OLF Challenge Ukulele

[TonyinNYC]

I routed my rosette channel and then popped the pearl pieces in.
Pics:




Thanks for looking.
Tony

[TonyinNYC]

I glued on some braces tonight and the bridge patch. I don't know if I will add any more braces or not. I think maybe a tone bar or two. Time will tell.
Braces were cut from scrap spruce brace material. I don't know if I should assign a value or not. I'm supposed to stick to a $150 budget for this as a part of the competition. The brace block was $5.00 and was supposed to be enough for one guitar. These are the left overs and a piece of a sound board cut off for the bridge patch.
Pics:





Tony

[TonyinNYC]

I did some stuff. Cut some pieces off of the neck blank I had to make a stacked heel.


Then I glued it up:


Then I glued on the two tone bars I plan on using. I cut them so they would not touch the bridge patch. Why? I don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time.


I am using a one piece back for this ukulele but the orphan back plate I had was about 3/8ths too narrow. I probably could have covered the shortfall with binding and purfling, but I don't want to take the chance that it would not, so I added wings.


I quickly realized I made the heel stack too big and that means I will have to cut it down quite a bit. That is better than making it too small I guess. Next up, a scarf joint for the headstock. But not for a little while.

[TonyinNYC]

I did some things that resulted in some progress with my ukulele.
I cut a piece of the sound board to make a peg head veneer. Here you can see me holding the sound board up to the peg head to see if it fits. It pretty much does.


Then I shaped the back braces using a $6.00 plane I bought when I built my first guitar. It works great for this task.


Then I glued on the back. My cat likes to be nearby at all times when I'm in the house. He has a big tumor in his hind leg and wont be around for too much longer. My cousin, whom this uke is for, had to put her cat to sleep recently, so I will be incorporating a cat into this uke in honor of her cat and my cat who will probably be dead by the time I finish this ukulele.


I also finished shaping the neck, but I didn't take many pics of that process. I only took one actually. Here it is:


That's all for now.

[TonyinNYC]

I got the box closed a couple of nights ago and flushed up the back plate. It is a three piece back with a wide center section little tiny wings at the lower bout. I'm not even sure the wings made it after I trimmed the overhang.


Then I set up to thin the binding. I chose some cocobolo I got for free from Lespaul123 a while ago. He sent it when we did a wood swap as a bonus gift. Good guy.


Please take note of my fancy set up:


After several unsuccessful attempts, I have decided to go in another direction. Black ABS from Stew Mac. Yup. My first time using plastic. That will add $11.68 to my total. Oh well. At least I still have room in by budget if I decide to change my mind and get more wood. I am now at $66.22.


Tony

[TonyinNYC]

My KMG binding channel routing jig is too deep to use on this uke in the same manner in which I use it on a guitar. Normally, I put the box in the mold and use spacers to hold it up high enough to rout for bindings and purfling. The uke is too thin so I needed to come up with some other method. I ended up clamping it in my bench vise. Pic:


I decided things were going too smoothly so I threw in a little screw up and held the router in the correct position for cutting purfling channels. Only I wasnt cutting purfling channels, I was cutting binding channels. I was not planning on putting purfling on this thing. Please note the screw up by the neck block.
Pic:


I think I can fix this and tie it into the cat thing. Stay tuned.

[TonyinNYC]

Well I put the binding on. Not totally happy with how the repair came out so I may do something else, but for now, here is a pic:


Not sure what to do now. I am going to give the repair some more thought.