I thought I'd start a new thread for the final photos of this pair of mandolins. Some of the build photos are in this thread (http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10128&t=48906), but the title was somewhat misleading. Also, this sub-forum seems to be neglected in favor of guitar threads, so I'm boosting the thread count!
Got this duo finished up last month. Both are super fun to play. The Army/Navy is in the hands of my Uncle-in-law, a classically trained pianist who can sight-read anything you put in front of him. I'm hanging onto the octave and having fun bringing in different sounds and textures to my little trio. I did put a JJB Electronics Prestige 220 pickup in the octave mando. So far I'm not really impressed with the pickup in comparison to my K&K-equipped instruments. Very low output levels from the JJB. And even cranking up the gain as high as I can with pre-amps (I've tried a couple), it sounds thin and lacks balance. So far no response from JJB, either, so that's disappointing.
General Specs:
Walnut back and sides
Ebony fingerboard, headstock overlays, and bridges
Curly maple binding
Baked (Torrified, whatever the going term is) maple neck
Rubner tuners
Bone nut
Here they are:
