guitar shaped flat top mandolin

[Bryan Bear]

A while back I got some advice here about a fixed bridge mandolin. Thanks all! I am mostly finished with it now and figured I show a few pictures (and that I need a better camera and photography lessons).

This is made from mostly scrounged/free woods.
Engleman spruce top (Clay Schaffer sent me some veneers and used a cut up sound board to protect them that was just big enough for this project)
Spruce bracing
Curly maple back, sides and neck (rescued from the Home Depot stack)
Jatoba for just about everything else
Osage orange nut
French polish though I haven't buffed it up yet

I'm still playing around with saddle material, currently it has a hardwood saddle with a thin bone cap. I intend to try different woods to see what effect they may have.

[Bob Francis]

That looks great!

[Bryan Bear]

Here are a few shots of the bridge with an all jatoba saddle. The strings attach to some small stainless steel pins I had in the shop. I relieved the heads on the sides that face their partners to allow the strings to go on and off more easily.

Even with the glued bridge, I was able to get sufficient break angle and string height over the top. The saddle is 1/4 inch but could have been a bit thinner and still allowed for intonation. I erred on the side of caution and went with a foot print that was fairly large; I was worried that I would need the extra glue surface area. Now that it is all together, I feel I could have gotten away with a smaller footprint (but that would have been purely for aesthetics).

The bracing is nothing fancy, just shy of 1/4 inch (6mm) thick and 1/2 tall at the x and tapered down. The bridge plate is very thin African mahogany that happened to be handy. I put in two little cross grain patches to protect the curly-cue sound hole form breaking off.

[Bryan Bear]

I had a chance to meet up with a friend of a friend who plays the mandolin and shoot a few short videos. Unfortunately, I had decided to play around with the saddle arrangement the other day. It currently has a wood saddle with a bone cap and I haven't gotten the intonation perfect yet. Even worse, both e strings and one of the g strings buzz at the saddle slot. I hadn't had a chance to fix it when I met up with him. . .

I'd say all in all, it sounds pretty good for a first mandolin. I figured it would have less volume than a carved top , but the player seemed to think it was just as loud. It seems to ring forever which I was not expecting. I'm still hoping the low end (can you call it bass on a mando) will come up as it breaks in. To my ear, it is treble heavy, but that could be just how mandolins are for all I know. In my opinion, it really shined when he was playing fiddle tunes. Unfortunately I only recorded one of those and I did it audio only. I intended to do a video of construction pictures with the fiddle tune for the sound track. When I got home I realized the mic barely picked anything up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7BXR73dSEU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlUtpeq_AK0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1e24eTphW0

[Bryan Bear]

Thanks Bob, I see you crept in there while I was re-sizing photos <g>

[Jason Rodgers]

I like. Good luck in the Challenge!

[Mario Proulx]

Well done! I haven;t had a chance to listen to the tunes yet, but yeah, mandolins don't have a whole lot of bottom end. A good carved mandolin -can- have a great bottom, but I've not heard it from the flat top versions. Your comment regarding the long sustain rings true for my flat top, too. Methinks that's a function of the guitar-style glued-down bridge, and how it pulls on the top instead of compressing against it.

[Steve Senseney]

Looks good!

[Neal Carey]

Beautiful instrument. I like the shape and enjoyed watching the videos. First mando? Pretty nice all around!

[Clay Schaeffer]

Great looking mandolinetto! I love the design, and it looks beautifully constructed.
Glad you could make use of the "packing" material (it was not a bad top - just a bit stripe-y). Combining it with the HD maple and jatoba gives the opportunity to build a low cost but fine looking (and sounding) instrument. It should provide an inspiration for those who want to try their hand at lutherie without making a major investment.

[Bryan Bear]

Thans guys! And a special thanks to Mario for the help. I had the bracing plan in my head but had some whispers in my ear that made me second guess myself. I knew he had made a simmer animal for one of the challenges so I contacted him. He provided reassurance that my plan was not underbraced. In addition, he offered up some advise about attacking the bridge that certainly saved me some heartache. It really is nice when a pro takes the time to help out a newbie/hobbiest.

Clay, it really was a nice top. I didn't recognize just how nice until I started working with it. When it arrived there were some pink streaks that (uppon working) turned out to be superficial. That was really the only "flaw" I could see. It was plenty stiff and really nicely quartered. The pictures don't really show all the medullary rays all across, but you can see that there is virtually no runout.

To Clay's point, this whole project was super cheap and allowed me to experiment with several ideas or things that were new to me. My skill and experience can't offer as much to the forum as many folks here, but this project does demonstrate that people can make instruments with little investment in materials and add skills as they go.

[Darrel Friesen]

That looks great Bryan. Sounds good too.

[David Gerard]

Bryan, I think you may have solved a major headache for me. I built this mando out of scrap and reject materials for my daughter and I employed an arch top neck angle and bridge. Not long after i strung it up I noticed the string tension starting to collapse the top. I wondered how a glued on bridge would do instead. I see you have done it!! Your instrument is gorgeous and I love it's shape! I was hoping for a bouzouki sound with bass and sustain, which I achieved, I was wondering how yours sounded.
I am inspired since to try your way, this instrument suffered a crack in the top do to a friend dropping it and I havent addressed the repairing or correcting in 4 years.
thanks!

[David Gerard]

I looked back in the thread now and followed the links. Sounds great!, it chops better than I would have thought too based on what mine does. Once again, very nice! thanks for sharing.

[Bryan Bear]

David, Nice looking mando! I’m not too sure this will be an option for you at this point, but I’ll offer some points to consider. When I was designing this, I had to determine a fretboard thickness that would work with my planned upper bout dome angle (which dictates the neck angle) to give me the desired height over the soundboard, acceptable saddle height and allow for adequate break angle behind the saddle. I didn’t want to change the neck angle so the other measurements were my variables and I was able to shift them around until all were in the range I wanted. Mario gave me some timely advice to make sure I had strings on hand to design in enough space for the windings behind the saddle.

If your bracing is deforming under the downward pressure of a floating bridge and tailpiece design, I would be very worried about the torque applied by a glued bridge. How is your top braced?

I doubt that your current neck angle will be in the range it would need to be. A neck angle as high as yours probably is would require a tall saddle (raising the strings high above the soundboard) that is going to really increase the torque applied.

If by fixing the top you mean you intend to retop it, then you may be able to brace accordingly (but likely still want to change your neck angle). If you do a bridge similar to mine, I have some things I would have done differently. Taking the loop ends off is a bit tricky without dinging the top behind the bridge. If I do this again I will either 1) shift everything forward a bit (bringing the saddle closer to the front of the bridge) and use some of that extra footprint to keep some wood behind the pins or 2) make the bridge blank thicker (taller), move the pins inside the bridge foot print and do more carving to reduce the weight.

[David Gerard]

Hi Bryan, thanks for the reply. So this instrument is braced very similar to yours in that it was braced like a guitar with maybe 2 lower tone bars(couldn't find the pics from way back). The bridge sets directly over a maple plate much like on a guitar. I'll tell you, it was made on the fly as just a camp fire/out door instrument, it just got fancy as it progressed. I just couldnt say no to my little girl at the time as she requested more art on it. In fact she designed the sound hole as a charm bracelet...I dont think I want to remove the top...ever LOL!
The bridge/saddle is not that much higher than yours is by comparison and what if I extend the lower part of the bridge with some sort of design feature? I may have the lift up torque problem under control maybe with out sacrificing too much sound quality? I do see your point though with the neck angle.
thanks again for taking the time to look at this. I sure dont mean to highjack your thread.
Dave

[Bryan Bear]

I completely understand, don't get rid of that top! I just measured, my strings are 3/8" above the soundboard. I was aiming for 1/2 or a little less. Can your neck angle get you in the half inch range? You will definately want to make sure you can get the bridge wings over the X legs. If you can't remember where they are, I have had luck mathing up two reare earch magnets (one on the inside and one on the outside) and moving the top one around to allow me to feel and mark the brace locations on the top (cover with masking tape first).

One thing I had to work out was how to set the compensation for each string. If your's intonates well, take careful measurements of the lenght of each course before you take the strings off <g>

[Patrick Hanna]

Hi, Bryan,
I've followed this build over on OLF and was happy to see it here, too. I don't remember whether I chimed in while the instrument was in process. I just want to tell you that I think you've built a VERY cool little instrument! I liked it as it was coming together, and I like it now, too. You've done very well, in my opinion. So.....what's next for you? I'll be watching!
Patrick

[Bryan Bear]

Thanks Patrick! This was a great experience for me because I actually finished in time. I entered one of the challenges here a while back and didn't come close to finishing in time. I may be in 12th place out of 12 in the voting, but I have already won. You may have read in my build thread that this was kind of a scale model/ prototype of an idea I had to make an OM sized double cutaway inspired by the mandolin shape. I was afraid it would look silly In three dimensions. Now that I have made a mando version (and identified the unanticipated problems with the construction) I think I will probably make a full sized version some day in the same woods. I'm torn between a 12 string (since this is 2/3 the size 8 to 12 strings is fitting) or a 21 inch scale octave mando that would have exactly the same neck to body proportions. Bit to answer your question, next is an all sycamore tenor ukulele for my 5 year old. I'm going to try to make it 100% from trees that grew in St. Louis. I have another baby comming in February so I don't expect a ton of productivity in 2013.

[Patrick Hanna]

A sycamore tenor uke ought to be a really neat little instrument. Do build it and let us see it whenever you get it finished. Congrats on the new addition to your family! Yes, some sleepless nights in your near future, but you'll find some time to build instruments.
Patrick