My friend Pete played on my mandola, and within 10 minutes was asking how much it would cost him to get me to build one for him. He had one, but didn't like it much, and liked mine more. So I built him essentially the same instrument, but with koa bindings and the Fleur-de-lis on the headstock is reversed from mine. It's a slightly longer instrument, too, as I had since found out that I made mine too short. This one is a 17" scale length, which is standard, as is #5. He tells me that he still plays it every chance he gets, which makes me very pleased.
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This is the next instrument, #5. It's also a walnut body, spruce top, and this one has a mahogany neck and cocobolo fingerboard. The peghead inlay is a thistle, something I'm considering doing more, just with purple shell instead of purpleheart. The contrast between the wood and the shell is a bit dramatic, and as I have found a source for purple shell, I think it will happen fairly soon. The thistle idea is due to my Scottish heritage. I'd like to keep some of that alive in my own minimal way. The pickguard is made of zebrawood, and one of the more beautiful examples of it that I've ever seen. There will be a few instruments made of this wood, too. I can't wait. Also, check out the wave binding. I've never seen anyone else do this, but it's a technique in marquetry, so I thought why not? I like how it shows up in the top of the binding as a spot where the wave goes through. I think I will have to make more use of this. It's different.
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Mandolin
This is the cocobolo mando. The body, fretboard, and peghead veneer are all off of the same piece of cocobolo, and if you look closely at the back, you can find at least 4 different faces in it. While working on this instrument, I developed a bit of a sensitivity to cocobolo. This is one of the woods that really made me want to work in wood, again, and it is a real annoyance that I break out, itch like crazy, and shed a layer of skin for about 4 or 5 days every time I work in it anymore. I'm not looking forward to the final sanding... This one also has a few square brass inlays in the fingerboard. I will get some newer pics up soon, as these are old, and it's much further along than this now.
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Tapping Guitar
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This one is a whole new thing for me, and I'm really looking forward to getting it done. It's in the tradition of the Chapman Stick® and it's got a few things of it's own that I don't see anyone else doing. First and most obviously, it's got two different scale lengths as well as two different sets of pickups. Also, the right hand fretboard (the ebony one) has a scalloped fretboard so that I can keep some nails on that hand. I've got 39 years of nail playing that I want to keep doing, so losing the nails isn't an option. Looking at the problem, it seems clear to me that it's the fact that the nails run into the fretboard before the string that is the issue. So by removing the wood under the right hand strings, there isn't any wood to run into.
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Here is the rundown: The body is a sandwich of mahogany, purpleheart, maple, purpleheart, mahogany, and for the body horns, it finishes out with walnut. The faceplate is a repeating (hang on) PurpleHeart-Birch-PH-BI-WAlnut-BI-WA-MAple-WA-BI-Mahogany-WA-MA-WA laminate, centered on the mahogany. The fretboards are ebony and bloodwood and the headstock veneer is a padauk, birch and walnut lamination, with a tulip inlaid in abalone. The frets are Stew-Mac's highest ones, with a crown height of .054" according to the catalog. Both fretboards have my brass star inlays, the ebony board with redish centers, and the bloodwood board having black centers. THe WM inlay on the top is also ebony and bloodwood, reversed from the order of the fretboards.
The pickups are Dragonfires, which, quite honestly, I went with because they were the cheapest things I could find. If they don't sound good, I can always swap them out, but I'm okay with being pleasantly surprised. The thing is that if you take the price of standard guitar parts, double that and you have what it costs do do this one up. Any place I can save money on this thing I will take. And so the bridges are also very low priced, but I couldn't make them for what I got these for. They are through body hardtail strat types, something that I've never put on a guitar before. Now I have.
The humbuckers have coil splitters on them and that is what the first two toggle switches are for. From there they go to the Les Paul type switch, and on to a Craig Anderton Clarifier EQ preamp, with active bass & treble on concentric pots, a volume control, and into one side of the stereo output jack. The strat pickups go into a standard 5 way switch, into the same type of electonics and onto the other side of the output jack. There is a battery compartment in the back for 2 9volt batteries. The circuit is the same as CA's circuit, but I built it with a dual op amp, 2 preamps on one chip. It's tight, but it works. I used an OPA2227, which is a really nice, very low noise chip that also makes really nice mic preamps.
I can't wait to get this one done. I've been practicing tap style playing on my Jazzmaster® and want that second set of strings. Oh, before I forget, the upper set of strings is standard 25.75" while the lower set is at 27", and is going to be tuned down to a 4th below the other set. That gives me the option of playing a bit lower, and since I want the chords, which this hand would be playing, mostly, in a slightly lower register than the lead voice. And both sets are tuned in 4ths straight across, so E-A-D-G-C-F for the top and B-E-A-D-G-C for the lower set. The hands do NOT cross over when playing this, unlike the Stick®, where they do, and that leads to running into each other. With the right hand on the ebony and the left on the bloodwood, they never meet. |
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