Mandocello conversion

[boombloom]

What's the scale and the width at the nut? I bought an Eastman Mandocello when they first came out. Sounded beautiful but it was a jazz guitar set up as a cello and the neck was just so wide that I never liked it for cello stuff. Old Gibsons were much narrower. For anyone with questions about mandocello--remember that Jaco played one on a Weather Report album. And here's Mike.....

 

[Verner]

Ah. I'd bet it has been removed in the past by somebody else.

That’s a definite possibility, the fingerboard didn’t feel like hide glue to me. Felt like titebond or some other pva.

 

[Verner]

What's the scale and the width at the nut? I bought an Eastman Mandocello when they first came out. Sounded beautiful but it was a jazz guitar set up as a cello and the neck was just so wide that I never liked it for cello stuff. Old Gibsons were much narrower. For anyone with questions about mandocello--remember that Jaco played one on a Weather Report album. And here's Mike.....

The scale length is 25.75”, which should give it some better tension than the shorter scale gibsons (at least that’s what I have read). The nut is 1 11/16”, but the gibsons were 1 3/8”, which is what I plan to shave this neck down to.

 

[Ostie]

To add to the discussion, other mandolin family instruments include banjolin, mandolele, octave mandolin, and mandolinetto, which is a “piccolo” mandolin.

Some builders convert those old Kay and Harmony arch tops into tenor guitars, which are tuned liked tenor banjos.

Can’t wait to see how your project turns out.

 

[Verner]

So I have a carbon fiber rod I never used from an old project, the only problem is the cavity is 3/16” and the rod is 1/8”. I have never done a rod before, does anyone know if this is too wide a tolerance for epoxy to keep hold? I could do a truss rod, but I would have to either buy a short one or cut one down and weld it (I don’t weld, but could ask a buddy).

Another option would be to cut a filler strip and rout a 1/8” channel, but I want this to move along as I have a pile of things to get to for ‘homework’.

OR I could glue a few pieces of veneer to the sides of the channel and make a narrower channel for the rod.

Thoughts?

 

[Verner]

Well, I decided to extend the channel with saw and chisel, shim the channel with some pieces of 1/32” walnut veneer from my last build, and flood the cavity with watery superglue.

 

[Verner]

Filler strip

 

[Videojunkie]

Sub'd, very interesting build/ mod. Plus a history lesson about instruments I have never heard of! (Off to the Wikipedia mines for me!)

 

[Flamingo21]

And an interesting future for a poor battered up old Kay, that would probably otherwise be heading to the landfill. Giving trashed old musical instruments a new life is an honorable calling, and a fine retirement non-business.

Thank you for saying this. I am on a similar project with a battered old guitar that I'm converting into a bass. It'll get rubbery ukebass-ish strings and an undersaddle piezo.

This is an interesting project, and I'm following along.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Thank you for saying this. I am on a similar project with a battered old guitar that I'm converting into a bass. It'll get rubbery ukebass-ish strings and an undersaddle piezo.

This is an interesting project, and I'm following along.

Yeah, I have a few old "rescue" instruments here in my shop, that I intend to eventually fix up and make working again. In fact, I have a fairly nice old archtop guitar, similar to this Kay, which someone literally left on my front porch! How could I turn it away?

 

[arbiterusa]

A Florentine style mandocello is a work of art.

It is. I have wanted one for decades but they’re just…unaffordable. Sob.

 

[Dynacord]

Very cool project!

I worked at McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica back in the 80's and we had one of these Gibsons that lived there - pretty crazy - mandobass:

 

[Flamingo21]

Those promotional pics they used to make are really something else.

 

[Verner]

Did some body work this morning. I used a clamp and my vise to make a lever for the tail block. Besides that it was the same procedure as the neck block.

I also made a quick section of kerf for the missing piece in the upper bout. I cleaned off the hide glue from the sides and also the spare original kerf that was in the body and glued those down.

My clothespins work well with the small kerfed linings but these are much bigger. It was a pain, but I managed to make it work.

After these all dry I can clean off the hide glue from the sides and top and join top to the body. I don’t think I have enough spool clamps for the whole body, might have to make some clamping calls, but that’s a tomorrow problem.

 

[GretschWretch]

Those promotional pics they used to make are really something else.

Aren't they, though! It was a whole 'nother world, back then, especially if you lived in a big city. If you scan the classifieds from magazines or newspapers like the NY Times from a hundred years ago, you will see ads for performers and, especially, teachers. The only things I find more interesting are the advertisements offering lodging and the illustrations for consumer products.

The 1921 Gibson catalog, available as a reprint, is chock full of photos of Gibson endorsers. The YouTube video of Joe Bethancourt's "Flop-ear Mule" is a slideshow of similar images. But to view those to where you can process the information you really need to ramp things down to the slowest speed option YouTube offers.

 

[Verner]

I don’t have any exotic hardwoods in my stash I can cut up for this project, and I don’t want a maple board on this instrument. I do have a nice walnut cutoff from the last project, so I will resaw that and use it for my fretboard. It is just barely wide enough.

The my little pony toys are there for moral support, they have a very positive attitude.

 

[Verner]

I only have an old craftsman 12” bandsaw, but it was cheap and after a setup and timberwolf blades it cuts anything I need. I started building a 20” wooden bandsaw, but that’s on the back burner.

So I resawed the board and ran it through my handy-dandy home built thickness drum sander to 1/4”. It’s going to look classy. So classy I probably should inlay bow ties.

You know, if I could inlay. Not there yet.

 

[rudy4444]

Nothing wrong with a 12" saw. I have a similar 12" Delta, it was $300 new, with an added 3" riser and it cuts anything I would need.

I thought I needed a large saw and built an 18" from a welded steel frame and "Gil-Built" cast aluminum wheels and associated parts that they sold as a band saw kit.

I eventually got smart and figured out that I didn't need anything that I couldn't move around easily.

 

[Verner]

Nothing wrong with a 12" saw. I have a similar 12" Delta, it was $300 new, with an added 3" riser and it cuts anything I would need.

I thought I needed a large saw and built an 18" from a welded steel frame and "Gil-Built" cast aluminum wheels and associated parts that they sold as a band saw kit.

I eventually got smart and figured out that I didn't need anything that I couldn't move around easily.

I held off on a bandsaw for years because I thought I needed something huge with a 1hp motor. I feel silly now. Outside of re-sawing over 6”, there is nothing this saw can’t do for me.

 

[brianrost]

Slightly OT. My all time favorite Cheap Trick tune, with Rick Nielsen playing a mandocello (probably a Gibson) for the intro and then titled the song "Mandocello". Nice T-Bird tone on this one



Ovation made some nice Adamas-style mandocellos for a few years in the 1990s, got to play one a few times. I was in a Celtic band with a guy who bought one and retuned it like an Irish bozouki. Beautiful sound!