Solera insert

Well the plan is to make a building board with space for different thin soleras, one for each size. Here you can see the tenor one being dished with planes and scrapers.

Being immensely clever

I've finally made new perspex templates, and here you can see me tracing the contour. Not just once, but twice. To offset the line 5 mm I let the pencil go in a washer of suitable dimension.

You'll see where all this leads soon.

Backs are on, merry christmas

Both concerts got a one piece back, which is now trimmed flush to the sides. Tomorrow I'll try to sand a bit and choose wood for the fretboards.

New radius dish, part II

And hey presto, it's done. Apart from the obvious need to cut the base board to shape, but I can't run the bandsaw this late because of the neighbours. A few blobs of thick construction glue spread on and between the small blocks will secure it and make it even more rigid.

And the best things about it; no dust! No noise! No cumbersome sled jig for the lethal router! I'm so happy.

New radius dish, part I

I got tired of my old dish that I routed out of solid MDF ages ago. So I decided to have a go at this method that I learned at Ukulele Underground. A 3 mm board will be forced down onto circles of small blocks, going from 2 to 6 mm. The distances and heights were worked out in Autocad.

The radius I chose for the dish is 2500 mm.

Glueing done

All joints are done. The tape method is swell, and fast.

New jig project

These are thin pieces of basswood, 5 mm. I glue them together with the tape method which seems to work great.

A lot of pieces will be joined, the result should be stunning (well, if everything goes according to my rather dim plan).

Back braces on the concerts

I do it this way, but I know most builders glue the braces on the back first. I find this way lets me make sure all the measurements are correct and the sides are parallell.

These two are among my cleanest builds yet, I'm very anxious to hear what they will sound like.

Necks attached

I think the pair of them looks reet nice. Next up; back braces and then the back.

Drilling

Hey, this was an unexpected bonus. I just flipped the whole setup and clamped the perspex strip in my Zyliss vise.

In the pic you can see the angle attachment I have for my Proxxon drill. It's as small and versatile as a Dremel, but far superior in quality. The angle attachment makes a loud noise but is essential when I do this.

The procedure is a bit different from the one I use for the piccolos, you should be able to find that in earlier posts.

Aligning neck

Prior to drilling from the inside of the body, I make sure the neck is straight and that the surfaces are flush. This is a new fangled method, using some perspex. We'll soon see how it works.

The hole for the barrel nut is made already.