Making instruments is crazy addictive! Since I started around 7 years ago, I've always had some project on the workbench. Sometimes it takes me a while to finish because of a lack of time to do it, sometimes it goes very fast!
Since moving to Berlin, I'm working out of a shared workshop / makerspace and have access to a CNC, laser cutter and many other awesome & professional tools and in general I can work much faster now. :) (I'd really recommend anyone based in Berlin to check out "happylab", it's a great place with many interesting people and projects going on in there!)
Anyways, for one of the latest instruments I've made there, I used the CNC not only to cut frets, but also to make a beautiful wood inlay for the head!
I hope you'll enjoy the build thread, I'll also upload a video soon :)
At first I roughly cut the neck with a jigsaw:
And the f-holes with a Dremel:
Attaching the neck to the oilcan:
Glueing on the fretboard and shaping & sanding the neck:
Now I made my first wood inlay (mahogany on wenge), it is matching the flame on the body with my Do.Se logo on top.
It is made on the CNC with the different parts mirrored and fitting toegther kinda like a 3D jigsaw puzzle, then glued together and sanded smooth. Except for one part of the O in Do.Se it worked great and I already have a lot of plans to do inlays on fretboards now! :) :)
I made the bridge from mahogany and topped it it wenge so that it would fit the neck and used forks again for the tailpiece
Stringing it up (the tuning is Gdae', one octave lower than a Mandolin) and there you go, my first ever Mandola finished! It's got a really nice, folky sound and I love playing it! I'll upload a full making of video and soundtest in a few days :)
Thanks for reading this long post, I hope you liked it :)
