A Look Into the Workshop
= Mandonator™ Serial #9 ===
This one's for me. After three years of steadily playing Mandonator™ #2, built as a prototype, I decided to upgrade to a fancier instrument. It's also a chance to try fanned frets, which have intrigued me for quite a while.
The optional features are:
- Five strings with scale ranging from 13.875 to 14.295"
- Monkeypod body with rosewood binding
- One F-shaped soundhole
- Honduran Rosewood fingerboard
- Fanned frets
- Brass-framed mother-of-pearl position markers
- Snakehead shaped headstock and Monkeypod veneer
- Gotoh 510 Mini tuners; tailpiece TBD
Standard features include:
- Spherically arched back
- Spanish Cedar neck
- Radiused fingerboard
- Spider bridge and resonator cone
- Cutaway
- Maple saddle and bone nut
- Glossy lacquer finish
The sides are joined using end blocks. Here the sides are held in a form and the end blocks are clamped in place at each end. Wax paper separates the outside of the instrument body and the form to prevent any glue seepage from joining them together.
The bookmatched and joined halves of the front (left piece in photos) and back have beautiful figure. The photo on right shows the bracing on the inside of the back.
With the top and sides attached, the opening for the resonator cut, and its ledge installed, the next steps are to cut the soundhole and attach the back.
Before attaching the back, I shape the ends of the braces. This should allow the back to vibrate more freely, producing a nicer tone.
These are the necks, in progress, for instruments 9, 10, and 11. I've installed the graphite truss rods, created the tenons for the body joint, and attached the headstock veneers. The head and heel shapes have been roughed in. Meanwhile, I've been slotting the fretboards for these necks. Next in the process is to inlay the headstocks and fretboards. After that, I'll complete the fretboard shaping, install frets, and prepare to attach them to the necks.
It's been a while since the last photo of this instrument! The body is complete, with soundhole and binding, and the fingerboard is ready to attach to the neck.