This year’s exile chores

Well I got to the rickety cottage 350 km south of Stöckhölm, and with me I have the three ukes from the bench. A mad dash on Monday means I am at the finishing stage of all three, so I brought the shellac kit, some scrapers and also a couple of fret files. 

The ukes all fit in the weird bow case I found at a thrift store, behind them on the table are my wee bass from Tinguitar and the much loved shruti box. 

The first coat of shellac on the mahogany soprano. This never gets old. Never. 



And here it was last night, hung to dry. 



Quite late at night I started to level the frets on the reso. The daylight was almost entirely gone and the electricity in this cottage is a hot mess so I started by the light of a candle. 



When it came to crowning and rounding off the ends I had upgraded to three candles. It went ok I thought and was quite relieved this morning when I could confirm that. Both the three corner crowning file and the end dressing file come from Stewmac. A lot can be said of their pricing but I couldn’t do what I do without their tools. 



And then it’s coat after coat of shellac. I’m at four now and tomorrow I’ll give them a quick rubdown with steel wool and start to polish them with walnut oil on the muneca. That will build the finish quickly but I’ve come to the conclusion that I need a few coats on the wood before the oil comes.