Homemade Mandolin with a Ham Can (A Hamdolin!)

mandolin sound,

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by Adobestock/Luciano Queiroz

Make a unique homemade instrument by following Wayne Erbsen’s homemade mandolin (or “hamdolin”) instructions using a ham can and inexpensive building materials. 

Before I explain the particulars on how you can build your own mandolin that is playable, attractive and almost-one-of-a-kind out of a ham can (I call it a hamdolin, naturally), I’d like to tell you how I came to tackle such an unlikely project in the first place.

Five or six years ago, I was rooting around in a wrecking yard near my home, searching amidst a sea of abandoned cars for an exhaust manifold for my old Dodge van. Call it fate (or just outright compulsive curiosity), but for some reason I happened to peer through the window of an old truck, and I spotted two empty ham cans sitting peacefully on the seat.

Well, right off, those pear-shaped tins reminded me of mandolins (we musicians tend to see music in almost everything), and that got me to thinking about the banjo-like instrument I’d once made out of a plastic milk jug, and that got me to cogitating on the possibilities presented by the pair of lonely-looking castoffs on the seat of the truck. Hmmmmm…

I left the junkyard that day with an exhaust manifold and two adopted ham cans.

  • Updated on Oct 28, 2022
  • Originally Published on Jan 1, 1985
Tagged with: Homegrown Music, musical instruments
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