Lathe made musical instruments

[Matthew Dirks]

I recently got a wood lathe... I love working with it and have gotten rather good with it. Now I would like to see what everyones thoughts are on turning a frying pan style mandolin. Lets see what everyone has to say about the idea.

[Dan Pennington]

Intrigued by your idea. Tell me more about your design.
I've seen stuff about turning two banjo or uke necks simultaneously on a lathe, but nothing about mandolin type bodies on a lathe.
I turn banjo rims on a lathe. Are you talking about making the mandolin sides like a banjo rim?

[Bob Hammond]

Hi Matthew,

I've been thinking about what could be made with my lathe as well. There are articles for ocarinas and flutes. For the mandolin, you could do a layered glueup for the body.

[Harmon Gladding]

I've use the lathe to make a mandolin arm rest.

[Jo Dusepo]

Historically some instruments were made using lathes. For instance the medieval rebec and gittern, which are both small pear-shaped instruments. Some evidence suggests they'd turn the shape out of wood on a lathe (obviously not an electric one back then, must've taken a while!) and then the resulting shape would be cut in half, for two instrument bodies which would then be hollowed out. In modern times there are similar bowed instruments to the rebec such as the Cretan lyra and Bulgarian gadulka which could feasibly be made the same way.

[Bob Howell]

I have read about a number of bowls harps. Even a guy, Tony in England says its his idea and no one else can make one.

[Jo Dusepo]

I have read about a number of bowls harps. Even a guy, Tony in England says its his idea and no one else can make one.

Nobody tell him about those medieval instruments then!

[Karl Wicklund]

Oh, man, this makes me want even more to get my lathe set up!

[Frank Dryer III]

I recently got a wood lathe... I love working with it and have gotten rather good with it. Now I would like to see what everyones thoughts are on turning a frying pan style mandolin. Lets see what everyone has to say about the idea.

Frying mandolin? Never heard of such thing