Production/Design Engineer for Sound To Earth, Ltd. , Weber Mandolins

At Sound To Earth, I designed and built the facility and production infrastructure required to build Weber mandolins.  I was also the CAD/CAM/CNC programmer.  In that capacity, I was able to transform general ideas and concepts into functional products.   

Design is easy when working with extremely talented and knowledgable luthiers and musicians.  None of these designs would have been as developed or functional without thier advice and input.  Bruce Weber had been the master luthier and general manager for Gibson/Flatiron, Bob Peterson was a master luthier who had supervised the work cell that made Gibson and Flatiron "F" style mandolins, Joe Schneider and Helen Beausoleil had years of experience with Steve Carlson and Bruce at Flatiron, Gibson and STE.  STE also had many other employees who were either amateur or professional musicians and were willing and able to give constructive feedback.

Some of these products had more input than others and none of them would have been as functional without that input.

 

The Original Brekke Bridge

The "Original Brekke Bridge " was a new adjustable bridge for stringed instruments that was patented, trademarked and licensed exclusively to Sound To Earth.

After the Gibson/Flatiron plant in Belgrade was closed, Bruce Weber and some of the crew started Sound To Earth.  For the first year, the design work for the new company was done in my garage where I had a small cnc machine.  I worked as an independent contractor until Bruce could hire me full-time.  The bridge was developed during that time period.

The first instruments built by STE were flat-top mandolins.  When they started to work on the "A" and "F" carved-top instruments, Bruce asked if I could design an alternative to the traditional Loar bridge.  We were both remembering a conversation that we had with Sam Bush when his instrument was at Flatiron for service.  He had mentioned, in passing, that it bothered him that the adjusting nuts sat at a slight angle on the adjusting screw threads.  He thought that is degraded the performance of the bridge.  Bruce also had fairly extensive experience with the problems of the Loar Bridge: sagging or split saddles, inability to adjust under string tension and problems with leaning and installation of the support screws.  For several weeks, I tried every variation on an adjustable bridge that I could think of with fairly dismal results. 

One Saturday, my wife and I were working on building a handicap ramp for the west side of our house.  We had been building the house for a couple of years and that room of the house was going to be my wife's acupuncture office.  We had built up dirt for part of the ramp but it still needed a wooden section to finish it.  It was obvious that the ramp was going to need to zig-zag to keep it from being too steep.  After the general frame work was built, we took a Mountain Dew break to plan what needed to be done next.  When I actually looked at the zig-zag pattern, it was one of those "lights on moments - ramps with wedges!! " and I rushed in to my computer and had a general working concept for the bridge in about an hour and a sample cut in a couple more. 

Bruce liked the new bridge and was willing to help patent it and put it on the new instruments.  Since then, the bridge has been used on Weber instruments and also sold to other builders and to customers by Weber dealers.  Over the years, the original bridge has provided one of the few viable alternatives to the standard Loar style bridge. 

The Traditional Brekke Bridge

Although many dealers and players liked the Original bridge, some Weber dealers thought that a bridge that had a similiar look and sound to the traditional Loar bridge would be easier to sell.  Bruce Weber asked me to design a bridge that would meet those requirements.  The traditional Brekke Bridge was the result. 

It has generally the same look and function as the Loar style, but it is different in several distinct ways.  There is a metal bar on the inside of the saddle that prevents the saddle from sagging or breaking.  The adjusting thumbscrew/nut rests on the base instead of under the saddle and it used a new adjusting nut that was able to be adjusted under string pressure.  The bridge saddle was also smaller with no sharp edges.

Mandola, Octave & Mandocello

“S-shape Brekke” Bridges 

The Mola, Octave & Mandocello bridges in Original and Traditional styles presented a design challenge.  The required intonation width was very wide and this made the bridge base fairly heavy and chunky.  The "S" shape reduced the bridge weight and width significantly.  

The “Sweet Pea” Travel Mandolin. 

The Sweet Pea was a concept that was initiated by a series of posts on Mandolin cafe about what mandolin would be appropriate for a child and by a piccolo mandolin that a dealer sent to us for consideration as a possible new instrument.  I thought that it would be fun to design a small mandolin for children and backpacking based on the piccolo concept.  It was also somewhat an exercise in how much of a mandolin could be cut on a single CNC fixture.  The body, neck and peghead are all cut as a single unit.  This design included a new integral tailpiece that kept the top of the instrument uncluttered which seemed important for such a small instrument.

The “Maverick”, STE’s only electric mandolin.

As a machine guy, I felt that an electric mandolin could be a good addition to the Weber line because they are more machined than built.  Bruce, as an acoustic guy, was marginally interested in the project but gave me the go ahead to research and build a prototype.   Basic research was done by asking the mandolin community on Mandolin Cafe what they would like in an electric mandolin.  The Maverick was a combination of the internet responses and some features that I thought would be cool: the three point shape and locating the controls under the pickguard.



Emando Review of the Maverick

The Adjustable Bridges for Resophonic Instruments

This new bridge was a logical extension of the Traditional Brekke Bridge to resonator instruments.  All that it required was the design of new bridge bases.  It works for both the spyder cone and biscuit cone models.

 The Weber Cast Tailpiece 

The cast tailpiece featured a ramp that would guide the strings up through the back openings and the string hooks.  This design also included the addition of a rubber grommet and thumbscrew to replace the traditional end pin.  When I was designing the tailpiece, Bruce and the sales manager had just returned from a NAMM show where all of the instrument end pins had fallen out because of the change in humidity at the show.  The grommet and thumbscrew were added to solve that problem permanently.  I also found that the "W" design could be infilled with colored epoxy to match custom colored instruments.

The Integrated Tailpiece/Armrest Combination

We were having a lot of cast tailpieces that had flaws to the top that made them unusable.  This armrest design re-used standard cast tailpieces that had casting or polishing flaws on the top surface.  Adding an armrest to the top of the tailpiece solved the defect problem and allowed the armrest to float over the top of the instrument.  I thought that this arrangement would be better than using the violin clamps that were normally used on mandolin armrests.

The Guitar, Resonator and 8-string Octar Tailpieces

These tailpieces are machined from brass and intended for use with ball end strings or hooked strings.

The “Carousel”  Soundwell Systems

Bruce was having a hard time finding a source for the standard laminated wood soundwells and we didn't have the equipment to build our own.  He asked if I could design an alternative and the "Carousel" was the result.

The Wood Nymph

An instrument came into the shop for service and the installation of a pickguard.  When I saw the instrument, it had a bunch of duct tape wrapped around the strings.  When I asked why it was there, I was told that the owner had just been in a recording session and the duct tape had been the solution to some recording problems.  It just seemed that there could be a more elegant solution to the problem and that there was the opportunity for an inexpensive accessory that could be sold at trade shows and festivals.  The Wood Nymph was the result.

Also designed the product hangtag.

Designed, built and installed the pickguards used by STE

Inlay Designs

The Celtic Knot and Weber Logo designs that were used on the first STE instruments were hand-cut by Joe Schneider. As the model lines grew, I started to design the standard inlays that would be cut on the CNC.  Joe continued to hand-cut custom inlays. When Joe left STE, I also did the custom inlays.  Some of the designs were original, some where adapted to shell inlay form from drawings sent by a customer and others were just based on a customers request for a bird, bear, compass, gecko, etc... 

The first inlay design that I did for STE was the Big Sky Star for the Big Sky "F" model mandolin.  The Celtic Cross was the second.  Each one had  matching fretboard markers. They were followed by the Celtic Clover for the mandola models, the Celtic Diamond for the octave models and the Celtic Torch for the mandocello models. As the mandolin models grew there was the Weber Fern, Bighorn Shield, Yellowstone Flowerpot, Maverick Spike, Soprano Barb, etc...

Some examples are shown below.  Unfortunately, most custom designs were shipped before pictures were taken.

Big Sky Star, Fern, Bighorn Shield, Flowerpot, Celtic Diamond, & Celtic Clover

Maverick Spike, Celtic Cross, Custom:  Bee, Fish, Customer's Bird & Star/Flag

Custom Compass, Celtic Torch, Customer design, Rawhide Skull, Claddagh

Fingerboard and heel: Scorpion, fishing hooks, Celtic Cross, Gecko & Maple Leaf

Articles Written:

Mortise and Tenon neck joint article:  by Vern Brekke, Mandolin Café Forum

This topic seems to come up periodically and we hope that it will be helpful to add some additional information, about our instruments, to the discussion. In general, there have been three types of neck joints used for instrument construction: the dovetail, the mortise and tenon and the bolt-on. The reinforced mortise and tenon neck joint that we use has not really been discussed but is often, incorrectly, associated with bolt-on necks or other types of mortise and tenon joints. 

The dovetail and the mortise and tenon are fitted and glued joints when used on mandolins. They maximize surface contact between the neck and the body of the instrument and they are very stable joints, when done well. After the glue dries, they are not adjustable or easily replaced. True bolt-on necks are very different. They are not designed to be glued. A bolt-on neck may be removed or replaced by simply taking out the bolts and lifting the neck off. 

When we started Sound To Earth, Ltd. we were not locked into any specific tradition. We could choose or invent whatever design elements we felt were best for our instruments. Most of us have worked with other neck joints in the past (I was responsible for adjusting the equipment that cut guitar dovetails at a previous job) and we prefer the structural strength and simplicity of the reinforced mortise and tenon joint that we designed and use. Our neck joint gives our instruments a tight, strong, and stable fit at the heel and body with very consistent neck angles on all three relevant planes. 

The tenon is a simple rectangle the height of our ribs and extension block (1 3/4 inches tall), nearly an inch long and a 1/2 inch thick. The matching mortise is also a simple rectangle. It has very large wood-to-wood contact areas and we get a strong glued joint, on six matching surfaces (four sides of the tendon and two wings that transition the neck to the body), that has its greatest structural strength perpendicular to the force of the strings. The large height and length of the tenon also gives the joint good resistance to lateral and twisting forces. The screws, that we use, go through the headblock and into barrel nut inserts in the tenon. The style of insert and the way that they are placed is unique to our “WEBER” instruments. They clamp the neck against the body until the glue dries and give mechanical support to the joint after the glue has set. Since two of the three relevant neck angles are determined by two vertical cuts, perpendicular to the body and parallel to the center-line of the instrument, we really only have to focus our adjustments on the primary neck angle. We use two screws so that we can do fairly minute adjustments to that neck angle before the glue dries. All of the design parameters of our mandolin body are dependent on these neck angles. The top graduations; brace dimensions; and bridge height are optimized to our specific angle. If that angle varies from our intended specifications the tonal qualities of our instruments will be changed and we don’t like that. The mortise and tendon joint is ideal for keeping these angles consistent, from instrument to instrument, and that consistency is a primary reason that we use this style of joint. We also like the very tight fit that we get from the heel of the neck to the body of the instrument.

We do not believe that the mass or the weight of the screws will have any affect on the tone or balance of our instruments. The screws and inserts weigh less than 1/2 ounce. Our necks (peghead, veneer, tuners and fretboard) can vary in weight as much as 3/4 of an ounce - with a typical weight being 16 ounces. Wood is wood and the weight and density of it changes from piece to piece. With the average weight of our mandolins being 32 ounces, the screws represent an imperceptible fraction of the weight of the instrument. They are also located very near the actual center of balance of the instrument so their effect on the instruments balance is even further reduced. The shape of the neck and peghead; the type of tuners, and the style of tailpiece will have a noticeable effect on the balance and weight of the instrument. Our screws will not. 

We feel that our reinforced mortise and tenon joint has many inherent advantages for our instruments and our customers and that it should not be misunderstood or confused with other neck joints. 

The Loar-Style Bridge vs. the Brekke Bridge :  by Vern Brekke



 Print adds that STE used: