MIMF

Here's a mandolin with a 10 piece top, made from the yellow pine in the window frames in my son's old house. 1 year old now and doing fine. Also, a tenor, 12 in. lower bout, just finished that I can't put down. Both X braced.

Len, this one has been tuned both as an octave mandolin and as a guitar, using the middle 4 strings of a guitar set to get good tension. I prefer it that way.

Other than whatever the effect is of the heavier gauge strings required for proper tension, what is the effect on tone of scale length?

Thank you. It's a slightly domed x brace.

Thank you. Yes, and plain old Home Depot pine on top.

I forgot to mention that it's tuned as a guitar, 1 - 4, although it could just as well be as an octave mandolin or a tenor banjo.

I have a question for musicians. I'm not one, really. I love to build but play just well enough to judge sound and playability. My question is this: I just finished a little tenor that I love to death. I love the sound and feel. It's happy with either steel or nylon strings. It's scale length is jus...

That's going to be really gorgeous in a few months, as that Hedge ages to it's dark copper/orange color.

Exactly. That's what makes the whole thing fun for me; try something different and see what happens.

I've made 3 all hardwood guitars over the last few months. All of them Walnut back and sides, one spalted Maple top, one Lacewood and one walnut. All are very bright; a hint of metal body tone and just a hint of spanish guitar. Of the three, the all walnut one is much the warmer sound. Love them all...

Unfortunately, Hans, only this one. With the first 3, I posted so many on my Facebook page that when I came to this one, I deemed that I had saturated the market, so to speak, and gave them a break. I don't use forms, just the pipe for bending. It's a standard X brace design inside, with a 1/8"...

On the 4th build, I finally got exactly the guitar I wanted. It's small: 12.5 W, 18 L. Made of Walnut with a spalted Maple top. Very bright sound with just a hint of metal body sound. Love it to death. Shown here with it's matched twin mandolin. I had just that much of the Maple to repurpose from a ...

Acoustic, so no hardware. Don't think it's a place where contrasting inlay makes much sense, but I'll think more about that.

I'm recycling an old piece of wood for a guitar top (lightly spalted Maple). From it's previous incarnation, there are 4 little (less than 1/8 inch) screw holes that there was no acceptable way to exclude. Who has the best method for patching them?

Thanks very much, I think about 1/8 of arch sounds sufficient. I'm not married to hardwood braces and I think the Spruce is good advise to take. I imagine the small hole is a contributor, and the first time it needs strings, I may enlarge it some and see. The hole(s) on the next one, btw, as per the...

BTW, I don't feel that I have been treated disrespectfully. I'm just in a crowd here, as you pointed out, most of which is used to thinking in certain ways. That's ok, I can work around that.

It's not necessarily a sound that I'm going for, but it's a sound that I'm happy to hear now and then. The point of the exercise, for me, is serendipity. I want some consistency in things like playability and construction durability. Otherwise, I want to be surprised. I knew this one was probably go...

I appreciate the work of those creating fine Armani suits, as it were, but what I'm going for is more of an old jean jacket feel. This one, for instance I took to the local rock haven music store for a far better musician than I to play. His reaction was "This is a blues guitar man!", and ...

Point taken on the wood for braces. As for the rest, I view this activity as play, not an exact science in much of anything else than structure and fret placement, so I may not be very well suited to this forum. Thanks all, for your time.

I'm unable to make myself clear, apparently. The part of the interior brace in the guitar above which contacts the top won't be there in the next one. With regard to the top, it will be conventional bracing. I understand the fuzziness of the question, but I'm not looking for an exact answer. The top...