Best selling wood projects - Building a Ukulele Part 7 Body Assembly

Best selling wood projects

The various parts are sloooooowly coming together - a right shoulder injury is hampering my activities mightily at the moment.  It is taaaking .... sooo ...... looong to get the smallest tasks completed.

Serendipitously, it gives me an even greater appreciation of the courage and abilities of the competing para-olympians.  I really admire those athletes! Two weeks to go - bring it on!

OK, here are the bits.
Lets have a go at putting things together.

The body has had an embellishment added to the toe - in the form of the same burl veneer as the headboard.  Two reasons for this - to tart it up a bit, and provide a little balance in the design - and the second reason is to cover a badly matched join where the two sides met.

By making it wedge shaped, the filler piece can be cut oversize, slid into place and glued - then the top and bottom trimmed off.  Looks OK I think.

Ill be fitting the back first, so the back linings are attached.

Linings for the back are glued in place - hooray for clothes pegs!

Here are the back linings after drying.
Ill have to attach the neck before the top goes on, to give me room to clamp the neck tenon in place.

Ill fit and glue the back next, as the design of my neck means it has to be attached from the top, and the fretboard over the top of the soundboard.  Do these later.

I hoped to have more done than this, but ...... life intervenes .............
.... the shoulder, doc - the shoulder ...................owwwch!

Until next time ................

Love life and live ..........
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Best selling wood projects - Building a Ukulele Part 8 Neck Fretboard and Bridge

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Righteeeooho - here we go ho ................
The neck glue-up passed without incident, and it is now ready to accept the fretboard.

The scale on my tenor ukulele is 17 inches.  This determines the distance between the edge of the nut and the peak (break line) of the saddle.

With the soundboard temporarily in place, I can measure for the position of the bridge that carries the saddle.  I do this before gluing the top onto the body, so that I have some room to clamp the bridge during its glue-up fitting.  Too hard to do this after the top is fixed to the body.

There will probably be glue squeeze out during this, so I mask off the area around the bridge with tape. This also acts as a good locator for the position of the bridge which is bound to slide around a bit on the glue.

Once done, the soundboard and bridge can be set aside to dry while I mark out the fretboard.

The positioning of the frets is critical, and the good folks over at Stewart MacDonald have provided a free-use fret position calculator - mucho gratias my friends.

Armed with a printout of my 17 inch scale for 18 frets, I am good to go.
These have to be marked on the squared fretboard before tapering it, so that the fret positions are easily done with a try square. It is more accurate to use a marking knife for the fret marking, as it minimises the inaccuracies of pencil thickness.

The fret positions should all be marked from the edge of the nut, and not marked in increments from the previous fret mark.  Doing it the second way only multiplies any inaccuracy with every fret mark.
So, the ruler is clamped to the fretboard and all marks laid out before scribing them.  I have carefully ticked off all the fret marks as I go, to ensure I didnt miss any.

 
Ill cut them next, before tapering the fretboard to suit the neck that I have already built.

Now, the fretwires themselves have a very narrow seat, and so a very narrow-kerfed bladed saw is needed.  I tried several of my saws, before finding that my Veritas dovetail saw is just about perfect - narrow kerf, and very little set on the teeth.  It is a rip saw of course, designed for cutting dovetails along the grain, but serves very nicely as a crosscut saw in this instance.

 To help with the saw cuts and to keep them on track, I made up a little square saw guide.
Works a treat.


Got to wait a little, while glue dries.
Next time, Ill attach the top - and after that sets, Ill fix the fretboard.
Nearly finished - yippee ....................
Still got some time left for some strummin practice -
Uke group night tonight - FUN!

Love life and live .........................
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Best selling wood projects - Building a Ukulele Part 7A Body Assembly continued

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Yes, I know, glaciers move faster than this, yet things are happening.

Somewhere under all those clamps is the back of the ukulele attached to the body, which is held in the mould.  Use your imagination.

 

Here it is after the glue has dried - and before the edges are trimmed off.  As you can see, I have given the inside of the back a couple of coats of shellac to seal it. 

I will do the same for the inside of the top, and the interior of the body, before the top is fitted.  

I am hoping that by sealing both sides of the timber, I wont have as many issues with seasonal  timber movement.

Here is the back in all its glory - after trimming the edges.
Things are starting to look encouraging.

The linings for the top are attached in the same way as those on the bottom - good old clothes pegs!
Here, I am planing the linings level with the sides.  The top is flat, and I dont want any sticky-uppy bits in the lining to spoil it.
Some parts of the lining drifted upwards on the slipperiness of the glue before drying - no problem, easy fixed with the Lie Nielsen 101 small block plane.  This is such a good sized plane for this job, when even a regular block plane would be too large.

OK, the neck has to be fitted before the top goes on, so that I can get clamping room - to hold it while it dries.  The second reason is simply that the top gets glued over the heel block, and the neck tenon.
Here is a trial fitting.
That little piece of raised tenon has to be removed, while the neck is raised to the level of the finished top.  This is important, because the fretboard is glued on top of both - and they must be in the same plane.

Next step will be to glue the neck in position, before adding the top.
Starting to get exciting, isnt it!

Thats all for now, the glacier needs to rest.
Love life and live ...............
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Best selling wood projects - Building a Ukulele Part 9 Body Fretboard and Finish

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Things are coming together nicely now.
The top is glued in place, and I have finished the trimming around the edges.

The body is assembled, the bridge attached and the fretboard taking shape and ready to glue to the neck.

Here is a trial fitting of the unformed fretboard before shaping.
 

Shaping is easily done with a block plane.  This is my Stanley number 18.

 Here it is after shaping, in a trial fitting.
I will finish the dot markers and fretwires before gluing this to the neck and body.

 In a moment of vanity, before the top was glued in place,  I decided to label my ukulele - and I have a notion of building more - so I gave myself a brand name - Riverside Ukuleles.
Seems appropriate for the Village of Telegraph Point, as we sit right beside the Wilson River.

After installing the mother of pearl dot markers and the side markers, the fretwires will be on and the fretboard ready to go.
I have found a very cheap and plentiful supply of side fret markers from the local markets - old knitting needles.  Just the right size and they can be cut to button length easily.

I am going to attempt a shellac finish on the soundboard and the body, and the old hands at the Hastings Woodworkers Guild tell me it will take many, many coats.

The western red cedar top is quite soft and needs hardening for protection, so I am hoping that the shellac finish will be appropriate.  Before this, I will tape the bridge and the end of the neck to protect them from over spatter, and fill the sound hole for the same reason.

Enough for the moment.
More next time .......

And happy woodworking to all ...........................
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