Wrest Plank Octave Mandolin (IW#101)

Back to the weird:  Folks who read this blog regularly might remember Instrument # 90, which is a four string guitar made out of the "wrest plank" or pin block of the piano.  This is a piece of hard maple that is laminated into a beam that runs the width of the piano.  The tuning pins protrude through the cast-iron harp and into the maple, which holds them via friction in the position that the piano tuner places them.

The "wrest plank" or pin block planed down and ready to be made into parts.

The truss rod cover is ivory veneer.

This hard maple is usually a pretty nice chunk of lumber that would be great for just about anything except that it has tons of holes in it, rendering it almost useless.  So of course I want to continue to find uses for it.

I have been wanting to make an octave mandolin, not because I know how to play one but because I have been interested in what playing a set of courses (pairs of strings) would be like as opposed to single strings, and mandolins are strung that way.  One thing I noticed with instrument 90 was that because there is no sound hole, the sound only came out the sides.  For a listener the sound image is a little funky.  So with this iteration I did my best to limit the number of holes on the sides and back, and put them all on the front.  I book-matched the front so that the holes mirror each other, and the bridge is an ebony black key from a piano.

This thing has a lot of moments that I really dig:  There is a resin-filled screw hole (You know how I like those!), there is a gorgeous tail piece that Jaydann Moore made, there is walnut kerfing.  The truss rod cover is a piece of ivory veneer from a white piano key.  All of this almost balances out the fact that I don't know how to play the octave mandolin.

Resin-filled screw hole on the neck.

Tail Piece by Jaydann Moore

I gave it to my friend Tom and he made it sound pretty good, though.  Because it is all solid hard maple, it has an incredible amount of sustain.

Here is a video of me ham-handedly trying to chord something on this.  It is interesting enough to play that I am hopeful that I can learn to play it a little better.