Martin with prototype Steinbeck S prior to pickup installation

Martin playing my latest Steinbeck model, Ben looking unimpressed

In the evening Martin played four recent guitars, and we picked one, the Steinbeck, to develop a combined Macyntire Feather / Highlander pickup system.

New World model , figured German spruce and African Blackwood.

Malaysian Blackwood Steinbeck model, figured Sitka spruce and Malaysian Blackwood.

D guitar (on Model 2 body), figured Sitka spruce and Malaysian Blackwood.

Michael Andersen sent this photo of his damaged mandolin.  He pointed out it’s the second time, the first time was for similar damage on the other side.

The repair was not unlike the repair I made to Eamon Doorley’s guitar-bouzouki (News, 18 February 2016), though less complicated.  It needed just one very small patch, as shown below below.

When I suggested he should try not to damage this mandolin further, he assured me that next time he went for beer, the mandolin would be in its case.  Problem solved.

Yesterday Stuart Murray and his wife Jill came to collect Stuart’s mandolin.  Before even looking at it, he took sheets from an envelope to show me.  They were the brochure sheets I’d sent him in 1986, including the price list.  Which showed the price of a small bodied mandolin with spruce top to be £472 including VAT.  It had taken Stuart only 30 years to make up his mind.

By which time prices were a little higher.

Here are some of the brochure sheets.

Here are Stuart, Stuart with mandolin maker, and detail of brochure sheet showing mandolin maker 31 plus years ago.

Neck fitted and ready for truss rod and fingerboard.

My next Steinbeck is well under way, the back, sides and soundboard built and assembled.  Today I bound the body, and after trimming the binding I’ll be fitting the neck.

The top is Bearclaw Sitka, the back and sides are Malaysian Blackwood from Steve Keys’ Keystone site.

Binding ready to be scraped smooth. Note the soundboard bearclaw figuring.

Guitar headstocks are relatively easily cracked.  This Model 3 (16 fret to the body) guitar belongs to Hajime Takahashi.  He was in Limerick for a rehearsal, went to a restaurant in town, one of the staff offered to keep the instrument for him but knocked it and, as he put it, the head got smashed.

It was the most common damage, just where the head joins the neck.  The head wasn’t right off, but was cracked most of the way through.

Gluing and clamping the crack closed was not difficult.  At this point it would have been possible to sand the area clean and re-finish; glued cracks like this can be very unobtrusive.  But they are also vulnerable to cracking again, usually not in exactly the same place, but a couple of millimetres away from the previous crack.

So having glued the crack, I did more.  I shaved four millimetres from the back of the headstock, and tapered this to nothing about a third of the way up the neck. Then I bent a piece of four millimetre thick mahogany (matching this as closely as possible to the original wood) so that it had the correct bend to match the angle of the head to the neck.

I glued this to the neck, clamping hard, and left it overnight to dry.  Next day I was able to shape the added wood to match the original neck.

Here the new wood is glued, is shaped to the original neck profile, and the tuner holes drilled through it. The join can be seen best where the new wood feathers into the original wood on the right of the picture.

The layer of new wood is clearly visible from the side, mainly because of the different grain direction.

So now there is a layer of solid wood three to four millimetres thick covering the repaired crack, with continuous grain along its length.  This gives the repair great strength.

Next the guitar goes to Dave Wilson who will re-lacquer the neck.

Thank you to all who enquired as to the condition of my damaged finger.  Amazing how fast news travels. Happy to report said finger is now fully healed.

Back and sides joined and top lining clamped and gluing

Sides bent to shape and glued to neck and tail blocks

Back and sides and soundboard