Very nearly three months after starting work on it, Patrick’s long neck mandolin is ready for Dave and the spray-booth. I will get it back after around a month, when I will make and fit the bridge and can then string the mandolin for the first time.
At this point it was time to shape the neck and add the last piece of binding and trim across the heel.
Here the mandolin is strapped to the neck shaping arm, held in place by a strap round the body and a clamp over the head.
Working to the guide lines drawn on the neck, I start by tapering the sides of the neck with a draw-knife. This Cuban mahogany is a pleasure to work, with the wood peeling away from the knife smoothly. Other woods can have interlinked grain so that whichever way you work, the knife digs in and the wood wants to splinter. Wengé in particular is not nice to work with knives and chisels so has to be rasped and sanded.
The neck has now been rasped into five flats, ready to be smoothed into the final shape.
It’s hard to see in this photograph, but it has also been tapered so as to be a little shallower at the head end.
Here the neck has been rounded with a fine rasp and sanded through the grades. I’ve also fitted the binding and trim over the heel.
Next the fingerboard will be leveled and cambered, dots inlaid as required, and then the fingerboard can be fretted.
With the back and sides fully prepared, I now had to fit the soundboard. This was rough carved, then final thicknessed, sanded and braced so as to be ready to be glued onto the sides. But before gluing, it sat on the warm shelf for at least a week so as to settle into its final shape.
As before, I wanted any movement to take place before fitting so as to avoid internal tension as far as possible.
Before fitting the top, I first checked the fit of the top with the sides (which already had the top lining glued in place). Anywhere the fit wasn’t perfect was trimmed until it was.
This tends to involve going round and round, improving one area while making others just a little worse. But eventually the fit is perfect.
Then I spread the glue around the lining and top of the sides and clamp the soundboard in place.
To take the bindings and purflings, I routed L shaped ledges around the top and bottom of the body using a laminate trimmer and different bearings to give the different width cuts needed. I didn’t photograph this procedure, but here is a picture of a guitar ready for routing.
It is clamped in a flat bottomed cradle to keep it level, and moved around the stationary cutter. The cutter can move up and down to accommodate variations in height, but the width of the cut is fixed and determined by whichever bearing is attached to the cutter.
This has to be repeated with a different size bearing for each different width ledge, i.e. once for the binding ledge and again for the purfling ledge.
I next bent the Cuban mahogany binding, the red/green/gold back purfling and the Birdsfoot soundboard trim to shape on the hot pipe bender, and trimmed the ends to mitre in with the purfling down the centre of the back and where the sides meet.
I ran glue around the routed ledges, fitted the purfling and bindings in place, and then taped them tightly. After all these years taping binding still seems a primitive system, but it works well and my attempts to devise an effective alternative have not worked out.
Part of the problem is the stiffness of wooden binding, as it requires a stronger pull to make sure it is properly in place than does more flexible plastic binding.[/one_half_last]
[one_half]When the glue had thoroughly dried I (carefully) removed the tape before scraping down any proud binding and purfling. I then sealed this and sanded it clean.
Now the body is ready to receive the rosette, and then the neck and fingerboard.
Today Eamon Doorley and his wife Julie Fowlis visited. Eamon is both accompanist to Julie and long time Danu band member. He was looking at guitar-bouzoukis and tried both flat-top and arch-top versions. Eventually both he and Julie settled on the flat-top model. Here they are in my workshop, Eamon playing it through the Highlander pickup I’d just fitted, and Julie singing.
And here are Eamon, guitar-bouzouki and guitar-bouzouki builder
With the finished back settling on the shelf, I was able to get on with bending the sides. When bending guitar sides, I use a Fox bending jig to start with and then move on to hand bending, but for the simpler mandolin sides I bend entirely by hand, on an electrically heated bending iron.
Sides are always bent exactly to shape, rather than bent approximately and forced to the shape of the mould when gluing to back and soundboard. This is to avoid internal stress, as mentioned in part 2
Here the sides are glued and clamped to the tail-block. I’ve left a space between the sides where the tail purfling will fit.
I don’t seem to have taken a photo of the heel-block clamped and glued to the sides, but here are the sides glued to both blocks with the bottom lining glued in place. The lining provides gluing area for gluing the back on; it has cut-outs ready to receive the ends of the back braces.
The sides have been scribed and cut down to receive the back so no pressure is required to pull the back onto the sides. Again, this is to avoid internal stress.
The serial number can be seen stamped into the heel-block.
Again, no photo of the back being glued to the sides, but here’s the finished result. I’ve also added the top lining, which gives the gluing area for gluing on the soundboard, and side re-inforcements.
I don’t see these as providing much in the way of strength, but they should limit the extent of cracks in the unfortunate event of an accident.
The back and sides are now ready to receive the sound board.
Now the back is joined and sanded to final thickness, I have to re-inforce the joins. I do this with thin and lightweight cross-grained spruce (taken from soundboard offcuts).
The centre three joins near to where the neck block will go are so close together that I re-inforce them with a single piece of spruce across all three joins. Below where the top brace will go all joins are individually re-inforced. The spruce will then have to be cut away from the areas where the braces will be glued.
The photos below show first the centre and outside spruce strips gluing (the others having been glued previously) and the back ready to receive the braces.
Now the back is ready for bracing. The braces are cut close to their final top shape and to the same curve as the mould the back sits in while gluing takes place.
The braces are clamped using the go-bar jig, that wonderful simple and effective idea from Japan via the US. Later they can be trimmed and sanded to their final shape.
It takes a week or so for the back to settle. At the same time as the back is being pulled to the curve of the braces, to some extent the braces are being flattened slightly by the pull of the back (even though the back is being bent across the grain, much easier than bending along the grain). So the finished back sits on the warm shelf in my shop for a week or so to settle into its final form.
Allowing instrument components to find their final form before being assembled is important. It avoids the stress that develops if they try to do this later, when other components (in this case the sides and later the soundboard) would limit the movement taking place. Everything would then look fine, but the whole assembly would be under tension; tension that can affect the resonance of the finished instrument.
This is one of several reasons why taking time to build an instrument results in building a better instrument.
Patrick de Broux is a generous man. He was unable to attend either of my talks in aid of Whitley Chapel Village hall (see item below) but on both occasions made a £50 donation.
I announced this to the audience, and after they had applauded his generosity, pointed out that Patrick perhaps knew something they didn’t; after all, he’d paid several times the ticket price NOT to come and hear me.
Patrick recently came to me with an interesting project. He asked me to build a Cuban Tres, a small guitar bodied instrument with three pairs of strings. This instrument is a long term project and is still under construction.
He also asked me to build a small bodied mandolin with an extended neck, tuned two and a half tones lower than standard. This would tune DAEB, but a capo on the fifth fret would give mandolin tuning and scale.
This project also really interests me, and I’m now well on with it. Andy Irvine played an extended neck mandolin of mine (but with two extra frets rather than five) for many years, and Patrick had this in mind when thinking of his mandolin.
Here is Andy (centre) with his small bodied long scale mandolin, pictured with his band Mozaik. On the right is Rens van der Zalm with his standard scale large bodied version.
I would have made the back and sides from the Birds-eye maple I love so much, but Patrick asked about my scantling Brazilian rosewood. I found a pretty and very resonant piece just wide enough to make mandolin sides (without having to join two pieces together to get the width, as on scantling guitars).
This scantling would cut into enough pieces to make not just the sides, but also a multi-piece back; it’s nice to have back and sides from the same piece. I later found there was enough left over to make the headstock veneer from it as well.
In the end I felt the back looked best with a dark strip from another scantling down the centre, between two strips from the original scantling on either side. This would have meant the back having four joins, with two purfling strips, one on either side of the dark centre strip.
The two photos below show the strips arranged this way, the second with the surround blacked out to give an idea of how the wood looks in mandolin shape.
But when I sent Patrick pictures, he suggested cutting the dark piece into two with purfling in between down the centre of the back. The dark centre would then blend with dark areas on either side.
While I wasn’t keen to add an extra unnecessary join just for cosmetic reasons, it wasn’t really important so I eventually agreed. The photo right shows the back joined and sanded to thickness (with the mould resting on it to show the final shape).
Patrick’s idea worked out just as he had wanted, in that the black centre strip (now cut into two) blends perfectly with the black edges of the strips on either side. Lacquering may show up a minor change at the join, but I’m sure it won’t be obvious.
The back now looks to be a two piece back (while in fact being a six piece back) instead of looking like a three piece back (while in fact being a five piece back).
Life can be interesting and complicated; Patrick and his ideas always add interest and usually add complication.
All these joins will require re-inforcing strips on the inside.
At 7.30 pm on Friday 17th May I shall be giving a talk on instrument building in Whitley Chapel village hall. Called ‘The Art and Craft of Guitar Building’, it will be an extended version of the talk I gave there nearly five years ago – I would never have believed it was so long ago before I checked.
I’ll be talking about how I became an instrument maker (quite by accident), some of the difficulties and set-backs I encountered, and some of my customers. I’ll be showing images of guitars in various stages of construction and bringing along completed instruments, together with examples of work in progress. At the end of the talk I’ll be happy to answer questions.
As before, all are welcome; for my last talk we had visitors from as far as London, Manchester and Aberdeen as well as a large local audience.
Ben
Tickets cost £10 for adults, £5 for under 16s, and are available on the bar or from Austin on 01434 673325
There will be a bar selling wine, beer and soft drinks.
As before, all profits will go towards the maintenance and improvement of our village hall, which is such an important part of local life.
A couple of weeks ago Rod Sinclair called in on his way from the Lake District back to Newcastle. He played several guitars, including a recent New World model and my original arch-top, built in 1981. He seems to have found a few hedges in the Lakes.
Today Mark Knopfler visited. He played a New World and two Martin Simpson models, eventually choosing one of the MS models. He said he plans to use it at home and for recording, so didn’t want a pickup fitted. And he wouldn’t let me fit strap buttons because he couldn’t bear to have holes drilled in the guitar.
On my recent trip to northern Italy I took the opportunity to visit Massimo Raccosta in Verona. Massimo recently bought a Model 4 Dreadnought from me (see news 27 March 2012) and plans to open a guitar museum in the near future.
He greeted me in his apartment with the sight of seven guitars lined up on stands. It took me a moment to realise they were all Sobells.
Massimo Raccosta with Parlour, New World, MS model, Model 1, 6 string Arch-top, MS D version and Model 4 Dreadnought guitars
Somewhat to my surprise, Massimo told me the one he plays most is the arch-top (third from right). ‘You can play anything on it’ he said.
Most of his collection is stored awaiting the completion of his museum premises, but I had the opportunity to look at and play some that weren’t buried too deep. My favourite was a Franklin built in the 90’s by Nick Kukuch for his brother, a straightforward OM model with little ornamentation but a great sound.
When the museum opens, Massimo also plans to use it as a centre for concerts and masterclasses.