The Mandobird

I didn’t actually build this at all, but I did have to do a lot of work on it. It’s actually a 4 string electric mandolin made by Epiphone in China. I’ve read on the internet about how the intonation was perfect right out of the box on these, but either these people were damn lucky, I’m damn unlucky or those reviews were written by the people who made it. I had to take off the bridge, plug all the holes in the body and move the bridge down about 1.5 cm before I could set the bridge adjustments properly.

Now it’s quite a cool little instrument and by using heavy strings I can tune it D-G-B-E in the same octave as a guitar. The strings I used are were originally intended to be light gauge electric guitar strings but I used the E-A-D-G and tuned them D-G-B-E.

With some it effects, it screams and it’s really funny looking!