Best selling wood projects - Making A Boat Paddle Tenor Ukulele Part 5 Catching Up

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Oh my, where has all this time disappeared to?
So much to do around here and the ukulele build has been on the back-burner.
Our home is a large log cabin construction with a fully painted exterior.  The LOML, in her spring cleaning mode, started an outside spruce-up that turned into a full exterior house clean. A huge job!

We last painted the exterior in 1996-97..............
You can see whats coming...............  Now that it is clean lets re-paint, she said.  OK, I replied.  I really love painting .............. hahaha

 (this male king parrot landed on my painting trestle)

Soooooo ........... guess what has occupied my leisure hours of late - we have been painting, and painting and painting ...............

Oh, there was also the rehearsals for the concert by the Tele Point Ukes and Singers.......................

.............and the concert itself..................

trips to Young.................

.............. and Sydney - and my sons engagement to wonderful Edwina .............

........the party ..............

........... gardening .........

................. lots of gardening .........

...... babysitting ............... lots of babysitting ............

............ end of year parties and wrap-up dinners, as well as.........
..........school concerts .................

(......everybody was Kung-Fu fighting ......................)

.................. and woodwork........... well, bits and pieces.
I have found some time to cut and shape the gusset blocks for the ukulele body as well as lay out the fretboard and make a start on the neck.
Ill get back to that in my next post.

Soooooo ........ we are back up to speed.
 Every blessing to you and yours for this season of Xmouse.
May you find some peace...... and in doing so, add a little more joy to the world.

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Best selling wood projects - Building a Ukulele Part 4 Moulds and Jigs

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These are a necessary part of any ukulele build and the time taken to prepare then is returned multi-fold down the track.
I have used an outline from the LOMLs tenor ukulele body.  That particular uke has such a sweet sound - lets hope this one is as good.

The body mould is made from laminated scraps of MDF and particleboard, while the interior retainers are simply radiata pine with cable tensioners used as expanders.  The mould is made in two pieces so that the body can be removed when complete.

The neck brace is made up of some 4"X2" radiata pine scraps that will be held in the bench vice in use.  It has a sliding headstock support, made from an offcut from this neck and some scraps that have been glued together. 

A sliding bolt anchors this in any position to suit the length of the neck being worked on. 
This ukulele neck is a tenor - a concert and soprano have shorter necks, and a baritone neck is longer. 
This jig will support them all.

The back braces have to be formed on a radius of 15 feet, so a sanding block - cut to this profile - is necessary.  A 15 feet length of string and a pencil are all that are needed to mark this out.

After marking it out and rough cutting, it needs smoothing.  What better than a compass plane to finish this off.  Here I am using a Record 020, which has a sole that can be adjusted to the required curve.  Planing has to take place from the ends to the middle - to avoid tearout.  This planes with the grain, and not against it.

I was hoping to have the soundboard made, but I took my newly made rosette cutter across to The Hastings Woodworkers Guild Clubroom on Saturday, and foolishly left it there.

So I have had to make myself busy on other aspects of the Uke build until I retrieve it.  Its over an hours drive, so Im going to leave it there until next time I visit.

Tomorrow, Ill start cutting out the sides and the end blocks, as well as forming up the back braces and gluing up the  the back.

The back and sides are sassafras, and the soundboard will be western red cedar.
Tomorrow will be busy.

Happy woodworking to all ................ and ........................
May your life sing ....................


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Best selling wood projects - Making A Boat Paddle Tenor Ukulele Part 4 Sides Bending and Fixing in Place

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Bending the Sides to Shape

I use a small bending iron and an atomiser spray.
 

 

The heat from the iron and the sprayed on water act to steam the timber making it soft and pliable.

 Mango is surprisingly easy to bend and it took far less time than the sassafrass of my first uke.

Assembly

The scrap pieces that were cut from the mould now come into play as clamps - holding the sides until dry.

I have positioned the end block in place with a mark down its centre line to keep it correctly positioned.  This will later be glued and clamped.

The waste-clamps are expanded by using nothing more than an expanding toggle, normally used for tensioning wire.  The top shaping blocks are forced apart with nothing more than a simple wedge - see below.

The end block is made from a small piece of Australian cedar - light but strong and with good acoustic properties.  It has been radiused to the same curve as the body at this point.

The two sides meet at the bottom of the body and are held in place by the glued end block.  As you can see, the two sides dont quite meet at the centre line.  I stressed about this in my first uke for a day or more but was never able to establish a clean middle join.
I dont worry about it now, and after the glue dries I will cut a wedge shape exactly in the middle and insert a decorative piece of African blackwood as a feature.

These two pieces will meet at a corner - a potential weak point in the body.  I have decided to strengthen the corner and eliminate the weak join with a small gusset that will also show through as a feature.  African blackwood again. This will come a little later.

Ill glue in the end blocks one at a time. Here, the bottom end block is glued into place.  The top block will come later on and it will have a mortice cut into it to house the tenon on the end of the neck.
Things are taking shape nicely.

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Best selling wood projects - Building a Ukulele Part 5A Backs and Necks Continued

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A few more steps before the back is finished.  Firstly the bracing needs thinning down to reduce weight, and hopefully improve the sound.

I use a Stanley 102 block plane, which suits this task very well, as it has curved sides.  A straight sided block plane would put undue pressure on the already curved back and may cause cracking.  The little wood block is used as a side support for the brace while planing.

Lie Nielsen claim that the tiny violin plane was based on the Stanley 101, but I think that it more closely resembles the 102 - which is itself a small block plane.  The 102 is one of the simplest of all planes with no adjuster, yet it works like a charm.

You can see the similarities here.

Once the bracing has been shaped to an appropriate profile, it is time to pare off the ends - to create a smoother interface with the sides, and to fit into the linings.

Traditionally, this has been done with a paring chisel, and the ends are scalloped in a rounded taper.

I used a long handled Japanese paring chisel as it gives more control in this situation.




The ukulele back is rounded from the application of the curved bracing, so the edges need some support while paring.

An offcut from the neck serves well here.

Here is the near finished back showing both sides.

It will sit on the body which is slowly taking shape.
I have bent one of the sides, and it is sitting in the mould, drying, while I work on the neck. The bending was a tortuously slow process of heating, bending a little, heating some more, bending a little more - and trying it on the curve of the mould - repeat over and over - ad infinitum.

It took me a full morning to form up that one side.

The Neck
Now to put the finishing touches to the neck.   I was dreading this, thinking that I would either utterly destroy it, or end up with something resembling an Irishmans buckthorn shillelagh.
Happily, it went well, and I am pleased with the result.

After rough shaping with coarse and fine rasps, I started on coarse sandpaper - 80 grit in this case.

I then worked my way through four more grades of sandpaper - from coarse 120 grit up via 180 and 220 to finish on 320 grit.
There were still some parts that were a little rough and needed the attention of a scraper.

Here it is near finished.
While it doesnt resemble those immaculate CNC creations that grace commercial ukes, it isnt too shabby either.
I have glued a piece of eucalypt burl veneer - with a similar colour to rosewood - to the face side of the headstock.  It should dry overnight.
Ill cut it to shape tomorrow after it dries.

All in all, not a bad days work.

I am beginning to wonder why ukuleles dont cost around $1000 each, given what I am finding has to go into their construction.

Next step will be part two of the body - I am getting the bends just thinking about it ..........

Love life and live ..................



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Best selling wood projects - Plan 6 Ornamental Garden Wheelbarrow

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This particular wheelbarrow is an ornamental, decorative planter box and is also fully functional and can be wheeled from place to place.
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