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So....for mandolins with an elevated fingerboard extension....are the necks and bodies typically finished separately?

Trev

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With most mandos, the back is glued on after the neck. So the finish is put on with the instrument assembled.

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And polishing under there is a PAIN !! lol

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Yeah, it's a true pain to polish under there. My favorite way is to use a multi tool with a thin polishing pad. It helps to have good clearance between the FB extender and the top. I like to connect the extender to the neck with a dovetail joint. Most methods call for glueing the extender mainly to the top. This connection method is fast and results in a strong joint. It also gives you extra clearance between the FB extender and the top.

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A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain

Great picture - thank you for posting! Why aren't the fingerboard extenders built as part of the neck?

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Archtop guitar necks are constucted with the f b extender attached to the neck first then glued to the body. I think the same could be done with a mandolin. The problem with putting on the extension first lies in the fitting of the neck to the body. With archtops, the heighth of the neck set is controlled by carefully adjusting the thickness of the extension to allow the dovetail joint of the neck to go in deeper or less deep as needed. This works because the walls of the guitars dovetail joint are straight sided. With mandolins, the walls of the dovetail are taperd at an angle so the neck heighth is set by the mating of the walls of the dovetail jont. If you have to adjust both the extender and the dovetail fit to get the proper height. Obviously the process is too slow. I like to think of the F B extension as part of the neck. That is why I like to solidly join the extender to the neck rather than joining mainly to the body, as is done by most builders methods. By not depending on the connection to the top, the mando is less likely to develop the dreaded 15th fret hump. The hump or dip comes as the mando neck can tend to lift after years under such high string tension, a common problem.

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http://www.cushmanguitars.com/.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain

Matt, that all makes sense, thank you for the explanation. I checked out your website as well - nice work! I've focused mainly on steel strings in the past but am starting to branch out a bit.

Best,
Trev

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