Trip to Old Standard Wood

Now sorting through the stacks and stacks of red maple for the backs.

A trunk-load of beautiful tone wood.

That will keep me busy for awhile. A pretty good haul I'd say.

Road Trip to Old Standard Wood

Took a road trip to Old Standard Wood Co. in Fulton, Missouri, to hand select some choice tone-woods. I finally met John and Jim in person, having dealt with them on the phone numerous times.

This ain't the Home Depot. They have stacks and stacks of top grade Adirondack Red Spruce and Red, Sugar, and Big Leaf Maple, carefully selected, milled and stacked, waiting to become musical instruments.

Jim showed me the different grades of Adirondack Spruce.

I then went through the stacks to select several really nice pieces, that will become the tops of some very special mandolins.

Design

I think I will use a "two-point" design for the Irish Fest mandolin. I think it will be a hybrid of the two pictured. I will use an oval sound-hole like the one on the left, but a 15-fret-to-body neck like the one on the right. The peg-head shape will be different from these as well.

Sketches

I started doing some sketches of inlay patterns. Since Kansas City is known as the "City Of Fountains," I would like to create a design that suggests a fountain, in a Celtic Knot type design. I created a template Adobe Illustrator that I will use when I start cutting the pearl for the inlays. I also experimented with the placement above and below my signature logo.
I also want to do something unique around the oval sound-hole using abalone inlays in an interwoven design.

KC Irish Fest Custom Mandolin

I was awarded a grant from the Kansas City Irish Festival to build a custom mandolin to be awarded as a prize at this year's festival over the Labor Day weekend. I am going to document the entire process from design to completion.