My new favorite tool!

I started to butcher my top before I figured out what the problem was with my smallest finger plane. The problem was that I didn't have the sides flat enough and no matter which direction I was passing the plane, it would dig in and chip the wood. This afternoon during lunch I began cleaning up what I had destroyed. Once I took off a good bit of wood from middle down to the sides, I was able to use the small finger plane very easily and with out much tear out. I still have quite a bit of wood to remove so everything that I messed up will come off anyway. Here it is at this point of the game. I have the light I use for tying flies pointed at it from a low angle to show the contours of the arch. This helps me see what else needs to come off and allows me to keep my symmetry right.

I found a couple more photo's showing the step after I have planed the top down from the center cirlce to the edge of the mandolin. After I have that planed down, I drew a bigger circle and then began making a convex arch going from the edge up to the circle and then a concave arch in the middle of the cirlce.

The top for my #2

Well, I haven't really done much more on my top but begin to butcher it. I have been having some problems with my smaller finger plane and it has been tearing out some of the places in my recurve. I'll post pictures later to give an update on how it looks.

Over the weekend I went to a freinds house and planed a couple of pieces of wood that are going to be another top. The pieces were seconds meaning they weren't good enough quality for a high end instrument. Looking at the pieces, they don't look good enough for any instrument. They did clean up a good bit and I think I'll manage to get a mandolin out of it.

New tool

Worked a little bit with scrapers this afternoon. I'll have to work on getting it sharper because I was only able to make sawdust and not thin shavings.

I didn't do much today. When I went home for lunch, I played for a few minutes and planed a little more off of the top. I have about 1/8" to go around from the beginning of the scroll on around. Maybe I'll finish that up tomorrow.

Beginning to shape the top

Well, I just couldn't help it. On my lunch break, I clamped up my top and began carving with the block plane. Before I clamped the top to the workbench, I marked the edge of the top 3/16" up from the bottom so I would know where to stop. The binding that will go around the outside of the top and back is 3/16". Before I knew it, my lunch break was over and I had to head back to work. Maybe I'll work on it again tomorrow.

Created Blog

At first, I planned on recording every step of the process, how long each step took, and the cost of each step. Now, I am three weeks or so into building my first musical instrument and I haven't written a thing down. Here goes.

I built my workbench in my 10'x12' shed in our backyard. The bench is small so I am going to have to keep everything organized and clean. Basically, all of the tools that I have were given to me as Christmas presents, including the vise. I put my Kentucky A model in the vise just to see how it would fit. I am really pleased with my setup and have since added computer speakers and a MP3 player to keep me entertained.





Also, in my shed, I have a climbing wall that doubles as some storage shelves. You can see my wood setting on one of the shelves waiting to be carved.




I took the Adirondack Spruce pieces up to a friend's house and ran it through his jointer. I then put it in this fixture to glue the pieces together. I copied this fixture from a website documenting the construction of Chris Thile's mandolin by Lynn Dudenbostel.








After I took the piece out of the fixture, I sanded the back smooth on a belt sander. I then took a hand plane and planed the top to a thickness of 21/32". I measured my thickness periodically with the homemade thickness caliper you see in the picture. It is accurate to .001". Once I had to it an equal thickness in the center to my desired height, I traced the outline of the body onto the wood. I then used a coping saw to cut out the shape. After reading the text in the book by Siminoff, I found that I was supposed to take it down to 5/8". I took the measurements from his blueprint and must have been trying to be too precise. Oh well, it looks like my arched top will be high by about 1/32".