Back bracing

Finished the back bracing on the tenor Ukulele. Cut and shaped the braces from a billet of spruce. The spline was made from the excess soundboard material.






Now on to finishing the Fox style side bender.

Tenor Ukulele

Cut out the rough shape for my Ukulele using a template I made from plywood and adding an extra bit of material around the outline. i also marked out my bracing and bridge plate.

Here is the top:


here is the back:


I also shaped the sides tapering from 3" to 2.5". I measure about 18" per side, so I added an extra 0.5".

Got distracted..... Now time for a Ukulele

So I decided I would start building a tenor Ukulele from scratch....
I picked up imbuia for the backs and sides:

http://www.taylorguitars.com/guitars/features/woods/images/imbuia_back.jpg

I picked up wood from RCTONEWOODS.com, and have begun work. The fretboard is fretted, and I finished jointing the back and top. I created a plexiglass template as well.

RCTonewoods.com





Here is my back made from imbuia, after jointing and gluing, in the jig I made to join them.



I found the build manual for a Uke kit from www.stewmac.com and am using the plans from that, with some modifications of my own.

Bridge mounting time

Tonight I installed the bridge. I used PVA glue, a Stewmac Bridgematic jig and a DIY bridge clamp.

First you measure the distance from the 12th fret to the nut:


Now flip the jig, and the little pointers at the end lineup with the front end of the saddle slot:



bridge located and end 2 holes drilled:



DIY clamp for the bridge:


Under the clamp

Frets, Dressing, leveling and crowning

The frets are all hammered in.... so it's now up tp me to make them nice.
First I flush cut the fret ends.

I then took a bastard fie and filed flush the fret end nubs that were still sticking out. The file cut the fret ends great, and did not even scratch the fingerboard. Awesome.

Next I created a 20" radius sanding block, and cut a 30 degree angle into it. I slid the bastard file into the block and used that to create a 30 degree angle on the fret ends. came out super. Also of note, I had to hacksaw off the handle for this file.

From Acoustic Guitar

I improved the tool:




Next I put 220 grit sand paper on the 20" radius block and started leveling the frets.

I am still waiting for my fret crowning file to coe in. It is on 2 week backorder. I will also need to get a fret dressing file to nicely dress the fret ends.

I will update this post with photos next week.

Headstock and frets

So here you can see some shots of the mostly finished headstock with the tuning machines installed. Everything is sanded nicely, I do need to wipe off the dust though. The nut is installed, but not slotted to the correct depth yet. About 1/3 of the frets are installed and I am now obsessing on which fret files to get....... way too many choices.

Inlay

I added a nice shape to the headstock. This can be seen in the photo below. A attached 80 grit sand paper to the outside of my PVA glue botle and used this to sand the profile after rough cutting on my band saw. I also made the inside part of a circle using a hole saw and attached 80 grit to that as well to use to help sand the profile. See the profile below.

So I bought some inlay from www.luthiersupply.com. It is a 1" circle made of mother of pearl, with an abalone circle and the letter S.





I started by crazy gluing the inlay on the headstock. I then used and exacto knife to trace the outline of the 1" circle. I routed this out using my Dremel in the Dremel router-base using a 1/8" spiral downcut bit.

After checking out the depth of the routed circle I dry fit the inlay. looks great. I then used 90 min black 2 part epoxy to adhere the inlay. This helped hide any imperfections in the routed circle. I used 80 grit, then 120, and so on attached to a sanding block to remove the epoxy and make everything flush.