Me, Colin, and the mandolin                                  photo: Janet Fellows

After several years concentrating on guitars and building no mandolin family instruments, we are now building them again.

Colin has now built three mandolin family instruments to my exact design; this is the third.  He has his own workshop a few miles from me, but spends one day a week with me showing his progress and checking with me it’s exactly how I build.
I provide the carved soundboard (and back where this is carved) along with the other materials, and we look together at the build at every stage to ensure these are exactly as I build them.

Not only do I appreciate Colin’s skill, I am also really happy with his down to earth no nonsense attitude.  This third collaboration mandolin looks wonderful and has all of my trademark sound; full details and more photos on my ‘Available now’ page.

A 10 string cittern and 8 string maple bodied mandola are also well under way.

The tail block links the side at the tail and provides a gluing surface for the soundboard and back. Invisible and not an exciting part of a guitar, as with most components it is vital to the structure.

A couple of years ago I had an instrument returned that had clearly been kept in very wet conditions.  The fingerboard had swollen so the fret ends were not visible, the centre join down the back was sunken, and the soundboard was rippled.  A friend suggested it had been kept in a sewer.

But the worst damage was at the tail. I build tail blocks from German spruce, laminated to avoid splitting when stressed, and at the time these laminations were at right angles to one another.  But the extreme damp had caused the horizontal grain piece to expand, which pushed the top and bottom bindings away from the sides, leaving unsightly gaps all around the centre tail strip.

While guitars should never be allowed to get so damp, since then I have laminated tail blocks so the grain is not quite vertical and alternate pieces slant different ways, as in the photo left.  While extreme wet could still allow expansion to take place sideways, this is less damaging than vertical expansion.

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The photos left show the finished tail block, the sides gluing to it and the tail block in place.

Photos below show  the body ready to receive bindings with the centre tail strip in place, and the tail with the Santos rosewood binding in place and mitred into the tail strip.

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The build is now complete.  Next the guitar goes to Dave Wilson and the spraybooth; this will not be until be some time in the new year, so it will be a couple of months or more before I get it back.

When it comes back, I glue on the bridge, check, level and profile the frets, make and fit the bone nut and saddles, fit gold Gotoh 510 tuners (the best) and finally fit the strings.

Even then it isn’t finished.  I adjust the nut grooves, fit the strings and bring them up to tension, check the neck relief and set the string action.

Then I like to let it stand a few weeks while the guitar settles in and I can check the string action again.  By now it will have started to open up, though it will be months or even years before it reaches its peak and we can hear how it really sounds.

The impatient young man who started building nearly fifty years ago has had to learn patience.

Old Brazilian rosewood, aged German spruce and aged ebony are lovely to work with.  It sounds like a cliché, but it really is a privilege to work with such special woods.

Making the Bridge

My bridge is always ebony.  I am currently using ebony from a board I bought from Craft Supplies in Derbyshire.  Goodness knows how long ago Craft Supplies ceased trading, but however long that is, I’ve had this ebony longer.  It is beautiful; straight grained, very black (although I personally don’t mind some lighter figure), and even and creamy to work.

Because the bridge is to be fitted to a curved soundboard, it must be curved to fit.  As the soundboard curve can vary slightly from guitar to guitar, the bottom of the bridge has been shaped to fit this MS soundboard.

Only the outer two holes go right through the bridge; these are used to locate the bridge when gluing.  The middle four are blind so that  they don’t fill with glue during gluing.

Fitting the neck

Now I’m getting to the stage where it all starts looking like a guitar.  I’ve built up the neck and head, shaped the heel (and stamped serial numbers on the inside) so it’s ready to fit.

First I have to cut the body to give access to the neck.  Below the body is ready to receive the neck, the neck ready to go into it, and the wedges I drive in to hold it very securely in place are lying alongside.  The red strap will be tightened to hold the neck in place while I apply glue to the whole assembly and drive in the wedges.

Routing for binding and trim

Binding is a complex operation.  I use a StewMac routing system, whereby the guitar body is fixed to a carriage which allows me to move it around against a stationary router.  This can move up and down to allow for the rise and fall caused by the curved back and front.  Photos right show the stepped ledges for the binding and trim of both back and front.  The different depth ledges are achieved by fitting different size bearings the body is pushed against.

Fitting tail trim

The sides are joined to the tailblock leaving a space for the trim.  While routing, this space is occupied by a piece of scrap wood of the correct width. Photos right show the sequence.

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Binding

With the tail trim in place, I can bind back and front, photos above show the result.  This after several more operations.

When first fitted, the binding needs trimming level with back and sides, and at the same time I scrape off the shellac lacquer.  Then the binding must be sealed to ensure all gaps, however invisible, are filled, and then scraped back again.

The trim on this guitar is not my standard MS trim, but is black Rocklite binding with arrow-head and red pinstripe top trim and my favourite red/gold/green purfling around back and sides.

Finally back, front and sides are sanded smooth.  The body is now ready for its neck.

Joining back, sides and soundboard

Now the back and soundboard are ready, it’s time to join them to the sides.  First I scribe and shape the sides to accept the curve of the back, then the previously shaped one piece spruce lining is glued in place and sanded smooth.  I cut notches  cut in the lined sides to accept the braces, and glue the back on.

Then I shape the sides  to accept the top, fit the top lining and apply a light coat of lacquer to the inside of the body. Then I fit the soundboard.

The last process before binding is to apply a coat of shellac lacquer to the back and sides.  This serves two functions; it prevents grain being pulled from the rosewood when the binding tape is removed, and also fills the grain to some extent.

Preparing lining and bending sides

Shown right is my old Fox bender, still heated by filament light bulbs instead of the electric blankets more commonly used these days.

I don’t often use the Fox bender for sides these days, I get better results hand bending (on an electrically heated bending iron), then fitting them in the mould and putting this on the stove overnight, as shown below. But because the mould was in use, on this occasion I used the Fox for the linings (mine are solid spruce) though these were also finished on the stove.

When hand bending sides, I prefer to damp the wood first, but Brazilian rosewood varies so much this isn’t always sufficient. I had to soak these sides overnight before I could bend them on the heated hand bender.

Linings are so thick they require several days soaking before being bent to shape.

After hand bending, wetting the sides and leaving them in gentle overnight heat fixes the shape

When I’m happy the sides are perfectly shaped, I trim neck and heel joins and glue them onto blocks (shown right); laminated spruce for the tail block, solid mahogany for the heel block. At the tail I leave a space for the centre inlay of black and colours to fit into after routing the binding grooves.

Now the sides are ready to be scribed to the curve of the back and have the back linings fitted.