With the neck joints good and the top and back trimmed on both piccolos I set out to scrape them smooth. Turned out to be quite a challenge, and working with them under my nose I saw divots and small marks I hadn't seen before. And how do you round over edges without sandpaper? After giving it some thought I mixed up some new shellac and gave them a rather heavy wash coat each.
Rather heavy - I slathered it on, all over except for the lower but on the top. I'll get to that after glueing the bridges. Then when the shellac was good and dry I scraped it back with properly sharpened and burnished scrapers. Success, now they're smooth. A combination of sealing the grain and a minor pore fill, and cutting down any raised grain.
But rounding over the edges was still hard. I admit it, I almost caved and reached for some 180 grit...
Say hello to my little friend!
This does the trick.
Then it's time to slot for the frets. I always put shellac on the face of the neck before I do this so the only departure from protocol was coating the rest of the uke before this stage.
Since my piccolos are "island style" with frets directly in the neck I slot the necks with a hand saw and a very nifty jig I made.
The jig is on the uke in the back. The one in the vise is slotted. The jig is held in place with four pieces of 1.6 mm styrene rod that sits in holes drilled in the neck. After sawing I put a drop of glue in the holes and cut the rods flush and voilá, instant fret markers.
Last pic to give you an idea of the surface as of now. Goodnight!
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