How about going with a traditional A-hole instead?
AHG octave mando build
- Thread starter AcornHouse
- Start date
Bill Ashton
Senior Member
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2006
- Messages
- 4,446
- Reaction score
- 1,063
- Location
- North Central Massachusetts
- Guild Total
- 4
A Zenit camera, and black no less! Haven't seen one of those in years and years...
The Guilds of Grot
Enlightened Member
This, btw, is the one I’m going with. I considered trying something different, more modern, but I just can’t resist the classic beauty of a traditional f-hole.
Very "Guild" like!
AcornHouse
Venerated Member
Marked on the topside waiting for the cotton linen reinforcement's glue to fully cure.
Top tip, don't use Curad gauze for reinforcement. Glue won't stick to it, it's rayon and polyester. (Ask me how I know!)
Top tip, don't use Curad gauze for reinforcement. Glue won't stick to it, it's rayon and polyester. (Ask me how I know!)
Last edited:
AcornHouse
Venerated Member
The initial f-hole shaping is done. With saw, knife, file, and paper (sand) I work quadrant by quadrant. Now it's down to making them match as much as I can. Even though I started with the same outline, during the process differences between the two are inevitable. At least for me at this stage. So I'll go back and tweak, using calipers to compare each part. I can already see some bits.
GGJaguar
Reverential Member
That's hand-made for ya. The human touch.
AcornHouse
Venerated Member
I‘ve watched Benedetto do his with a pin router jig, but I’ve had too many bad experiences with routers grabbing chunks of wood they weren’t supposed to (plus, I don’t have a pin router). It may take more time, and never be exactly the same, but I’ll stick with this method for now. I’m sure if I was doing f-holes more regularly I’d have a quicker hand. But I’m sure Stradivarius’ weren’t perfectly matched either.That's hand-made for ya. The human touch.
AcornHouse
Venerated Member
Needed to shift location to get a well lit neutral background to show the tweaked symmetry (-ish).
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2009
- Messages
- 23,429
- Reaction score
- 19,290
- Location
- NJ (The nice part)
- Guild Total
- 112
The word confused.
AcornHouse
Venerated Member
AcornHouse
Venerated Member
Here's the linen reinforcement under the f-holes. Yes, I missed a spot, but nowhere that has unsupported grain. I spent some time today cleaning up any frayed edges from where I'd cut the openings and adding some fish glue to those edges so they don't show from outside the box.
Even though it's just a thin layer of cloth and glue, it does add a good amount of stability to the wood fibers, without impacting the sound.
Even though it's just a thin layer of cloth and glue, it does add a good amount of stability to the wood fibers, without impacting the sound.
GGJaguar
Reverential Member
Or you could bind the F-holes, but that's probably over-the-top for anything in the mandolin family.
AcornHouse
Venerated Member
And would require enlarging the holes to compensate for the extra thickness.Or you could bind the F-holes, but that's probably over-the-top for anything in the mandolin family.
Checking Google, it’s not something you see a lot, even in the blingiest F-style mandolins. I guess if Lloyd Loar didn’t do it, it’s just not done. (Also, I’d have to charge a lot more!)
Last edited:
AcornHouse
Venerated Member
After milling the Sitka spruce bracewood perfectly quartered and to thickness, it is scribed to the shape of the underside and then laboriously tweaked using plane, file, carbon paper, and cleaned up with sandpaper. Then it's fish glue time.
AcornHouse
Venerated Member
No, your eyes are good. The bass side is at a sharper angle than the treble. Very much a mando thing. If I were batch building I’d try one symmetrical to see what difference, in any, can be heard. My biggest concern was to make sure they cross under where the ends of the bridge will be.
GGJaguar
Reverential Member
My Artist Award has an offset bass brace so maybe it's universal to any acoustic archtop type instrument (probably not including the viol/violin family). My electric archtops (at least the ones I've checked) have symmetrical (parallel) bracing.
AcornHouse
Venerated Member
And, to further muddy the waters, f-hole mandos can also be x-braced (all (most?) oval/round hole ones are x-braced). And those are symmetrical.
So, what is actually necessary and what is done because Lloyd Loar did it needs to be investigated.