Homemade Mandolin with a Ham Can (A Hamdolin!)

mandolin sound,

By Wayne Erbsen
Updated on October 28, 2022
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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.

Of course, inspiration is one thing, and motivation is another. Since the manifold meant mobility, I installed it right away. But I only recently, as a result of an unanticipated burst of energy, picked up one of the containers I’d rescued, brushed at least five years’ worth of dust off it and decided maybe it was time to make a mandolin.

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