13/04/05

Whilst waiting for the lacquer on my Simo’s neck to cure, I got a mad hair to build a guitar box mandolin. It’s a mandolin neck & bridge, attached to a cigar box body, and apparently makes for a pretty listenable instrument. We’ll see… it’ll be me playing it after all

The main motivation was a way of using up all those funny shaped bits of wood left over when you cut out a guitar body. They’re far to good to throw out, but what to do with them? Here’s one next to my cigar box body:

The odd shaped piece can be neatly ripped into strips on the bandsaw; one for the neck shaft & one to be scarfed on as a headstock.

I rip these blanks down the centre, and laminate them up with contrasting veneers of maple and dyed sycamore.

Once they’re dried, I plane off the excess glue and level them up. I’m a sucker for the stripey shavings…

A bit of work with the bandsaw, belt sander and plane, and I have the scarf cut, glued, and clamped up to dry.