The future is so bright Todd has to wear shades.

I recently had the pleasure of building an octave mandolin for a luthiers competition. Actually it was two mandolins, co- building with Todd Stock. These were identical twins, made from the same cants of wood yet with the nuanced variations that one might find in actual twins.

I’m not sure who did what work at this point, though undoubtedly Todd likely outran my pace as his ability to progress through research and construction is something to behold. I mostly tried to keep up and filled in the many bits and pieces of work necessary to finish two instruments. There is never lack of work in luthiery.

The competition was a great experience. For starters it gave Todd and I an opportunity to build something together – for as many years as I’ve known Todd, I’d never built with him. Oh, I’ve shared a chisel, a hand plane and no lack of tears repairs to my instruments. But nope, never built an instrument with him end to end. Secondly we were headed deep in to new territories, neither of us having built an acoustic arch top much less a mandolin.

And I have to say it was a blast.

Laying out the top carve topography.

Upon considering the competition, Todd’s suggestion was that we build octave mandolins. My reply was succinct, “Huh”? Being a good sport while simultaneously ignorant about the mandolin family, I set about Google and Youtube listening to search results. After staring at a handful and listening to a few more I came back to Todd, once again somewhat frank, “Todd, why do you want to build an octave mandolin? They look ugly and I don’t really care for how they sound.” Todd replied, “You haven’t look at the right one. Check out Sarah Jarosz.” Todd doesn’t really have any annoying traits – he’s a great conversationalist, a patient teacher and a perfectionist which he does not apply as a standard to others but to himself. That said he does have one annoying trait – with encyclopedic knowledge and a student of anything that interests him,Todd is most always right. Sure enough, the Jarosz recordings on Fletcher Brock’s octave mandolin were in a class of their own. “That’s a cool octave mandolin, Todd, I’m up for this.”