Two Point Mandolin

[talladam]

Hi Rjayh. Here are the tools I used:



The gouge is a Pfeil 7/25. I think it would be better if I put a longer handle on it like some of the violin guys do. That is a project for next time. I made the depth guage myself and it originally had an analog gauge, but I found the digital guage much easier to use. Not shown in the pic is a drill press, which I used to drill depth-guide holes. You could certainly do this without a drill press, but you'd have to check all the time with your gauge (or have an accurately tuned set of finger and thumb). The two wedges are for setting the drill height. I think scrapers are pretty much mandatory but it's tough to make sure they are sharp enough. My straight one always gets nice and sharp, but the gooseneck one is trickier. Last time I sharpened it, it worked nicely; maybe I'm getting better at it. The little finger plane is Ibex 12mm curved in both directions. I've heard you can purchase cheaper Chinese ones but I haven't tried them. I also bought the toothed blade, which got a lot of use and really helped avoid tearout. I used the block plane at the start of shaping but I think it is very optional. The sanding block was handy for fairing curves on the inside of the plate. I think I used a reverse one for the outside, but I don't know where it is.

[talladam]

Continuing the updates:

I scraped down the binding. The celluloid shavings are the worst thing ever. They get everywhere and are sticky. They are also super flammable, so I wasn't happy having them all over my shop. I think I'll scrape outside next time. I actually threw out the bath towel I was working on because it was so contaminated with shavings. I do like the eucalyptus/camphor smell though. I used my saw to make sure the fret slots were deep enough and took a small triangle file to the top of the slots to make a tiny little chamfer. I had purchased straight fretwire so I bodged together a fretwire bender out of parts lying around the house (the bearings were from when I fixed my bandsaw). The bender worked, but I found it difficult to dial in the correct radius. I think the radius I ended up with was too tight. People say you should have a tighter radius than your fretboard, but I think I went a bit too far because it was tricky to get the frets flat against the board and I had to hammer a bit more than I wanted to. One fret popped out while I was working on the other side of it and took a chunk of ebony with it. Luckily, ebony is easy to patch and hide mistakes. I used a fret rocker before using my leveling beam, and I'm happy that I did because I found a number of frets that needed a bit more hammering to get them flush. I later discovered that my fret rocker has one side that isn't completely flat so I may have chased my tail a bit. I wasn't trying to get things perfect, I just wanted to adjust things with the hammer before grinding the fret tops. I dripped a bit of CA on the fret ends to keep them firmly in place and proceeded to level and polish. I ended up using a three corner file this time because my fret crowning file from my guitar build was too big. The three corner didn't work for me in my guitar build, but seemed to work great this time. I was brave and brought the crown right up to a tiny line on the fret tops. Last time I left the line too thick and the frets had a bit too much 'flat' on the top. I was also a bit braver with making sure the frets were rounded with sandpaper. Having now played the mandolin, I can say that the frets seem really good.



Once the frets looked good, I decided to start the finishing process. I was originally going to do a tru-oil finish, but I somehow got interested in doing a spray finish. I ended up purchasing a cheap 'LVLP' gun from Sprayit for about $35 online. I already have a 8 Gallon Compressor and the small gun was supposed to work well with a small compressor. I ended up purchasing a quart of Target EM6000. To be honest I think I was intending to go with EM2000 since I'd read someone's experience with it on the forum, but I started reading finish schedules online and ended up purchasing the EM6000 instead. It is water based, which is good, because I don't have a proper spray booth. I ended up following a tutorial by 'Ken C' on Kit Guitars Forum. I have no experience spraying, but I was very pleasantly surprised by how nicely the EM6000 laid down. I practiced on some scrap to get the gun settings to what I guessed was correct and sprayed 12 very thin coats over 4 days, with a level sand after 6. It's hard for me to say how thick the finish went down. When I pulled the masking tape off, I measured a chip of finish at .006 and that spot hadn't been level sanded in the middle of the schedule or wet sanded at the end. My only problem was dust. It would be nice to have a booth with filtered air intake. Here is what it looked like before final wet sanding:



I ended up starting sanding at 1000. I sprung for the Abralon discs that went from 1000-5000. I was thinking about using them dry, but ended up using water with a bit of soap and this worked really nicely. I had to use a bit of 600 paper on a hard block to get some dust nits taken care of. A couple years ago when I had just finished my guitar, my wife bought me an Adams 'Swirl Killer' car buffer and I finally got a chance to use it. I used it with Meguiars compound and it worked quite well. There is still a faint haze on part of the top; I'm not sure if I need to go with one more step in the polishing creams? I was conservative with the buffer and only used it on low speed so a higher speed may have helped. In the end I am still pleased with the finish and the back looks super shiny. Next time I may try an oil varnish just because that is traditional but the water based lacquer was fun and I think it would be great on acoustic guitars. I also think with time I could dial it in to make sure I'm getting a very thin coat. Here is a picture of the buffer after wet sanding:

[talladam]

Here are some pictures of the final polished mando:

[talladam]

After polishing the mandolin I drilled for the endpin jack. This is when I realized that the 'cloud' tailpiece that I was going to use wouldn't work with the endpin jack. Since this was last minute before my music camp I stole the tailpiece from my Eastman. It's funny because I've never really gotten along with that tailpiece; it buzzes if the cover isn't on just right. Now it migrated to my new mandolin! I had to drill the hole larger so there's no going back. I'll buy a new tailpiece for the Eastman and one for the new mandolin at some point. I used a 1/4" bradpoint to drill the hole (put some blue tape over the area first) and followed with a 1/2" step bit. Some people use 12mm rather than 1/2", which is a bit smaller, but the instructions with the pickup said 1/2" so that's what I went with. The dental floss would have worked great, but I had forgotten to thread the nut properly onto the threads of the jack, so I had to do that through the f-hole. No biggie though.

I put 4 or 5 coats of Tru Oil on the Neck. The Wenge I used for a headstock veneer was clashing with the ebony fingerboard, so I took a bit of a chance and dyed it darker. It actually matches much better now and I'm happier. I love the look and feel of the Tru Oil on the neck. I'm not sure about the oiled open pore look of the headstock veneer, I think it would have been better with ebony and glossed up.


I moved on to making the nut. Here's where I messed up a bit. I had the spacing marked properly on the nut but my file drifted a bit on the lower strings and in the end the string spacing is a bit off. I started with a smaller file to try to avoid this, but apparently it didn't work. I didn't have another nut blank (having ruined my spare in the rough shaping stage) so I'll have to purchase 4 or 5 more and replace the nut some time in the future. I also filled and redrilled the holes in the top part of the bridge that receive the studs. I've read that tightening up these holes might be part of the reason why more expensive bridges sound better. The new holes I drilled are tight and correctly spaced, but one is a bit off center so the bridge needs to be skewed a bit for intonation to be correct. At around this point I started thinking that the rush to get the mandolin done for camp was causing problems, but since I stole the tailpiece from my other mandolin, there was no going back. I installed the tuner bushings and tuners the night before I left for camp. The tuners dropped in beautifully and work very smoothly. Even the morning before I left for camp I was still at my bench adjusting the action, tweaking the truss rod, and replacing strings. Phew! There are a number of little things that I want to fix on the next string change, but it works! And it sounds pretty good!

[talladam]

The camp went great! Unfortunately there weren't many mando players there, but people were very interested in who built my mandolin and quite surprised to hear it was 'home brewed'. Basically I hadn't played more than a few notes on it, and it was fun to get to know it in an environment where I was free to play all day long (and well into the night). By midway through the camp I was feeling very comfortable with it. I raised the action a tiny bit when I got home. What seems like a nice low buzz free action at home ends up being a bit low when you're playing in a jam with 12 other people.

I improvised a 'photo shoot' after I got home. Maybe I'll have to reinvent myself as a fashion photographer (kidding)! I wish I'd remembered to take the grommets out from between the strings before I took the pics. One of the e strings broke when doing the setup and the grommet shot across the room like a tiny rubbery bullet, never to be seen again, so there are only three.

[talladam]

I'll attempt to attach a sound file. I'm quite happy with the sound, way more pop and punch than my Eastman. No harshness or 'tinny' aspect to the sound, and more overtones than I expected. If there's anything I would think could be better, it is the high notes on the e strings, I think they could be a bit more powerful. Mostly I think it is the volume that is missing up there (it wasn't there on my Eastman either, but I've played a few expensive mandolins that really sound amazing high on the e course. I think the best one I've played was a Wiens). I may try a thicker e course in the future. No real complaints though, I wasn't even sure the thing would withstand string tension. It would be fun to A/B it against a really nice mandolin to get a better idea of the difference.

I'm no real recording whiz so I feel like the recording isn't really the greatest representation of how the mandolin actually sounds, but it will give you a bit of an idea.

Salt Spring.mp3