When I first saw Terry Ritchie's mandolin, I just had to try it and asked for the how to's from Terry. She said there weren't any and gave me the go ahead to write my own pattern and instructions for the design and to teach it at my club. These are my results. My club enjoyed doing the egg as well, although they did struggle with the neck of it, but they all finally got it. The neck is carved from balsa wood. The egg itself is a duck egg and is decorated with paper rice napkin pieces. I had done the original bowl of the egg in brown shoe polish because I liked the sheen of it, but after it was sealed, it started to flake off. I ended up using Burnt Umber paint instead. The interior is done with gold Soft Flock, which is a discontinued product. The next one I do, will have a different interior. The Soft Flock didn't appear to be very durable to me.

On a trip to Solvang, CA, I found this candle holder base and bought a couple of them. They seemed to hold the mandolin nicely upright. It was similar enough to the stands I've seen that support real mandolins. The corian base is covered in the same rice napkin, also found in Solvang, sealed and then polished and the candleholder applied with epoxy. I'm pleased with it.