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A Luthiers Blog
Making a Mandolin Rosette
I’ve just started building my next mandolin. In this video, I look at making its rosette in quite some detail. Hope that you find it interesting.
Cheers Gary
Making a Bass Bridge
About a year or so ago, I built myself a short scale bass, inspired (aesthetically) by the Kay EB-100 that I had previously restored. I play this bass pretty much daily: it’s set-up with flat-wound strings and I love its smooth richness of tone. However, having recently restored the Westone Thunder Bass which has a long-scale and round-wound strings and spent some time playing it, I have found whole new range of tonal possibilities, which contrast and complement the short scale.
So, whilst having a brief breather from mandolins, I thought that I would make a bridge for a bass guitar which I intend building at some point in the future!
New Model Mandolin: Epilogue
The last word! The Nava New Model mandolin and its happy owner!
Cheers GaryHappiness is………
Had a great day! John and his wife (a delightful couple) came over to pick up his new Nava mandolin.
So, for me, happiness is seeing the delight that a client has with their new mandolin and also, hearing played properly!
And for John, well he is clearly very happy with his new mandolin. I’ve never bothered with customer endorsements but have a read of his wonderful comment on the last YouTube video.
Thank you John!
New Model Mandolin: 8
My "New Model" mandolin (as I'm currently calling it) has now been completed. I'm incredibly happy with the final outcome and looking forward to building the next one! Here is the last video in the series and below that a whole batch of photos for you.
Cheers Gary
New Model Mandolin: 7
Well, this is another long video but so, so much to get through!
The bridge is made and I have brief chat about its design, the strings go on and I show you how I set-up my mandolins. And finally……..the New Model Mandolin gets to sing its first notes!
So, cuppa at the ready and off we go.
Cheers Gary
New Model Mandolin: 6
Time now to shape the neck!
Also, I have a brief chat about the tools needed for this process. After running through the shaping process, I start the clean-up in preparation for setting-up the mandolin, “in the white.”
Cheers Gary
New Model Mandolin: 5
In this episode, I design and make a new jig for routing the neck joint. Then: fit the neck, the fretboard’s supporting wedge, and the fretboard itself. Quite a lot there to take in!
I skim over the fretting process as I’ve demoed this many times before, but if you’re interested in how I fret, have a look at thisvideo-
Although I fret my short scale bass, the actual process is the same, just the scale is different!
Cheers Gary