The neck and tail blocks were inset into the mold so I could glue the sides together around the mold. I held the blocks in place with dollups of hot-melt glue on the surface – hopefully this will come off ok. We’ll see.
Continue readingGot the neck block shaped today. This was interesting to make as it has different shapes at top and bottom – both need to meet the sides in a complex curve.
I marked out the shapes on top and bottom, then connected the ends of the lines.
I’ve made a mold for the body from scrap plywood. It is slightly more complex than usual because the body sides are twisted near the neck – the top and bottom are different shapes. Hopefully the sides will blend into the neck.
I’ve made another front or back – will decide where to use the panels later. This one is a bit thinner – about 2mm – so maybe it would be a good front with the thicker panel for the back where the instrument is damped by the player’s body.
Ok – there are lots of things I’m supposed to be doing but here’s another project just for fun. I’ve long wanted a Sopranino Ukulele but I can’t really afford one, plus it would be fun to have a go at making one.
A Sopranino is smaller than a Soprano Ukulele – the Soprano has a scale length of around 13″/330mm and the Sopranino has a scale length of around 12″/305mm. One big advantage of this size is that I can resaw the timber on my mini-bandsaw which has a capacity of around 75mm.
This is the concept I came up with:
Well – if not finished at least it is working. I’ve got the sound post in (somewhat unconventional – see below) and strung it up and it sounds lovely!
Starting to feel like it might be finished one day!
The neck is more-or-less finished. I’ve fitted the tuners (drilled out to take the larger strings) so that I could see what it all sounded like. The answer is that it sounds lovely 🙂
Continue readingI’ve cut some more bits of wood. There is:
Just because I don’t have enough projects on the go 😉 I’ve started making a bass ukulele. I call it a μ-bass.
The body is an old Port Wine box. Since this wasn’t glued I’ve run Titebond around all the joints so they don’t buzz. The neck is a old piece of mahogany that has been lying around for 20 years. I bought some bass guitar tuners on eBay – I’ll need to make the slots bigger. Soundboard will be birch plywood.
See this summary of the build.
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