Traveller finished

Nah, let’s get this over with shall we. A quick and ultimately quite futile attempt at clearing the bench, and a felt mat cast out over the debris, and we’re good to go. Strings, pegs, carbon fibre tube, and the wee tool box - all is there. 

The pegs are staggered in length. I mark the first one and cut it with a tiny saw. 



I round over the end with a file, then drill the string hole with a 1.5 mm drill in a pin vise. The wedge in the pic is only there to protect the bottom of the soundboard. 



And after all of them have been cut, filed and drilled through, I make the countersinks with a small ball router bit. Details like this are super important. I didn’t do this on my first ukes, they were a bit crude. I blame my eagerness, I wanted to be done with them as quickly as possible. 



I insert the strings from the face of the fretboard, tie the knots and pull them tightly into the countersunk holes. 

And here it is. A fugly traveller of a single piece of walnut. The pegs are spaced a bit too close to each other but it works for someone as ham-fisted as me. 



From the back you see the reason for the carbon fibre tube, it alleviates the risk of the strings breaking in the holes through the thin soundboard. The pegs are angled to get closer to 90 degrees to the strings. And staggered to not interfere with the next string. 



Number 117. Up for grabs!