Ukulele Part 2: Jigs, Sides, braces

That's dangerous looking...

What you are looking at is a body mold.  Briefly - it is a plywood board with four angle brackets screwed to it.  I then attached two rectangular pieces of scrap wood to the ends and two curved pieces of scrap wood to the sides.  FYI - the curved bits are from a piece of extra banister that I had lying around from some house projects.  You could just use a bit of dowel and tape it to the angle bracket (stewmac suggests this method, in fact).

I wouldn't want to be in the middle of that.

As you can see from the paper taped to the center of this torture device - we'll be putting the Uke body in there at some point.  This jig is used for a few things.  It helps the sides keep their shape as you glue them together.  It also keeps everything contained when you glue in the linings (see Part 3).

Finally, it is used when we glue the top and back to the sides (see Part 4).  Knowing what I know now - I would have cut the scrap wood a little shorter than I did.  The Angle brackets are 2.5 inches.  I would cut the scrap wood to 2.5 inches as well (or maybe a bit shorter).  They all ended up being too long to use for gluing the top down - so I had to remove them when I got to that step.

Sigmund the sea monster

Again, I didn't take enough pictures - so what you don't see are the two sides before they were glued together.  The sides came pre-bent and fit nice and snug inside the mold.  I did have to cut the neck-block and the end-block to the same hight as the sides (they come about an inch too long).  But what you are seeing above is the clamping of the sides to the neck and end blocks.  When it's all dried and released from the mold it looks like this: 

Sure is shaped like a Ukulele!

Sometime in the near future, the top and back will be glued to this bad boy and we'll have a ukulele body.  For now, it will sit and wait while I finish up the bracing for said top and back.

Perfection is for amateurs

As I mentioned before - one of the braces on the back moved as I was gluing it down.  It should be fine (some acoustic guitars have bracing that goes across at an angle).  The point is to make the top and back strong - and right now - they are strong.  Too strong.  I'm going to shave those braces in the near future. Shaving them down should make the instrument more responsive - which should make the uke sound better.  We shall see!

Kind of looks like an Anime cyclops cat.

Same goes for the top.  Those braces are huge!  I'm going to make them a bit shorter and thinner.

Here's hoping that they are not too thin.  For the curious - here is Dana Bourgeois describing how and why you would want to do such a thing.  He explains it much better than me.

Soon...

Ukulele - Part 1

"No woodworking experience required."

Ukulele (pronounced "Ookulele" if you are from the 50th state) seems to be all the rage these days.
Think of this:  When I walked into my local Guitar Center last Christmas the first stringed instrument I saw was a Uke, not a guitar.

I'm not sure if  Zooey Deschanel or Eddie Vedder is to blame for making it popular again but it is.
I'm a fan of IZ Kamakawiwo'ole and I like anything made for making music - so I'm on board.

My lovely wife - knowing that I like building (and hoarding) guitars - thought this would be a fantastic Christmas gift.  And she was right.  I don't think I would have purchased a Uke on my own but build a Uke?  That sounds like fun (and I get a Uke at the end of it all).

StewMac (for those of you NOT playing the Luthier Home Game) is where all the guitar building things are sold.  They have the tools and the supplies to build pretty much anything with strings including build-it-yourself kits like the one above.

The caption on the picture above is a bit misleading.  No, you don't need much woodworking experience to build this kit.  But you do need a fair amount of woodworking tools.  StewMac sells what again?  Having said that -  I'm not even 1/3 of the way through this build and it's already one of my favorites.

Is it live or is it Memorex?

What you are looking at is what will become the inside of the guitar on the right and the brace template on the left.

The kit comes with all the parts you'll need already cut and sized.  You provide the glue and the clamps.  The kit also comes with detailed instructions, a template (see above) and most importantly "How-to" videos on their website.

Blast-Ended Skrewt?

This was a perfect project for me as I can build it at my kitchen counter without creating a big mess (Editor's note:  My definition of a "big mess" and my wife's definition don't seem to match).

I kid. She enjoyed watching me build this and even lent me some of her clamps.

Purple clothespins - Accept no substitutes.

In truth - you could possibly build this with just a couple of clamps and a bunch of clothespins (StewMac suggests this route) but since I have the clamps - I'm gonna use them.

In the above pics, I put some painters tape on the back of the guitar to catch the excess glue that squeezes out when you clamp on the braces.  Oh yeah!  The braces are to strengthen the back and top.  If they weren't there the guitar would implode the first time you string it up.

Sans tape

 About 5 minutes after I clamped the braces I removed the tape (don't wait until the glue is dried or the tape will become a permanent part of the instrument!).  It may be hard to see in the above pic but one of my braces moved a bit during the clamping process.  It shouldn't be a big deal (and you'll never see it) but watch for it if you try this at home.

Die Spitze

So, as much as I'm enjoying the "paint by numbers" aspect of building this Uke.  I can't leave it there.

Once all of the braces are dry I'm going to go back and shape (i.e. thin) them.  They are very thin braces but they are still a little too big for an instrument this small.  And the thinner braces should make the top sound a bit better.  Up next:  Building jigs and bending sides.