A few charity instruments

[Dave Bagwill]

A couple of YEARS back some generous people here and at kgf chipped in the materials for 3 instruments to be given to charity. I was to provide the labor, even though at the time I had not scratch built anything and needed to get some chops under my belt before proceeding.. Life has been happening, and I have not finished them up. Here are two of the three. I made double sides - one is walnut/walnut the other is walnut/mahogany; it will be interesting to see how they compare. In this case the backs and sides were from Ken Cierp, and Herman provided some spruce tops. There is still some work to be done and I will post when I remember.
Thanks to the generous souls who donated materials and have had patience.

[Kevin in California]

Dave, what kind of instrument are these?

Kevin

[Dave Bagwill]

Beats me! There are a number of types of instruments that I got ideas from, I suppose the banjo- la and Russian 3 string shapes influenced me. These are 6 string, 16" lower bout, flat top and 15' radius backs. Fun!

[Kevin in California]

So these are Bagwell originals.

[Dave Bagwill]

If they turn out wonderfully, THEN they are Bagwill originals. If not I'll find somebody to blame. :-)

[Dave Bagwill]

There were a few challenges. First, for a good bridge placement, I had to use a 28.1" scale length; luckily there are online tools for figuring the spacing. Then laying out the fb, my first, I kept getting accumulation errors in laying out the lines for frets - people here on the forum helped me find a better method for doing that. I've done enough double sides now that that was not a problem. The bridge plate being where it is, the x bracing left large areas unsupported where the finger braces would normally go, so I remembered the 'dolphin' bracing that Lowden uses and installed what are essentially tone bars, parallel to the x brace. I'm thinning the braces now and the tap tones are pleasing thus far.
Also, I used the mega mold to lay out the side profiles and that went easily. I made a vid of that process but it was way too long to post.
Like I said, fun. My craftsmanship though, it still needs work. Probably always will.

[Tim Benware]

Those are awesome so far Dave. Neat what can be done with the MM. I'm anxious to try some new (for me) shapes with that thing!