Another bizarre instrument emerges from my creative side.
I bought a trashed but complete mandolin with a broken neck on FleaBay for $10.50.
Then proceeded to strip it down to the shell.
The broken neck got sawed off at the neck block and the neck block got hollowed out at the same time.
I then made a new thru the body neck out of red oak, with diatonic fretting using medium frets on a 24" scale length.
White binding, bullseye side marker dots and a bone nut round out the package.
The new neck attaches thru the hollowed out neck block and at the tailblock.
The mandolin tuning machines were salvaged and cut down from 4 per side to 3 per side & fitted to the headstock.
I made a floating walnut piezo bridge with a compensated bone saddle to amplify things with a single 250k volume pot and 1/4" output jack.
It looked naked without a pickguard so I made one from 3 ply tortoise material with a beveled outside edge to set it off.
The mandolin tailpiece was salvaged and worked perfectly as is.
Tuning is D A D with octave tuned strings on 2 of the pairs and unison tuned strings on the other pair.
Then it was strung with .010 & .032 for the octave D, .008 & .014 for the octave A, and finally a pair of .010's for the high D.
It plays great with nice low action and acoustically is LOUD!
I'd say it was a success.
Now for the obligatory pictures of the beast...
Kind of looks more like a Greek bozouki than anything else, but has a sound all it's own.
I bought a trashed but complete mandolin with a broken neck on FleaBay for $10.50.
Then proceeded to strip it down to the shell.
The broken neck got sawed off at the neck block and the neck block got hollowed out at the same time.
I then made a new thru the body neck out of red oak, with diatonic fretting using medium frets on a 24" scale length.
White binding, bullseye side marker dots and a bone nut round out the package.
The new neck attaches thru the hollowed out neck block and at the tailblock.
The mandolin tuning machines were salvaged and cut down from 4 per side to 3 per side & fitted to the headstock.
I made a floating walnut piezo bridge with a compensated bone saddle to amplify things with a single 250k volume pot and 1/4" output jack.
It looked naked without a pickguard so I made one from 3 ply tortoise material with a beveled outside edge to set it off.
The mandolin tailpiece was salvaged and worked perfectly as is.
Tuning is D A D with octave tuned strings on 2 of the pairs and unison tuned strings on the other pair.
Then it was strung with .010 & .032 for the octave D, .008 & .014 for the octave A, and finally a pair of .010's for the high D.
It plays great with nice low action and acoustically is LOUD!
I'd say it was a success.
Now for the obligatory pictures of the beast...
Kind of looks more like a Greek bozouki than anything else, but has a sound all it's own.
