Finley, I am.

She’s done. Essentially. Some cleanup of the fretwork, some more wax, an end pin. Essentially done. Her voice is sweet.

And now onto the island. The kitchen island. My life is not that relaxed.

This is a big update, as the last couple weeks were crucial to finish this and I haven’t had the time to post updates here. I have kept the Instagram up to date, though.

Last photo I shared here was a hollowed out— very rough— body. That got cleaned up on the router table. Braces were added to the inside of the box and to the top, a beautiful piece of locally sourced sassafras from Lumber Logs. Lumber Logs is a great place for all wood-loving guys and gals with really good prices on locally cut lumber. It’s all rough sawn, so my buddy at River Soul helped clean it up with his planers and jointers.

The Bigger News

I mentioned in the last post that I couldn’t yet show the headstock. Why? Well, when this instrument was conceived— heh— the plan was a simple, cheaper banger for travel, campfires, and having everywhere I go. That meant cheaper hardware, no electronics, and locally sourced top— my previous build had a $125 top. But then my wife told me we were expecting our fourth child.

So as any sane man does when his legacy is expanding, I got up at 4 the next morning and started drawing an inlay. I had yet to do a complex inlay, so this was a big first. I wanted yellow and white mother of pearl, but the prices were not right and I don’t have the tooling for cutting MOP in my shop. So I did what I do: I sourced from SendCutSend brass and titanium, laser cut pieces for the inlay. Four leaves for our four children, a butterfly for my wife, and my Minotaur brand.

So the banger got a bit more complicated and the price went up a bit, but still under $300 total. It is my cheapest instrument yet. Final photos and videos will be coming soon.

A Baby!

Enough about that: baby is healthy, growing quick, looking to be as big as our oldest two, and another boy. Yep, three boys now. We cannot be more psyched and are prepping the house for another baby. So as I wrap this beautiful mandolin up, I am going right back into the shop to work on a kitchen island, a queen size bed, and more over the next couple months. Let’s go!

A ton more progress on the mandolin over the last week. Including stuff that I cannot show just yet: the headstock inlay. The body is being hollowed out of a solid block of beautiful, locally sourced walnut, like the new Fender Highway Series acoustics. The neck is ready for mother of pearl dots on the front and side. Tuning machine holes have been drilled.

15 days to go. No pressure.

A couple weeks ago a fire was lit under my butt to finish the baby rattles I started… earlier this year. Last week I sold one of them. Now I’m back to the banger build which is part of the Great Guitar Build Off that I have now done for three years. And it’s due at the end of the month. Both the prior builds were essentially done in 5 weeks, so I’m not terribly concerned about time here.

Saturday and Sunday I finished the headstock inlay, Sunday through to this morning I’ve been thicknessing the headstock, and today I started to profile the neck. This is big progress.

Something always funny to me when building a mandolin— I built an electric mandolin last year— is that the headstock is almost as long as the neck. It feels wrong until the profile starts being revealed. So many strings.

As you recall, this is to be my low-cost instrument that I bring with me places I might not want my very nice mandola with me. Camping, roadtrips, music festivals, etc. I’m still below $300 total on her. I may have gone a bit overboard on the headstock design for the a low-cost instrument, but it’s for me and I wanted to. lol