Mandolin Back

I have a gorgeous piece of figured maple with spalting for the back soundboard.  My dad cut this tree down in Missoula, Mt about 20 year ago.  The spatling is caused by fungus. The city was expanding Reserve St and needed to take it out.  We were lucky enough to keep it from going to the dump.  This was much harder to carve than the spruce top.  I endured many more blisters than I did carving the top.

The Neck and Truss rod

I took a few weeks off to build my deck, but I am back in the shop working on the neck.  Wow, I am a poet.  The initial carving did not take as long as expected.  I cut the pattern of the neck profile out and traced it to my piece of maple.  I used my band-saw to cut the initial shape out.  From there I used various hand rasps to shape the neck and heel. You can only shape the neck to rough dimensions before you must stop and glue the wings to the head-stock on.  Once the veneers are glued on and the head-stock is cut to shape , the final shaping can occur

 I just finished gluing on the front and back head stock veneer.  I was originally planning on a piece of Ziricote to match the fingerboard, but in the last minutes of my decision constipation I decided to use a piece of maple.  This will match the neck and back of the mandolin.

The truss rod was more of a pain than expected.  I experienced  my 1st major setback while cutting the slot for the truss rod.  I used a 1/4 inch dado blade on my table saw and flew to close to the Sun on the wings of Icarus. I sawed right through the back of the neck.  I gotta tell ya I was not to pleased.  But in the spirit of craftsmanship I made another neck and moved on.    

The access hole on the head stock was a bit of a challenge.  I used a Dremel tool and chisels to carve the hole.  It just took longer than I thought.

I am ready to cut the head-stock to final shape and finish the carving of the neck.

Cutting the Veneer

Gluing the Veneer

Gluing the truss rod filler strip