Comparison of Nautilus mandolins recently completed. In order: #15 – parallel braced, tone bars, spruce top, J74′s #16 – transverse braced, yellow cedar top, Thomastik Mittels #18 – parallel braced, curly redwood top, JS74′s #20 – transverse braced, spruce top, J74′s #21 – parallel braced, spruce top, FW74′s
Partly to show off some recently completed instruments, I invited several mandolin enthusiasts and MandolinCafe members from the Atlanta area. The gents generously brought several of their mandolins, some of them very valuable, some of them very rare, but all of them very interesting – and put them out for everyone to experience. I believe [...]
So… this is a toy mandolin / ukelele thing I made for my kids. It’s got a solid cherry top, solid cherry back and sides, and a curly maple neck. Shaped like an archtop Telecaster, obviously. The frets are machined right into the fretboard. It sounds like a shoe box with some rubber bands on [...]
Spraying nitrocellulose lacquer on #17mkII and #18. #17mkII will also have a french polished top. The depth of the bubinga, maple, and mahogany are really starting to sparkle.
Multilingual version of the Thomson mountain bike stem, seatpost, and handlebar instructions. A collaboration with Mark McJunkin of Product M. Insane information density.
Pictured are #19, #17, #18, #21, #20. Can’t wait to string them up!
This fixture is the 13th version I have built over the past year. In this case, thirteen is a very lucky number! It is repeatable, controllable, easy to use, quick, and does not consume air or power in order to operate. I can finally move on to gearing up for my octave mandolin and mandola [...]
A friend reminded me of this project, a Guitar Bodied Octave Mandolin (could also be an Irish Bouzouki or Mandocello). Started it last year, got distracted building my CNC machine, and then I realized I would do a lot of things differently now that I have the CNC machine. So I may, or may not [...]
Batch of tops and backs for December 2012 instruments. #17, #18, #20. Bruce Harvie’s handwriting still on this one:
Just got some color on #15. Needs some french polishing and finish leveling, but it’s shaping up nicely.
Just a drawing I did for my sons’ bedroom. Did this a year or so ago and just found it again.
Sound samples: http://www.martinjacobson.com/heron.mp3 http://www.martinjacobson.com/heron2.mp3
Here are some mockups and fixtures for my ongoing Nautilus mandolin project. It is an affordable instrument intended to bring exceptional tone and playability to a lower price point, through the use of modern automation and traditional instrument voicing techniques.
These illustrations were done mostly to get back up to speed on the latest version of SolidWorks after using Alibre Design Pro (another parametric CAD package) for the last year. I had been studying air-cooled engines and started drawing a lot of radial engines, which lead to the prominent engine features of this aircraft. The [...]
Collaborated with Darwin Muljono on a trade show banner project. For best impact, the photos needed to be lit well enough to be legible when pixelated (from the appropriate reading distance – 30ft or so). The concept expresses the interaction between humans and computers, which is integral to the mission of the client organization.
Most Web audio appliances are targeted to the gadget crowd. They are overloaded with features such as RSS readers, picture viewers, and Google Calenders syncing. But what if you just want to listen to music? This concept is an exploration of establishing the simplest, most analog way of interacting with the device, more closely replicating [...]
This is a study in environmental design and illustration. It began with the furniture in 2006 and became a more complete modernist-inspired living space. The linear arrangement and color scheme intrigued me, along with the concept of making a living space which is more in line with living patterns than the average off-the-shelf contemporary dwelling. [...]
This is an illustration for a Christmas card, depicting a ceramic “wreath” with glowing custom-fabricated Christmas-themed light bulbs.
View interactive panoramas here and here. [ Javascript required to view QuickTime movie, please turn it on and refresh this page ] Interactive Panorama – click to change the view, use CTRL and SHIFT to change perspective angle. [ Javascript required to view QuickTime movie, please turn it on and refresh this page ] Interactive [...]
I photographed this line of heaters for commercial purposes – packaging and marketing materials. As usual, it was on super-short notice, and a complete range of clipped-out silhouette shots and specific detail shots were taken for packaging and marketing purposes.
Store exterior renderings done for the BrandSource Store Design Standards book published in 2007. Done in Maya and Maxwell Render 1.3.
This Junior ID school project was based on producing a design for a water fixture. The focus was on the development of a unique sculptural piece, design for manufacturing, and the user’s interaction with the piece.
This was a conceptual rendering set for the SSDL lab out of Georgia Tech’s Aerospace Engineering department The trickiest part was evoking a sense of Titan, which is Saturn’s largest moon. It is thought to have a very thick atmosphere and a methane ocean (!?).
A friend and fellow Industrial Designer asked me to help him build a swamp ash Les Paul over the summer of 2004. While shopping for the materials for his guitar, I found a piece of extremely rare rosewood from the Amazon, called “Maucacaube”. It was a small piece, so I decided to build a LP [...]
