Mandolin Post # 4 Tone Bars

As we get into post # 4 we are applying the back to the Mandolin outside shell . Remember I said I let the Tension off the unit a bit and allowed it to find its natural shape . You will see that come to the fore later in another post. Below I have cut the back slightly larger than the outer shape and am gluing it in .

If you look closely you can see the notched "Kerfing " that helps to have glue area needed to keep the Mandolin together . The thickness of the back should be no greater than .125" thick . Actually a bit thinner , around .105 is desired at finish for better sound.

Also you can see in the above pic that I have cut the headstock to receive the "Tang" from the neck to create a solid joint. The back is solid an the tang sits down and is glued to the back as well as the insides to make a solid joint.

The Picture below shows the placing of the supports across the back of the Mandolin. I used Spruce , its light and strong and recommended for this area. as you can see the supports are feathered out towards the end. This helps reduce mass and weight , and since you have " Kerfing at the edges it isn't required that the be full thickness.

I place 3 across , and learned that two would have been enough probably . Oh well next time.

The Pic Below shows the placement of the " Tone Bars " this is not a complete pic . After the pic was taken I added another cross bar , the short one approx 3/4" from the sound hole and I scalloped the long ones between those shorter cross pieces so that it reduced mass and added strength and tone. The more material taken out will change the sound of the face as its done.


Again the shape is cut slightly larger than the outer ring and this allows for the best gluing and the remainder can be sanded flush at a later time


Below You can see I have glued the neck into place . Why I didn't get pics of that I Cant remember . I really thought I did. Anyway The tang was glued in and then I drilled 2 holes on either side about 1" deep so that half the hole was in the tang and half in the headstock . I then glued a dowel into that hole , this helps lock the neck into place . Works like a square key on a motor shaft. sorry I really thought I had pics of that.

You can see the top being glued in and the neck set . If you look closely you will see the Hard Maple strip in the neck I glued in to cover the Tension Rod.

The Next Post will show the Fret Board as well as the basic Glued Mandolin.

Thank You for stopping by and looking at my little project.

Mandolin Post 3 and Wood Bending 101

Well its time for post 3 on my Mandolin Project . I ended the last post with a contraption I had assembled and asked for guesses as to what it was for. Sadly I got no response . The unit was made to bend Hard Maple wood. If you look closely at the picture there is a Torch pointed into the pipe . The pipe bent on an angle in the vise and the vise mounted solidly to a table.

This was the part that scared me the most and turned out to be the most fun. I cut my Hard Maple sides to the approx size I wanted ( slightly over Size) Then I put them in a PVC Tube I have glued an end on and filled it with water , closed the top so that the wood was completely submerged for a day .

The wood has to be quite soaked. I then took the individual pieces out and fired up the torch , as the pipe got hot , I rolled the wood pieces back and forth over the pipe applying SLIGHT PRESSURE.


This is the hardest part, as the wood begins to steam , I lifted it up and continued spraying the back of the wood with water to keep it wet . It started getting ply able and the first reaction is to press harder BAD MOVE . IT WILL BREAK ! I went through 5 pieces to get 3 Bent as I needed.

After an experiment , and a broke piece , my first part was ready for the mold. As you can see I have made a Plywood Mold from my pattern I showed in post 1. Clamp the part in place and let it set for 24 hours . As the wood drys out it will retain what ever shape you have it molded into .

I strongly recommend the plastic footed claps as you see below , the Quick Grip Type . The others will leave marks that are very hard to sand out , as I discovered the hard way .

After the bending and shaping was done I moved to an Internal Mold as shown below to fit the parts together . I have said they will hold their shape, that's true to about 98% there is slight movement or was on my unit. As you can see I have also put the Tail Piece and Head Piece in to fit the sides to here

These parts are being Glued into place in this Jig at this point , so that when its done you have the outer ring made up of the 1/8" side parts as well as the Tail Piece and Head Stock.


After the Sides and Ends have been glued together I started Gluing the " Kerfing " into place . This material is slotted to bend to the shape your making nicely and is glued in a approximately 1/64" below the surface of the edges . I did this on purpose so that after I had the unit Glued up , I could run it through my Sander and make sure it was Level and flat prior to working on the back.

I suspect most will have the unit in the Jigs until the back is glued in place . I however chose to allow the sides to expand and move to the exact figure that the bends took them to and then applied it to the back. This was a choice I made to let any stress that had been created from the above gluing to be relieved . Good / Bad I don't know , however it did seem to work

If you are going to allow the stress to relieve as I did DO NOT notch the head piece prior to this because then the alignment may be slightly off. It does make the notching a bit harder , however I felt the possibility of relieving as much stress as possible was good on my first attempt.


The Next post will involve shaping and gluing the back and internal supports

Thank You for stopping by and following my little project

Mandolin Project Post 2

The following set of pics will show a bit more in the neck and head forming . In the last post , I had the " Ears gluing up on the headstock , as you can see below the finished blank looks more like a mandolin neck . I used my layout pattern and did my cutting in my band saw.






You can see in the following 2 pictures the basic shape prior to cutting the tang to fit it into the body and shaping the back of the neck .

In the next picture I have cut the body tang and have shaped the unit a bit . During the time I was working on the unit at I received the tuners I had ordered fro Stewart MacDonald and came to the realization that my head stock was to short ( mistake 1 in a long list)So after shaping the neck you can see I added a " Crown " at the top of the headstock made from Hard Maple and glued in .

The next procedure is to make the slot for the Tension Rod in the neck . The point of this is to help keep the neck from warping when the strings are tuned , it has an arrow shape with a nut at the headstock end that can be tightened or loosened to adjust the neck as needed.

I f you look on my work bench just above the neck you will see the Tension rod laying there . I fitted it by hand and the grove isn't really that well done ( mistake 2 ) Next time I will design my neck blocks so that the grove is already accounted for when gluing up the neck blank .

After the tension rod is set , the top part of the neck is then refilled with a Hard Maple strip and re glued into place . This creates a hollow square hole that allows for slight bending to set the tension. The center of the tension rod is wrapped with electricians tape to keep it from ever rattling during playing of the instrument. Sort of a sound deaden'er.

That gives you a basic and short idea of the work involved in making a mandolin neck .

I have another picture I will share now . I will make it a contest to see who can tell me what the following contraption is put together to accomplish . Please Leave your Guesses in comments.

Mandolin Project Post 1

Hello everyone , I have taken on a new project and have actually finished it at this point. I decided to finish the Mandolin prior to Blogging about it in case I made a mess of the unit. I am happy to say its done and looks and sounds beautiful . ( I will have a short post at the end so you can hear it . ) BTW it wont be ME playing it , I'm a woodworker NOT a MUSICIAN !! LOL

I started out with a Mahogany board and split it and glued the spit pieces back together to make a " Book Match " Face for the unit , so You end up with a Mirror image ( or close) for the face.
You can see that board in the following pic !



The back of the mandolin is from one solid piece of Hard Maple planed down and cut to a blank . I found the nicest pattern that i could find in the board and went with that as you can see in the following pic

I made a pattern for the back and face based on a combination of a couple different Mandolins found on the Internet and came up with the following design , I pasted the drawings on Masonite and used that for my design as you can see in this pic

The next picture is the design for the neck and I used the same method to get the neck size and shape as I wanted prior to cutting the shape on my band saw .

I started out with the body block that is in the inside at the neck joint and used the pattern to get my design started and cut out again on the band saw. This part is also made from Hard Maple that was cut from the same board I used on the back . You can see the "tang"in the above picture that will fit into the body block pictured below to make a solid joint at the body.

The tail Block I cut from solid maple as well and it is approx 3/8" thick so that there is adequate strength when the strings are mounted and the pressure is applied . The LAST thing I wanted was for the unit to pull apart because i had made something to thin. I had several people tell me that to much solid wood would hurt the sound , so it was a labor of FAITH in what I did here . And i am Happy it paid off !

The next sets of pictures show the neck. I Have already glued the Hard Maple Boards from the same blank together , and as you can see I have included red Mahogany strips in between to accent the Top . These strips are from the same board I am making the Top From. I turned the grain in opposite directions on the Hard Maple so that the " Natural " tendency of the board to warp would be working against itself to help maintain a straight neck.

I have glued the " Ears" in Place after making the rough cut on my band saw so that i have the basic shape , albeit quite over sized at this point . A LOT of sanding and measuring to be done as you will see in future post.


Thus begins my first and hopefully not last into the world of Luthier. I will say that In doing this I did talk to A LOT of people and READ A LOT prior to starting this project . I hope that you find my little project as fascinating as I have . I will continue with the following post in a few days .

Finished Project ( minor stuff still needed )

The Finished Mandolin looks much better and has a decent sound . There is a Buzzing in one area that I believe is due to a high Fret in the area that came apart and required re gluing. When time is available I will address that problem.

Cleaned and Strung:

The Jigsaw Fret Board Looks Good Considering it was in 8 Pieces :

The Neck glued back to the bowl and reinforced with a Hard Maple Dowel :

Tuners cleaned and headstock as well . I did find some carving in the headstock at the top when It was cleaned . I will need a Magnifying Glass to see if its legible. It is extremely faint but is somewhat visable , after cleaning.

In this pic you can see the corner of the fret board that i made reference to that will need a little attention. When I have a little more time it will get fixed .

I hope you have enjoyed my little project. Since it was my 1st I am sure there are Many mistakes . Hopefully it will get better with time .

I do WELCOME ANY suggestions from Restorers that will help me be better at this . Please Leave A Comment.

Luthier Restoration My 1st Attempt

The Following are a set of Pics recently taken of a project I just finished . I found a Bowl Back Mandolin on Ebay for $ 16.00 and decided what the heck . Never Having tried Luthier Work this is my first attempt. I tried very hard to keep it Original.

What I found was as follows :

You can see its Quite Filthy And Old , Figure as best as I can Tell its 1920's -30's era .

If you look close you can see the Neck Is Broke off the bowl at the heel of the neck . Looks like a small crack and around the sound hole by the finger board its caved in almost 1/2" look closely and you can see the strings are quite high over the Fingerboard / Frets.



This Pic Shows the break in the neck better , The crack is Quite visable in this one.

I had to remove the neck from the unit and do so without breaking the Fingerboard , sadly wasn't so successful . The Board Broke into about 8 pieces so I had to re glue it together like a jigsaw puzzle and was successful at that.

The neck was attached to the body with a dowel originally, and it had bent and broke . I set up my lathe and made a new Hard Maple Dowel and re glued it in the neck and cleaned out the area in the bowl area to receive the dowel as well.


As you can see I have clamped a block of Hard Maple into the face side of the bowl as a cleat to flatten it out and bring that 1/2" of " Caved in " Area Back out so the strings will be at right height for playing.



After everything was finished gluing I still had approx 1/6" inch of drop in the body at the sound hole. So to solve the problem I cut a small spacer and glued it to the body and sanded it to the proper height and that allowed me to glue the neck and finger board back in place and get it at the correct height . I KNOW A PROFFESSIONAL RESTORER is gonna read that a freak , but as I said I'm new at this and did best I could.

I purchased a Product that's called restorers polish that has no silicone in it and used that along with a couple hours elbow grease and rags to get it cleaned up and still retain the "old" look as it should have. As you will see its quite good at what its designed for.

So You Have Seen My Project From The Start , My Next Post will be the Finished Pics of The project . Thanks For stopping By.

Darts Anyone

At One Time Back In My Sordid Past I Had Time To Play In The Chicago Dart Leagues . While I Never Got Extremely Proficient , I Did Win A Couple Trophies . However This Post Is About What I Enjoy , WudWerks . I Decided My Daughter Needed To Learn A Little About The Games , 301 , 501 , and Cricket . So With That In Mind I Built The Following Dart Board For Our Basement .

The Doors Are Made From Walnut 2" Wide Strips with a 1/2" Mortise to allow the Oak Panels room to Inlay . The Panels are Solid Oak Flooring . yes Like You Would Find On Your Floor !
And I Used Brass Hinges And A Brass Lock . The Unit Is Lacquered and Sealed.

Opening The Doors You See The Dart Board Mounted To Cork That Has Been Glued To The Plywood Backing . The Sides Of The Cabinet Are Oak And It Is Approx 3" Deep . Because Of The Ceiling Height In The Basement I Was Forced To Mount The Dartboard Higher In The Cabinet To Make The regulation Height And Still Get It Wall Mounted.


As You Can See The Unit Is Lagged Into The Basement Wall With Large Bolts Since We Have Concrete Walls That Was Necessary . The Top Of The Cabinet Is 1-1/2" Below Ceiling Level , Which I Was Afraid Would Cause Problems in Shooting . However It Seems To Be Fine.




I Used Walnut Blocks And Dry Erase Boards To Make Points Scoring Boards . And If You Look At The Darts That Is A Walnut Block With 6 Holes Drilled For The Darts To Stand In. Looking Back Up A Couple Pics You can See I've Mounted 2 Score Boards .

All In All The Cost Of The Project Was Around $100.00 . You Can Purchase Pre-Built Units for More , However where Is The Fun In That ? LOL !!

For Those Who Are Not Familiar With The Games 301 And Cricket I Will Give A Quick Run Down

*********In 301 or 501 The Outer Ring is a Double Score , A person Is Required To Double In And Double Out . The Deduct Your Score From 301 Till U Hit Zero Exactly With A Double Out.

Example , You Have 31 Points Left that means you have to hit a 1 then a double 15 or some combination to make 31 points.




********Cricket Is Simpler , You Have To Hit 3 , 15 through 20 's and 3 bulls eyes. If I have hit all my 15's and you haven't , every time I get another 15 , i get 15 points against you, until You Hit Them All. The Only Thing You cannot Do Is Count A Bulls eye untill ALL Your Numbers Are Closed First !


I Hope My Little Project Is Enjoyable to You , It Certainly was For Me !