Life sign from the workshop

Man alive the day job did a number on me and my time spent in the shop. Suddenly it was mud August and I had to start commuting to town and also some rather strange places abroad. 

I was surprised when I started on this uke by how many things I did remember when it came to techniques and methods, but I seem to have lost some of my touch when it comes to finishing. I have been struggling a bit with the French polishing, and I still need a few more coats before I can move on to buffing it out. 

That said, it does look rather nice wouldn’t you say. 

Starting finishing

Hell-o, now there will be a few posts showing the equivalent of paint drying. I started out with a few coats of shellac brushed on with a soft brush, then with that as a base I continued with the polishing process. 

(The book in the photo is a very good read but serves mostly as a prop to boost my credibility.)

French polishing is a wonderful process and at the same time a rather intimidating rabbit hole. I have developed a technique that I think works for me, but question it constantly. Mostly because of the amount of shellac, everything I’ve read measures the shellac in drops to be applied to the muneca, I tend to use a bit more. But as I said, it works. 

Fretboard pt. 2

I am lagging behind a bit in reporting the progress, all these pics are a few days old but what can one do. 

First pic is me laying out positions for some holes, using a very nice pair of dividers with a split nut. You need a few of these, trust me. The rule is just to keep the lines straight. 

Then over to the miniscule drill press, a Proxxon. So much better than a Dremel I hesitate to even compare them, but the latter has an industry standard thread at the front, allowing different adapters to be used. 

But what’s it for? For storing frets. I will cut the tangs back a bit, the weather’s warm and a bit humid so I foresee the fretboard shrinking a bit in the future. And then it’ll be much easier to knock back the ends if the tangs aren’t protruding. All this means I need to keep the frets sorted by length. 

Somehow (I know how) I missed taking a pic of actually cutting the tangs with my Stewmac fret nipper, but I’ll show that next time. Next pic shows me clamping a fret in using my version of a Jaws press. 

And once again aligning the board with rulers…

… before clamping it in place.