Carving a fugly traveller

Last night when I wrote the post about the electric guitar I closed by promising a uke soon. Well it’s been 12 hours and here we are. I picked up a travel uke blank from last summer, this one is of very nice cherry wood. I had left the soundboard fairly thick with the intention of planing it down to thickness from the upper side. But that has proven to be very difficult since it flexes down and ends up thin around the edges and thick in the middle. Ask me how I know. I ruined a very fine ash blank that way. 

Instead I continue from the inside, with a spear point blade in my router plane. This blade comes from Lee Valley / Veritas and was ready to put to use. Very sharp and fit perfectly in my old Record router plane. 



After a short while I was at 1.8 mm. Some scraping on borh sides took it down a tad more and I’m happy with the sound I get when I tap and scratch it with my finger. 



Then I created an entry point with a two handled knife. This gives you an extraordinary amount of control and power. The laminated blade takes a fine edge too. 



With the entry point in place I switch to spokeshaves. The metal one in the pic is good for stock removal, the wee wooden one on the bench is better for finer cuts. 



Blending between two surfaces  with a small sloyd knife, from Morakniv line the one with two handles. 



I literally didn’t move a step while carving this. And it took me about 30 minutes.