales (tiple is 17") the octaves get not-so-great by even the 5th fret. Mandolin is just under 14", so...
But strings are cheap, and sticking G and D octaves on there just for fun should be, well, fun, and probably instructive. You can do them experimentally w/out changing the nut slots, but adding LOW octaves to the A and E strings, if that's what you meant, could require modifying the nut: yuck!
My plan is, and maybe your should be, to super-compensate the saddle so that all will be harmonious... but not tonight!
- Ed
"Then one day we weren't as young as before
Our mistakes weren't quite so easy to undo
But by all those roads, my friend, we've travelled down
I'm a better man for just the knowin' of you."
- Ian Tyson
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