After far too long, I am finally building large bodied citterns and octave mandolins again. Here is Darrell Scott playing his octave mandolin at his Blackfriars gig in Glasgow, a few minutes after taking delivery. Quite astonishing to me that he could take an unfamilar instrument from its case and accompany one of his own songs without a second’s rehearsal or sound-check. And make it sound not just good but also effortless.

Blackfriars in Glasgow is a tiny subterranean venue where you stand to see and hear the act. Tricky to get a picture of Darrell as the stage isn’t raised and there were five rows of tall men standing shoulder to shoulder in front of me. But Glaswegians are friendly and did their best to lean out of the way.

I’m now working on small and large mandolins and plan to be producing them soon. After them will come small bodied citterns.

Yesterday Darrell Scott took delivery of his Martin Simpson model guitar. Darrell is currently in Britain as a multi-instrumentalist member of Robert Plant’s ‘Band of Joy’ which tours the UK in October.

This guitar has African Blackwood back and sides, a German spruce soundboard, ebony fingerboard and bridge, a Wenge neck and a fitted Highlander pickup.

Here is the guitar in yesterday’s item with binding taped in place. The ebony binding on this MS model is shaped to the guitar before being fitted, but even so can resist being pulled into place. Hence the need for so much tape. Maple binding is more co-operative, and plastic binding is easier still to fit.

Because I don’t shellac the soundboard before taping the binding in place I’ll remove the tape carefully using a solvent to soften the adhesive.

When the tape is removed the binding stands proud and has excess glue around it. Next I’ll scrape and sand it flush with the body before scraping and sanding the back and sides. The shellac coating will help me see areas sanded and areas still requiring sanding.

The soundboard will be sanded smooth at a later stage.

I now fit solid linings to all instruments. These are neater and more rigid than kerfed linings, though fitting them takes a little longer.

Linings are the strips running round top and bottom of the sides which give a greater gluing area when gluing on the soundboard and back.

I clamp these linings in place with strong steel spring clamps before sanding smooth. I then notch them to receive soundboard and back braces.

Before fitting the binding I coat the back and sides (though not soundboard) of the body with shellac lacquer. So when I tape the binding in place (while the glue dries), I can later remove the tape without it pulling out fragments of wood. I use a solvent to soften the tape adhesive when removing it from the soundboard.

The lacquer also shows where I have and have not sanded during later sanding, and acts as a partial grain-filler before final lacquering.

Museum piece…

…playing early octave mandolin

Billy Mol bought his octave mandolin from me in 1978. It’s unbound with simple violin type purfling around the sound-board and has a steel re-inforced neck instead of an adjustable truss-rod – hence the lack of a truss-rod cover.

It’s in outstanding condition, sounds lovely, and the neck has stayed absolutely straight. Billy brought me the cittern and his 1982 mandolin to have Highlander pickups fitted.

I like to see such early instruments doing well.

Yesterday I got together with guitarists Martin Simpson and Michael Watts to show them two new guitars. One was a shallow bodied MS model with African Blackwood back and sides and a Wenge neck. The other was a Cuban mahogany bodied NW model, also with a Wenge neck. I took along a standard MS for comparison.

Here they are, Michael with the New World and Martin with the two MS models.

Martin admiring nude female inlay on guitar headstock. Only joking.

I’m now back from a few weeks in Australia. While away I picked up and answered some emails but wasn’t able to receive them all. And I came home to a very unco-operative computer which wouldn’t connect to the internet or email system.

While I’m now back on line (thanks to Jason) I believe I’ll have missed at least some messages. If you’e tried to email me but had your message bounced back, or if you’ve sent an email I haven’t replied to, please try again.

At Melbourne airport with Liz, saying goodbye to son, new grandson and daughter-in-law (behind camera).

The Rowan berries were right. This has been a long hard winter, snow and low temperatures from mid December. And it’s been snowing again today.

Tim Jones visited me a couple of weeks ago, bringing the mandolin he bought from my ‘available now’ web page. It’s very early, around 1976, and in remarkable condition. Tim brought it for me to check and see if it required work, but it was perfect in every way. It hadn’t been played much but I think it will be from now on.

Here is Tim with his mandolin.