Mock-up fitting

The cherry reso is moving forward, I'm really pleased with the neck.

The cedar top soprano is bound. I won't say the binding is everything I hoped it would be. But other than that I think it has great potential.

A tough neck to carve

I found a neck blank I made some time ago and I'll use it for the soprano. It's a bookmatched mahogany neck with some really good looking grain in the headstock.

But it was really hard to carve. I usually go directly from knives to 180 grit sandpaper, but this wood wanted to splinter and tear so I had to make the final shaping starting with 40 grit. That's as coarse as asphalt.

But, as so often the case is with ukuleles, it turned out nice again.

Episode IV, a new hope

Well. Some things at the Argapa stronghold have been a tiny bit below par this year. I have built a couple of ukes that I wasn't completely satisfied with. Both are still here.

Others have turned out really really good. But I need to think about my routines.

So for the upcoming season I promise myself not to build when I'm not in a good mood. I'll not build for others than I want to. I'll make sure to finish stuff I've started ages ago.

This week I upgraded the workshop / workbench by mounting the solera on the wall, and the go-bar deck is stabilized by hooks that the threaded rods go through when they're attached to the board. It made a big difference.

The solera-free workbench is also secured to the two walls in its corner, so it won't rock when I plane stuff.


And on to the pics then - on the solera is the first soprano with a one-piece rim, it'll be a cedar top mahogany uke with binding around the soundboard. (I tell you about it so I can't chicken out of binding it.) The uke is the first in a long time that isn't ordered, I just felt like building a soprano with a softwood top.

If it's any good I'll put it up for sale. (If the binding's good that is...)

And in the other pic, you can see a resonator! I got cones and coverplates from Chickenbone John in England. The first one I finish will go to Arizona, Brian has helped me out for years now.

But the coverplates have those holes for the strings, I'll probably make a stringholder across them to save the nylon strings from snapping.

Stay tuned, I can promise all of you that some great ukes will be made now!

Knew tool!

I found a bloke in Sweden who sells Knew saws, and Veritas tools! I've bought stuff directly from Lee Valley / Veritas before and it's really no trouble at all, but it is simpler to see the sum in kronor, taxes included.

So I bought a Knew saw that I have wanted a long time. Took tjis pic to show what good results a 7-year old and a 10-year old achieved with just a little help.

Worth every krona. Thanks Knew Concepts, and www.hyvlar.se