Four Part Harmony

As I mentioned a while back, we’re starting to get into fall/winter rainy season project mode here at the old homestead. Nicki’s been doing quite a bit of sewing, felting, quilting, all kinds of stuff…I think she has at least five projects going right now (maybe more). Anna’s mostly into…tape. Stickers too, but mostly scotch tape. She’s really been breaking some new ground in it as a medium…sometimes she sticks to the paper/tape/marker combination, but sometimes it’s more of a sculptural or performance piece…nothing in any of the local galleries yet, I think she’s shopping around.

I’ve got my shop all cleaned up and have started work on two projects.

The first is a 3/4 size guitar, modeled after a small bodied guitar that Martin makes (or made) called a Style 5. I think it’s also called a “Terz” guitar (some info here). Basically it’s got a smaller body, and a shorter scale, so it’s tuned a third up from a standard guitar. It’s intended to be a guitar for Anna, and she seems pretty excited about it so far.

I’ve joined and thicknessed the top (sitka spruce) and back (Honduras mahogany) plates so far.

Thicknessing with the top with a hand plane. I think the top started at about 0.150 inches thick and I took it down to about .100. This process generated an astonishingly large pile of spruce shavings (this is about 1/4 of the total). I think my hand planing technique is still pretty marginal, but I’m definitely improving.

I’ve cut a few of the templates I’ll need. I started cutting pieces for the body mold, but ran out of plywood and haven’t had a chance to pick any more up. This’ll be pretty much how the body shape looks though. It’s an interesting profile. At first I didn’t totally care for it, but it’s grown on me.

In the coming weeks/months I’ll be working on finishing the body mold, thicknessing and bending the sides, figuring out what type of rosette to use on the top and getting that inlayed as time permits.

I’d probably be making better progress had I not started a second project a few weeks ago. I decided to try my hand at building one of the more challenging stringed instruments…an F-5 mandolin, hopefully one something like this one here, or maybe this one. The F-5 mandolin is a real thing of beauty, both acoustically and aesthetically, especially those built in the early years by Lloyd Loar. They are spoken of in hushed tones among the old bluegrass set…Bill Monroe played and recorded with one, and the sound of that mandolin defined much of what became the sound of bluegrass. I’ve always had a somewhat irrational fondness for the F-5, and so I pretty much knew that I’d have to try and build one. It’ll be a bit different from the guitar (aside from the obvious differences). It’s got a carved top and back for one thing, so I’ll get to do quite a bit of carving.

Here’s about all the wood I should need. Some big-leaf maple for the back and sides, Adirondack spruce for the top, some more big leaf maple for the neck, and some ebony for the fretboard and peghead. Aside from the hardware, fretwire, nut. strings, etc, this should be just about all that I need.

I’ve started making some templates in hardboard. This is the headstock. All that scroll work is going to be a pain…still, it’s just so pretty…worth it I think.

Here’s the neck template on the neck blank. Nice flamed maple.

Roughed the neck out on the bandsaw.

Started planing the back plates prior to joining. This took a lot of work and trial and error (I’m still not very good at planing). I’ve now joined the top and back. I feel pretty confident about the joints, but that is definitely a skill I need to perfect, it’s so critical to the stability and function of the instrument.

Still working on templates. I’ve got a lot of template work to do, and I need to build a mold similar to the one I’mmaking for Anna’s guitar. Got to get some plywood first though.

Progress on both projects has been very slow, and that’s just fine. In general, when I have had a chunk of time to work on the guitar, things have gone a lot faster because I already kind of have a workflow, and understand somewhat what I need to do…not so much with the mandolin however. Still, it’s all for fun.
I plan on trying to continue posting photo updates along the way, so stay tuned.