I posted about a new set of builds in May. That was before DelFest. That was also before Denver. We’ve been… a bit busy. And my… priorities have shifted a hair. You see, I had said I was building two instruments hopefully this year: an electric mandocello and a Telecaster-inspired guitar. But then I took my nearly $1000 mandola on two major adventures and realized that maybe I need an banger. A cheaper, lightweight, acoustic instrument I could bring everywhere with me. Because I truly bring my mandola almost everywhere with me. Everyone is well aware that it is a security blanket.
The banger. Now my wife laughs at me because I cannot create a truly cheap instrument and my woodworking buddy Boushard would chime in to say “because he’s a woodworker,” so my budget is around $200 total. Most of that will be hardware and the inlay. The wood is all locally sourced. Walnut for the body, sassafras for the top, and bird’s eye maple for the neck.
Since I am very comfortable on an iPad, all the design work for these types of projects starts as a sketch in Linea and then goes to full vectors in Affinity Designer. I can easily export SVGs and have the Cricut cut them out of paper. There was a lot of refining and getting the headstock to a point that I love it.
Over the weekend I was able to get paper templates cut on the Cricut, MDF templates made for the headstock and body, and the wood cut down to size. It honestly felt great to be back in the shop working.
Much more is coming on this and you can follow along on Instagram at @MinotaurGuitars.
