Mandolins #2 and #3

I spent literally all day working on mandolins, or mandolin building tools. First, using my new drill press, I made a neck holding jig for my bandsaw that holds the neck horizontally so headstock cuts will be parallel to the neck instead of parallel to the headstock angle, which would be what you would have if you didn't use a jig like this. Confusing? Yep. Look at the picture, it might make more sense.

I put it to good use right away, I traced the top shape I wanted to use onto the headstock, and cut out the shape the best I could on the bandsaw. I'm realizing more and more that I really need to do some setup work on my bandsaw. It's not as precise as I need it, so the headstocks have required quite a bit of work for me to get them looking good. They aren't going to look as good as I know they could with a properly set up bandsaw, but they will look better than my first mandolin headstock, so I guess I'll have to be happy with that for now.

Once again I used my drill press, this time to drill the holes for the tuners. I used a plywood backing board, and my drill bit that has been modified to help prevent tear-out, and the results were absolutely perfect. With my first mandolin, I used a hand drill, and even with a backing board, I had horrible tear-out on the ebony overlay. Bad enough that I actually had to glue pieces back in place. Very cool.

I then cut the nut slot at the top of the fretboard, and also cut the truss rod channel, using my Dremel and a cutting bit.

The last task at hand for my almost 13 hour mandolin building day was to glue the mother-of-pearl logo onto the headstock with Duco cement. Once this dries overnight, I'll be able to scribe around the letters with my very sharp scribing tool that was made just for this, and then use my Dremel and router base to route out the inlay channel, and go ahead with finishing the inlay process. I should be able to do all that tomorrow.

**Don't let the rough shape of the headstock scare you, the ebony overlay still has to be trimmed to it's final shape, and the top shape of the headstock has to be cleaned up a little bit.