Feb 19, 2012

OK, I think we finalized the design of the headstock. This is a big departure from my original design, but is still sticking with the initials/hummingbird/flower theme. The drawing was actually done by Sue's high school art teacher, Jim Rudisill. At first I wasn't sure about it since it was a little more abstract then I'm use to, but the more I played with it and showed it to other folks, the more I liked it. Jim calls it the 'strumming bird' (vs humming bird). The back ground of the headstock will be black (ebony), with my initials, the bird and the flower in white (Mother Of Pearl).

Feb 17, 2012

10:30am - 4:00pm

Today, more working on the top.....

This is a shot of the top edge after being 'scooped out' using a metal scraper. The scraper is the disk object in the picture. The edge was taken down to a thickness of 3.4mm.

 Here's Mark showing me how to use a disk sander in the drill press. The object here is to give the top a nice smoothed curved surface.

 Final 'mechanical' sanding before hand sanding of the top.

Missing....a shot of the nice smoothed top. My camera batteries went dead!

Feb 13, 2012

9:00am-4:30pm

Today's jobs:

• Clean up the mahogany tips on the sides
• Continue carving the top
• Shape the headstock

Using the band saw, I rough cut the mahogany blocks that were glued to the side points. I then finished them by filing and sanding. Here's the finished product:

I continued carving the top using the gouge and mallet making it into a more arched shape.

I then switched over to using the 'finger' planes. These planes allow you greater control of carving of the wood. 



I traced out the design of the headstock using a plastic template and cut it to shape on the band saw. All the cut were then finished to a straight and smooth surface using hand files and sandpaper.



Finally, using the drill press and peg hole jig, I made all the holes required to hold the tuners.

Feb 10, 2012

11:30am-5:30pm

Today I worked on the neck, sides, top and fingerboard.

The first thing I did was glue on the 'ears' of the headstock.  Normally, this is done prior to gluing on the headstock veneer, but we forgot! Turned out this wasn't a big deal. Just made sure we had a nice tight fit for the 'ears' before applying the glue. BTW, these blocks are used for the two curl designs on the sides of the mandolin headstock.

I next sanded the edge of each of the side points and glued a strip of ebony to each. This is used to dress up the sides of the mandolin. We'll shape these pieces later.

 Here's a shot of the finger board I made the other day. The finger board comes with the fret slots already cut. I had to cut the finger board so that it would measure 1 inch at the 'nut' and 1 7/16 inch at fret #15. When the binding is apply to the sides later, the finished width of the fretboard will be 1 1/8 inch at the 'nut' and 1 9/16 inch at fret #15. The notch cut at the bottom of the finger board is for appearance purposes. The final 8 frets will be stepped down later. The white stuff on the finger board is chalk used to make the scribe lines visible for cutting on the bandsaw. To finish the sides, I used the sanding table to make them smooth and straight. Ignore the spruce top under the finger board in this picture!

Next, it was onto starting the mandolin top. Using the spruce we joined and sanded the other days, I first made an outline of the mandolin using the molded sides.

I then started carving the top using a chisel and mallet. Leaving a rounded center, I tapered the sides down to a height of 3/8 inch.

This is a shot of the finished carved top. Finished for this step that is!

I then sanded the top curl down to 3/8 inch using the belt sander. Finally, I took the edges of the spruce top down to 1/8 inch using a router bit in a drill press.

Feb 6, 2012

9:00am-5:30pm

Today I worked on installing the truss rod, kerfing and sanding. I also cut the slotted ebony finger board to size and glued the ebony peghead overlay veneer to the neck.

 The truss rod was placed in the neck slot which I cut last week using the table saw. I also needed to drill a hole to accept the anchor lug at the end of the rod. I then cut and fitted maple filler strips to cover the rod. Here's a pic of the strips glued and being held with camps.

After the glue set up, I planed and sanded the filler strips to make them smooth with the top of the neck.

This is a pic of the ebony peghead overlay veneer being glued and held in place to the headstock.

Here we have the sides and blocks all glued up and ready for the kerfing.

The kerfing was fitted and glued to both the top and bottom of the sides. Clothpins and clamps were used to hold the kerfing tight to the sides for drying. Notice the unused kerfing at the bottom of the pictures.

After drying, I removed all clothpins and clamps. Only I thing left to do......

Sand, sand, sand....

Mark said to make sure the inside looks good.

Just in case someone peeks inside later on!