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SBO22 - Mandola
- Thread starter Flamingo21
- Start date
That’s not a shoelace, it’s a tone cord designed to help maintain good footing no matter how wild the music gets.
I Tap Tested sections of several shoelaces, to find the best one.
Darn. I forgot I have some clamps to make.
I need to step on it.
I need to step on it.
But I will try not to make an even number of clamps with square ends. I will make an effort to have a majority of proper round clamps, even if that add time and makes me finish late.
All kinds of offcuts were thrown together to make this contraption. The bridge is in there, and the slit that's on top is how I make the channel for the saddle.
The thickness of the saddle, and therefore the width of the slit, is 2.5 mm (.100"). I don't know if any router bits exist that are that thin, but I don't have one so I'll use an electric hand drill. Drill a lot of holes close together, then connect them.
And here's the bridge.
That saddle is from polystyrene. It needs more work, and it looks like it may even be too short.
That saddle is from polystyrene. It needs more work, and it looks like it may even be too short.
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And last but not least, a polystyrene nut.
For a finish, I used "Ruwa" lacquer, which works very quickly. It is officially intended for yachts. It seems to be only available in the Netherlands, but I've heard it's quite similar to Minwax wipe on poly.
The colours have turned out beautiful! As often, this is difficult to capture in a photo, but let's try:
The fingerboard:
And here's another thing that makes me happy: when I bought the birch for the body, I really took my time choosing between pieces. I wanted the pieces with the quirkiest figure, I wanted the body to be expressive. When I'd chosen my pieces I already knew precisely what parts would become the top and back.
And then I spent all these weeks nail biting, wondering if the finish would bring the quirky figure out at all. And look:
That's one happy mandola builder.
The colours have turned out beautiful! As often, this is difficult to capture in a photo, but let's try:
The fingerboard:
And here's another thing that makes me happy: when I bought the birch for the body, I really took my time choosing between pieces. I wanted the pieces with the quirkiest figure, I wanted the body to be expressive. When I'd chosen my pieces I already knew precisely what parts would become the top and back.
And then I spent all these weeks nail biting, wondering if the finish would bring the quirky figure out at all. And look:
That's one happy mandola builder.
..... and the sad news: just after that last post, I broke my thumb rest. 
I must have over-tightened a screw.
I don't know yet what I'll do about it. There may be time to make another. There's certainly enough Padouk left.
I must have over-tightened a screw.
I don't know yet what I'll do about it. There may be time to make another. There's certainly enough Padouk left.
Bummer. It looks like the grain is running across the thumb rest (top to bottom) and not along the length of the piece. If you make a new one, make sure that you are using long grain. That should be much more stable..... and the sad news: just after that last post, I broke my thumb rest.
I must have over-tightened a screw.
View attachment 4807963
I don't know yet what I'll do about it. There may be time to make another. There's certainly enough Padouk left.
I once did something similar and used a fingerboard offcut as a nut. It snapped right through one of the string slots. Lesson learned.
Today I strung it up for the first time. (I'm resisting the TalkBass habit of saying "she" and "her" about an instrument.)
So here are my first impressions. It actually sounds quite good, if I say so myself. It has clear highs, lows, and mids. It has sustain. It has volume to fill the room. As this is my first acoustic instrument, I feel rather proud.
I'm accustomed to playing the Viola, which has the same tuning and fingerings. I find playing scales and arpeggios on this to be a breeze.
Playing chords, however, I'm not finding so easy. Maybe it's something about the shape of the neck. Or maybe my chordal skills are rusty. Or whatever.
So what's next? Some more experimenting with strings. A new thumb rest. One more coat of lacquer on the top, as there are a few irregularities that I can improve on.
And after all that, better photos of course, and I'll try to throw in a little video.
So here are my first impressions. It actually sounds quite good, if I say so myself. It has clear highs, lows, and mids. It has sustain. It has volume to fill the room. As this is my first acoustic instrument, I feel rather proud.
I'm accustomed to playing the Viola, which has the same tuning and fingerings. I find playing scales and arpeggios on this to be a breeze.
Playing chords, however, I'm not finding so easy. Maybe it's something about the shape of the neck. Or maybe my chordal skills are rusty. Or whatever.
So what's next? Some more experimenting with strings. A new thumb rest. One more coat of lacquer on the top, as there are a few irregularities that I can improve on.
And after all that, better photos of course, and I'll try to throw in a little video.
I find mandola chords tricky. I spent some time working out 2-finger "ukulele chords", where I sacrificed the voicing of the chord for ease of playing. But that didn't really work out when I wanted to advance.
Two thumb rests in their first coat of lacquer. One Padouk, one birch. The birch is an offcut of the body. The idea was to see what a "stealth" thumb rest looks like.
Then I saw I'd effed up the holes in the Padouk one. I think you can see this in the photo.
And that's the end of it. I'll use the birch one, since my time is up. The coming days, up to Sep 20, are chock full of work and social stuff, so today was the last day devoted to mandola building. I'll find time to finish up, tune it, take photos, and write my Submission Post. Yes, I still call it that.
Let me take this moment to thank everyone for reading along, commenting, liking, joking, helping me out of a rut, and just generally being here. That's helped make this a fun experience. Thank you!
Here I am, playing the mandola. Apologies for some notes that are out of tune.
https://youtube.com/shorts/LlE28U1VQhg?feature=share
https://youtube.com/shorts/LlE28U1VQhg?feature=share
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