Back to work

It's been a long time since my last posting, indicative of the severe lack of time during the past 6 months. Restored sanity in my (work) life is allowing me to resume work on my mandolin.

It feels great!!

3D Sander

Someone on mandolincafe alerted us to a sale on the 3D sander at Sears. I'd been looking at it for some time as it seemed useful for sanding curved surfaces, but have not pulled the trigger. But at $8.99 (instead of $30) how can I go wrong? This is not a high-power sander, but it does have the unique advantage of having three independently-adjusting "heads", kind of like an electric shaver. The floating heads have Velcro on them and you can get small circular sandpaper rings at various grit levels. In addition, you can pull off one or two of the heads and use a single head for getting into tighter places. I think it can be useful for the top and bottom of the mandolin and getting into places like the recurve area.

Top Binding

The top binding has been a struggle. I ended up ripping off the second half of the top binding because it had pulled away in the tight curved area near the neck. My efforts to soften the binding material with hot water (in a pan) were only partly successful. It took a while to clean up the binding channel and prepare it for a second attempt. I knew that hot water was good enough to pre-bend the plastic material but the flat pan that I used cooled off too fast. This time around I poured boiling water into a tall and narrow flower vase and it did the trick! I could dip the binding in the water and watch it "relax" after about 5-10 seconds. It was easy to pull it out and quickly mould it to the mandolin. I wanted to achieve a close fit so that the binding would not spring back when glued.

The second thing that I did differently was glue the binding about 3-4 inches at a time. I was worried about how I would be able to get the glue in to the narrow area where the already-cured and the new parts of the binding met, but decided to try it anyway. It worked much better than I had expected, allowing me to pay close attention to each part with no rushing. A GOOD thing.

The picture shows the first, completed, binding piece on the left. It's been scraped down flush with the top. On the right side is the new binding, with the "bandages" removed. It's ticking up from the top but that's ok. It will end up flush just like the other one.

New Veneer

I had ordered two quality face plates to replace the paper-thin one that came already-installed on the peg head. I took a while to decide between the rosewood and the ebony but I decided to go with the ebony plate for this mandolin. Preparing to glue the plate on the headstock, I cut out a notch to reveal the access channel to the truss rod. This was easy to cut with a small dovetail saw. A firm blow on a 1/4" chisel left a clean opening, which you can see in the photo. hey - I had to find a use to the wooden mallet I had bought. Very satisfying :) It's not important to have the cut looking perfect since it will be hidden by the truss-rod cover.

I also decided not to use the plastic nut that came with the kit. For a very small price, I got a nice bone blank and will be able to custom fit it in. I used the blank to space the ebony plate away from the fingerboard, and glued on the plate. Trying to clamp the plate on, I found it fishing around too much. Next time I will consider installing two small wooden locating pins to help with the position. As you can see from the photo, one can never have too many clamps. I used as many clamps as I could to ensure a solid fit. Once it dries, I will have to cut out the tuning peg holes. They are already drilled in the headstock but not in the face plate. Any additional shaping of the headstock will be done at one shot, including the face plate to ensure a nice finish.