New Irish Bouzouki / Octave Mandolin

[Ron Belanger]

Here is my newest instrument.
Irish Bouzouki / Octave Mandolin

Curly Soft Maple back and sides
Adirondack spruce top
Curly Soft Maple neck
Ebony fret board and headstock veneer
African Blackwood Bridge
Spalted Birch and abalone rosette
Gotoh mini tuning machines
23 inch scale length
KTM SV finish on body
Colortone alcohol dye sealed with shellac and a coat of System 3 epoxy.
Waterlox oil finish on neck with FP headstock veneer.

[Ron Belanger]

More pics

[Ron Belanger]

and 1 more

[Mark Swanson]

Looks real nice Ron! I like it. I have a few questions...
What is the bracing like with the pin bridge? How wide is the nut? Do you find that scale length easy to play, and how do you tune it? With the maple body, I bet you didn't need any epoxy coat. it looks good!

[Ron Belanger]

Thanks Mark,
I use the bracing the Graham MacDonald suggested. An X with lattice. I do a carbon fiber sandwich on the X braces. The nut is 1 3/8 in. and the pin spacing at the bridge is 1 13/16 in. I find the 23 in scale length good for melodic players, and as I am mainly a guitar player I find it easy to adapt. I have built a longer scale 26 in. for a customer, but only the one. I like to use the epoxy under the KTM finish. It adheres really well.

[Mark Swanson]

Might you have a photo of the bracing? And how do you tune it? And don't say "by turning the knobs".

[Mike Wilson]

Nice work!

[Jim McConkey]

Beautiful instrument, Ron! How deep is it? Looks a lot deeper than I build mine. And how is the neck attached?

[Steve Senseney]

Nice instrument! Really clean work on the details.

[Bob Gramann]

Beautiful!

[Dave Stewart]

Beautiful instrument Ron. You've really brought out the figure.
I've long wanted to try -SV but been spooked as it sounded a lot more tempermental than, say, EM6000, which I'm comfortable with. Where do you get it, BTW?

[Jon Whitney]

It is a great looking instrument - I love the tiger stripe.

I am intrigued by the arm rest area. I can't tell from the pictures, but it looks almost like you beveled or rounded off the corner and covered it with plastic or laminate - but maybe that's an optical illusion. Can you explain more about that?

[Jim McConkey]

Jon, not to preempt Ron's answer, but it appears beveled and someone in the MIMF did a tutorial on how to do it a while back. As soon as the Library makes its grand reappearance, it should be available.

Ron, don't let that stop you from telling all about it here!

[Ron Belanger]

Thanks for comments folks, I really appreciate them,
Jim - It is 3 1/2 inches deep and the neck joint is a flush bolt on.
Jon - as Jim mentioned it is Laskin style arm bevel. I believe Tony Karol did the tutorial. I know it is up on the OLF archives as well.
Dave - I get my SV directly from Grafted Coatings, the manufacturer. They will ship quarts or gallons.

[Tyko Runesson]

Very nice and tasteful! Nice work with the dying of the beutiful maple.

[Mark Swanson]

I'd still like to know how you tune it, Ron! these things always have a few different tunings and I like to see how others tune theirs.

[Ron Belanger]

Mark,
Sorry I missed that question earlier. I tune it an octave lower than a mandolin GDAE. A lot of celtic players use GDAD similar to DADGAD and some use ADAD or GDGD which would give an open D or G without the 3rd. What other tunings are you familiar with.
also if you are interested my string gauges are 12 / 17 / 32 / 44 and occasionally 12 / 16 / 32 / 42 and if players are using different tunings I will adjust the gauges so the tension is the same.

[Peter Wilcox]

Beautiful instrument. I'm trying to build one of these as my first acoustic project. Can you post a closeup picture of the bridge so I can see how you spaced the pins? I assume the saddle has to have slots to appropriately space the strings.Thanks.

[Matthew Lau]

very tasty

[Ron Belanger]

Hi Peter,
Here is the photo of the bridge. I highly recomend Graham MacDonald's "The Bouzouki Book" if you are planning this style of instrument.