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Aakoo

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  1. Electric mandolin would be fun.. but I have following project idea cooking in my head already. Archtop in style of Gibson L5 CES. But before that I have an unfinished strat that I need to put together.
  2. Thanks for kind words everybody! I am super excited about this instrument! My musical taste is on the heavier side, and I did not expect to get excited on playing a mandolin, but once I grabbed this thing to my hands and started playing, it felt super natural. Maybe even more natural than the guitar. Last night a added a track with mandolin to two songs, we have recorded year or two back. So yes going to use it in a band context. Let's, see if we decide to remix the song with mandolin, or just keep the current version. Gut feeling is that the mandolin was a bit too much there
  3. Long time since last! But the mandolin is finally done! I kind of forgot to update this thread as been busy with my life outside the internet's! It took longer than expected, but I'm very pleased with the results. Here below you can find some photos of the instrument and a video of me first time ever really playing a mandolimandolin.
  4. I consulted a more senior builder some time back, and he suggested to make the top a bit thinner than in the plans, as the top wood is birch, not spruce, so that is what I did. I chiseled some 1 mm off the top, from the inside. That's about it what I've been doing on the top tuning. I might still take a bit more wood off during the summer months, but let's see. I find the tuning a bit too much of voodoo for me, as I am not very sure, what the end result should be. That said, I guess just trust my gut feeling here
  5. Had to do a search on forum what is IPA bust. I actually had thought somewhat that kind of color scheme. Now I know what it's called here!
  6. Long silence since last time.. The mandolin has progressed slowly, and I've been a bit busy and not logging in to my computer after working hours that often, so I haven't had the time to update this thread. We still have one session left for this season, after that we start a summer break from the workshop. The flame maple fretboad is glued on: I used abalone markers. Also used same flame maple as headstock veneer. I kind of think turned out pretty nice looking. The head stock looks non-symmethrical on the photo, but it's that bad as it looks here. The volute on the neck was more or less an accident: didn't plan to have volute, but when I was shaping the neck, the volute short of shaped it self. I think it looks good here, Next week, I will install the side fret markers, and finalize the top binding.Perhaps, if I have some time to design a nice headstock decal. During summer, I plan to fret the finger boardm and next season I will start by putting on some color + laquer on the top. And then I continue by gluing on the neck, and finally glue on the bottom.. Any suggestions for coloring scheme? I was thinking about amber.
  7. Yes, I saw the thread yesterday, very cool! Seems like the Mandolin building fever he started with the Sarah's Mandolin thread started spreading, and got back to him Kind of funny, in the building workshop I am attending, I was the first one ever with the idea of making f-style mandolin. I bought the plans, copied them to course leader. Now there are at least 2 mandolins on progress, and 2 mandolins done by people who work faster than me. So the fewer is spreading offline too
  8. Long time since the last post.. Sorry about that.. I've been insane busy, my wife is working far too much and I have to keep my eyes on our toddler, he's everywhere all the time The instrument building classes started some while ago. The course seems to be extremely popular. I saw the acceptance list on the course. The online course signup started at 11 o'clock, I signed up at 11:00:05, and I was on position 12, At 11:00:30, the course was filled up, in 30 seconds! I have made some progress on the mandolin, but haven't had really time to report about it. So I try to put out a few pictures and comments on this post. First session, I missed due a working trip to Berlin. Next week I started slowly. I didn't really have any idea what I should do, so I decided to start shaping the bottom of the instrument. I really enjoy working with the chisels, I just need better ones. Second session, I continued the work on the bottom. At the end of the session, rough shaping was now done Third session I don't have the photo but I sanded the bottom and started to work on the neck joint. Fourth session, Continued work with the neck joint. Now the neck is set, but the joint needs a bit fixing, as the neck is lining up incorrectly, This was actually also very satisfying part, although the result didn't end being 100% satisfying at once. I have realized that I enojoy far more working on chisels and sandpaper and other silent hand tools, rather than the noisy electric machines. Funny that is exactly opposite to my musical taste, I prefer loud amps and electric guitars, over the acoustic music. I Will try to be more active in the future
  9. Yeah, it was kinda shot in the dark. I guess Kokkola is not a place where people accidentally drop by during weekends...
  10. Lovely replies guys, I got a good laugh last Tuesday it was the last session for this season. I got the neck glued and roughly shaped. The bandsaw blade was extremely bad, and cutting the birch strips on sides became almost too thin, but at the end the neck width is just perfect on the tail, where the neck is the widest. I would assume, the neck is fairly strong as the scarf joint is located differently on every layer of the neck strips. Now I need to figure out where I could continue the mandolin during the summer, and hopefully next fall, I will get in to the course again. @Prostheta, next weekend, the weekend after the Easter, there will be a display of Kokkolan kansalaisopisto course products. If you happen to be around here, I suggest you should drop in to see a few nice instruments and more handcrafted products.
  11. Started with the neck. I suppose traditionally the mandolin necks are one piece, but I am not really after a traditional design. I made a sandwich construction, birch stripe in the middle, mahogany stripes and finally birch on the sides. The scraf joint I made separately on each part, and the joint is placed on different place every time. Yesterdat I run out of time, so currently the neck plank consists only of the center strip and mahogany strips. Today, if I have the time, I will go to the school and finish the neck blank, so that I can start shaping it next week. Will take off some thickness from the mahogany before glueing the birch sides, so the strips won't be as thick as seen in the photo. The head stock end in the photo is on the right, the longer part is the head stock.
  12. Today, on lunch break from work I decided to glue on the top to the frames. I think I counted 16 clamps.. Not sure though and a bit hard to verify from the photo I let the glue dry some 1½ hours and took of the clamps. Here you can see the result. All went fine, except on tip of the scroll area, the surface was not 100% flat, so there is a very small cap. Nothing serious, and will definietly not be visible after finishing.
  13. Not really.. I still have to do some shaping to do with the braces before glueing the top. I actually discussed about tuning the top with the course leader, and hes suggestion was just to skip the tuning and focus on having well shaped braces, that are well fit to the top shape. Is there a general guide on the tuning? Edit:looking on few videos, it seems that some builders tune tops after they attached the top to body.
  14. Mahogany braces it is. Glued and shaped the braces and started sanding the body so that next time I will glue the top to the body. Next week is break again from the course, but I try to get hold of a few more clamps, so I can do the glueing at home
  15. This week I cut the f-holes to the top and glued the kerfed lining on top side. I was planning to use the electric version of jig saw to do the f-holes, but the blade was so lousy, that I decided to do this by hand. The blade was lousy on that one too, but at least I had far more control on where it went than I would have had on the electric version. Kerfed lining elueing was pretty straight forward. Except on the scroll area, where I was not able to fit any clamps, and had to clamp the linging to the side by pushing wooden strips between the lining strips and the mahoganny scroll. If I ever do a second mandoline, I will deffinitiely use a bit more thick strips to do the linings. Next week, make the top braces. What should you suggest to use as the braces? i suppose spruce is good, but how about using mahogany or birch?
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