I like carbon fiber, it looks nice and its lightweight. I also like stringed instruments, they're fun to play and sound pretty. I've never owned a mandolin - something I've always been a little sad about. So very recently I decided I needed a new project, and I would design and build from scratch a carbon fiber mandolin.
I wanted to mimic a traditional A5 style mandolin, without copying it directly. I started with some very rough sketches by hand to get the general shape I wanted, and had to decide if I wanted F-holes, or a single sound-hole. After drawing the sketches I decided F-holes would look the nicest.
After the drawings I committed myself, and ordered all of the hardware (tuners, bridge, nut, tailpiece, fretboard, and fret wire)
The next step was to model everything out in CAD.
MOLD CONSTRUCTION
The mold will be created using hand shaped foam plug, covered in fiberglass/bondo/paint, then waxed and polished, prepped for mold release. This plug will then be fiberglassed over, and once setup, a mold will be pulled. Construction starts with a big block a 2" pink insulation foam.
Next is shaping one of the blocks of foam. This starts with very rough cutting with the band saw, and coping saw.
First cut with the bandsaw
Rough hand sanding
Final hand sanding
Rough hand sanding
Final hand sanding
Now that the foam is all shaped, its time to stick the two chunks of foam together, and fiberglass all of it with some very thin weaved fiberglass cloth.
Fiberglassing stuff all ready
Fiberglassing done!
Fiberglassing stuff all ready
Fiberglassing done!
Next up is sanding down the weave of the fiberglass, and then some thin layers of bondo.
First layer of bondo over a thin layer of filler primer
Sanding down the first layer of bondo
First layer of bondo over a thin layer of filler primer
Sanding down the first layer of bondo
