I've been tinkering with another unholy marriage of mandolin and dulcimer for the last couple of weeks.
I used a cheap F style mandolin. Sawed the neck off where it meets the body.
Lost some of the finish due to my fingerboard extension being shorter, so I stripped the top.
Hadn't planned on that but this project has been a bunch of wrong turns and dead ends since I started.
I had previously made a neck with a carved scroll headstock, but plans change.
I went with a very simple art decoish implied scroll with a hollow center instead and mocked it up.
Didn't get any pics of the neck joint, but it took a few joints to get the angles right.
Tossed some binding on the neck to make thing more spiffy looking and fretted it.
Refinished the top with the the most orange looking stain I could find.
Not even close but it's all I could get. Shot a little black burst around the top edge and cleared it.
Then I glued it all up and started making all the little parts that I needed. Bridge base & saddle, nut, pickguard, pickup spacer, etc...
Wired it all up with a P bass pickup scrounged from eSGEe.
Used 500k Schatten under pickguard concealed thumbwheels for volume & tone pots.
Touched up the black at the neck joint and put it all together.
And that's it.
Tuned Dd Aa DD, one pair of strings in unison, two pairs in octaves.
Diatonic fret spacing. Adjustable bone saddle, bone nut, open gear Grover tuners, and a string ground to the tailpiece.
Everything works and after the usual tweaking and massaging, it plays great.
I used a cheap F style mandolin. Sawed the neck off where it meets the body.
Lost some of the finish due to my fingerboard extension being shorter, so I stripped the top.
Hadn't planned on that but this project has been a bunch of wrong turns and dead ends since I started.
I had previously made a neck with a carved scroll headstock, but plans change.
I went with a very simple art decoish implied scroll with a hollow center instead and mocked it up.
Didn't get any pics of the neck joint, but it took a few joints to get the angles right.
Tossed some binding on the neck to make thing more spiffy looking and fretted it.
Refinished the top with the the most orange looking stain I could find.
Not even close but it's all I could get. Shot a little black burst around the top edge and cleared it.
Then I glued it all up and started making all the little parts that I needed. Bridge base & saddle, nut, pickguard, pickup spacer, etc...
Wired it all up with a P bass pickup scrounged from eSGEe.
Used 500k Schatten under pickguard concealed thumbwheels for volume & tone pots.
Touched up the black at the neck joint and put it all together.
And that's it.
Tuned Dd Aa DD, one pair of strings in unison, two pairs in octaves.
Diatonic fret spacing. Adjustable bone saddle, bone nut, open gear Grover tuners, and a string ground to the tailpiece.
Everything works and after the usual tweaking and massaging, it plays great.
Wow. Thats a beauty. Better change your name to master Luthier.
)
