Mandolin

[Keith 66]

Last year i was working at a school clearing a D&T workshop. In the store was a beat up old Mandolin, one of the caretakers threw it in the skip.
As my son Nick (aged17) plays the guitar i rescued it.
Over Christmas hols we took it to a local music shop & to our surprise it turned out to be of reasonable quality though rather damaged.
Made in Russia in the early 60s its front was busted in & badly split with several broken ribs.
In the shed was a thin slab of unidentifed timber possibly pencil box cedar or apple, i had pulled it out of Benfleet creek about 40 years ago & never found a use for it. We resawed it & planed it down then glued it together for a new front. New spruce ribs were glued in & the front glued on.
We just finished scraping & sanding it down & its had its first coat of satin varnish. The temptation was to overdo it but it has been kept simple.
Nick is pleased as punch with how its come up & is itching to play it. Hope it sounds good! Will get a pic up when its done.
Anyoneelse done anything similar?

 

[MickCheese]

Sounds interesting.

Mick

 

[Kalimna]

I, too, would be rather keen to see some photos, and a report on its sound. Unless you are familiar with acoustic instrument repair, I would have a little concern over whether the wood was indeed cedar or apple (hardwoods rarely make for good soundboards, koa and mahogany aside), how thick you managed to get the top(somewhere in the order of 3mm should be ok, and whether there was an arch to the top either carved or induced by the braces).
Either way, good luck, I wish you well. A mandolin is certainly on my to-do list, after the ukulele and a couple of acoustic guitars that is!!
Adam

 

[Keith 66]

I understand what you mean re the soundboard, the original one was fine grained spruce, the sides & back birch ply.
The front was basically flat & we got the new one down to about 2mm thick or less, still not quite sure exactly what the timber is but it seems to be very tough & flexible stuff.
Big learning curve but with a total outlay of £20 for parts including new strings its been fascinating. Normally i build boats so a stringed instrument is rather different. It has given me the desire to build something from scratch though!

 

[Keith 66]

Well its been varnished & once it had all gone off was last night fitted with new tailpiece, we reused the original tuning bits.
Tonight its been strung & a few problems came to light, the bridge was too low so we glued a 2mm spacer to it, still needs to go up a little so tomorrow we make a new spacer up. Then retune it again. As for sound its not loud but has quite a nice tone. Once we get the bridge height fixed it looks like being playable. Will get a photo up once its done.