Putting more 'rock' into renaissance-folk-rock - SG mandocello project

[Rosie C]

It's not quite day 1 of the project as I've spent a while doing research. I play mandocello in a renaissance-folk-rock band. I have two mandocellos - both acoustic with pickups, both really quite loud. I started off thinking an all-electric would be good for quiet practice, but the more I looked at donor electric guitars the more I thought I wanted to work on a more 'rock' sound.  

 

So today I bought this 6-string donor. In red, devil horns shaped body, in the Angus Young / Epiphone SG style. Rather than a full 8-string mandocello, I'm going with a single C string on the bottom, so the tuning will be C-GG-DD-AA.

 

The plan:

• remove three tuners on the lower side of the head. Dowel the holes, make good & re-drill for four tuners - making 3 on the top, 4 on the bottom.
• make a new 7 groove nut
• New bridge & saddle - probably modified bass parts
• New larger pickguard to surround the new pickups

 

TBD:

• Pickups. Hofner bass pickups and Telecaster neck bar pickups are on my list

 

Edit to add: I fall in the "expectant customer" category. I'm doing as much of the work as I can, but the skilled work will be done by my local guitar technician. 

 

Edited March 26 by Rosie C

[Richard R]

I had never even heard of mandocellos until last week. I shall be interested to see how this goes, and even more interested to hear how it sounds.

 

[Rosie C]

30 minutes ago, Richard R said:

I had never even heard of mandocellos until last week. I shall be interested to see how this goes, and even more interested to hear how it sounds.

 

I tried several times to play 6-string guitar and just can't. I tried playing this SG today... still can't. But I bought a mandocello in December 2022 and went from zero to playing a gig in about 4 weeks... they just suit me somehow.

 

I will definitely post a video when it's finished. 

 

Edited March 26 by Rosie C

[Rosie C]

I dropped off the donor guitar today. We made some decisions too, including to not bother with a bridge pickup - make a nice big pick guard to cover the hole, and concentrate funds on a good neck pickup. As I usually play acoustic mandocellos, even the relatively mild neck pickup is a big change to my sound - so I'm not going to miss a bridge pickup.

 

We looked at a Seymour Duncan 'rail' pickup, but there's a couple of cheaper options too.

 

I was thinking of some sort of decal on the pick guard to divert the eye from the large gap that might otherwise look just like it's covering a missing pickup.

Edited March 27 by Rosie C

[Richard R]

There's enough space behind the bridge for another matching decal if you wanted.

[Rosie C]

12 minutes ago, Richard R said:

There's enough space behind the bridge for another matching decal if you wanted.

 

Good point! The original plan was to drill more holes into the sort of "bent plate" bridge you get on Fender basses, which would have taken up space. But now we're looking at a solid aluminium bar to fit onto the existing bridge 'bolts' - so there'll be much the same space as now.

 

[Maude]

Warman have a good range of pickups for very good prices. 

Don't let the 'budget' prices fool you though, every one I've tried has sounded fantastic. 

[tauzero]

Couldn't you just leave the bridge pickup in place and not connect it?

[Rosie C]

We could have done. I thought to leave it in place, connected as an experiment to see how a 6-string pickup under 7 strings worked. 

I also thought of putting a jazz bass pickup there. But there's going to be a new fingerboard to accommodate the new neck pickup so I thought we may as well remove it.

[Rosie C]

It took longer than planned, and in the end my local luthier did everything except designing the graphics. But it is fantastic! 

[LowB_FTW]

I really like the look of that bridge.

Nice work all round.

 

Mark