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Thread: Low/No budget DIY mandolin making tools

  1. #26

    Default Re: Low/No budget DIY mandolin making tools

    Is fishing any less productive in an economic sense? Get that $40,000 bass boat and the hours spent on the lake vs. going to a good fish market and those are the most expensive fish in the world.

    And don't get me started on the vegetable garden.
    Silverangel A
    Arches F style kit
    1913 Gibson A-1

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  3. #27

    Default Re: Low/No budget DIY mandolin making tools

    Made some progress on the gouge. Still need to sand, heat treat, sand more, and make and mount a handle...

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  5. #28
    Adrian Minarovic
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    Default Re: Low/No budget DIY mandolin making tools

    Quote Originally Posted by Mandolin_newbie View Post
    Made some progress on the gouge. Still need to sand, heat treat, sand more, and make and mount a handle...

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    Nice work. I forgot to answer your question about the gouge... the one I use most is approximately 30mm (1 3/16") wide and 9mm (3/8") deep (going just from memory) I think the diameter would be no more than 40mm (1 1/2"). Your gouge look too shallow for most tasks, I would bend it a bit more - heat it and hammer it around some steel plumbing pipe...
    Here is my gouge in action: http://old.gjgt.sk/~minarovic/carving.avi (temporarily placed on backup server, if the link doesn't work in future use the same without the "old." prefix)
    Adrian

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  7. #29

    Default Re: Low/No budget DIY mandolin making tools

    Quote Originally Posted by HoGo View Post
    Nice work. I forgot to answer your question about the gouge... the one I use most is approximately 30mm (1 3/16") wide and 9mm (3/8") deep (going just from memory) I think the diameter would be no more than 40mm (1 1/2"). Your gouge look too shallow for most tasks, I would bend it a bit more - heat it and hammer it around some steel plumbing pipe...
    Here is my gouge in action: http://old.gjgt.sk/~minarovic/carving.avi (temporarily placed on backup server, if the link doesn't work in future use the same without the "old." prefix)
    Wow that thing really does cut like a hot knife through butter. Thanks for the info. I'll give it another heat and beat before I heat treat it.

  8. #30
    Adrian Minarovic
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    Default Re: Low/No budget DIY mandolin making tools

    Quote Originally Posted by Mandolin_newbie View Post
    Wow that thing really does cut like a hot knife through butter. Thanks for the info. I'll give it another heat and beat before I heat treat it.
    That cutting is only half work of gouge and other half is technique. You have to have your feet firmly on ground and use their strength and posture of torso helps deliver it to hands (I usually brace my right elbow against chest) and also rotation of gouge in wrist during cut creating slicing motion. I'm hogging away 3-5mm deep shavings of spruce 9-12mm wide (1/8"-3/16" x 3/8" - 1/2") overlapping the previous one by 1/3 width or so. Then few cleaning passes to emove ridges. The video shows roughing half of plate in few minutes. From there I would go to the thumbplane. You can get inside pretty smooth in less than 20 minutes with those two tools.
    BTW that gouge is barely 1/16" thick hammered sheet of ordinary carbon steel.
    Adrian

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  10. #31

    Default Re: Low/No budget DIY mandolin making tools

    Just finished up the gouge. I got a bit more curve to the blade before heat treat. I turned a handle from some walnut firewood from a tree that fell down at a friends house. I used a brass pipe fitting for a ferrule and finished it with some linseed oil and paste wax.

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  12. #32

    Default Re: Low/No budget DIY mandolin making tools

    I'm impressed. If you can make a mandolin that nice, you'll be in business soon!

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  14. #33
    Adrian Minarovic
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    Default Re: Low/No budget DIY mandolin making tools

    Quote Originally Posted by Jeff Mando View Post
    I'm impressed. If you can make a mandolin that nice, you'll be in business soon!
    +1

    A bit too late, but I'll add I just came home from workshop and that gouge of mine measures 27mm wide and 7mm deep, measured at the sharp edge.
    Adrian

  15. #34

    Default Re: Low/No budget DIY mandolin making tools

    Quote Originally Posted by HoGo View Post
    +1

    A bit too late, but I'll add I just came home from workshop and that gouge of mine measures 27mm wide and 7mm deep, measured at the sharp edge.
    Mine ended up being about 24 mm wide and 5mm deep at the cutting edge. It seems to cut well. I can't wait to put it to some real use.

  16. #35
    Registered User belbein's Avatar
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    Default Re: Low/No budget DIY mandolin making tools

    Steve : Thank you for posting this. It's quite inspiring. (I'm plugging my bandsaw and sharpening my machete.)

  17. #36

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    Quote Originally Posted by HoGo View Post
    You don't have to buy all tools at once. Just proceed slowly with your build and get only the tools that you really need to get the job done. And don't forget to research how can you do the task - there are always complicated ways with lots of tools and simple ways requiring more skill but less budget.
    Here is my tool set that I used for my first dozen instruments or so. Some common items like handdrill are missing and the old rusty Sheffield chisel I dug out of the dirt in the garden just few years ago. The nicer gramil was added just recently as well. For some jobs I used to visit my friend who has small bandsaw. You can see the gouges are all handmade, but I use the one on the right all the time as the wider one doesn't hold the edge too well (needs proper quenching) and the other (grinded out of butchers knife edge burnisher) is so darned hard that it takes forever to sharpen (but you can carve aluminum all day without dulling it - I mostly use it for rough shaping bone blanks - chopping away the porous parts of bone and such). ALso notice the finger plane (cast of epoxy resin as experiment but it holds well) - I had to add bone cap to bottom as it wears too fast. I also made some of wood and the mouth did wear too fast as well. The blades are made of scrap pieces of old kitchen knives or whatever was laying around.
    Virtually all my jigs, moulds and fixtures were made using these tools.
    73 and prepping for my first mando build. You give me hope. Thanks! ja

  18. #37
    Registered User John Bertotti's Avatar
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    Default Re: Low/No budget DIY mandolin making tools

    I didn’t see a draw knife in Hogo’s picture. I use a draw knife a lot for ruffing necks and other round and oblong objects.
    My avatar is of my OldWave Oval A

    Creativity is just doing something wierd and finding out others like it.

  19. #38
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    Default Re: Low/No budget DIY mandolin making tools

    Being the kind of guy with concerns over cost control, I've made many of my own jigs, forms and tools.. when forming, I use 2x4s to press the bent rim parts.. I've made a few custom clamps.. what I'm most proud of is an over arm router used to cut the binding channel with sleds for both A and F style rims..
    kterry

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