Fretboards and bandsaw woes

I brought some special pieces to the larger workshop by the cottage to resaw them into fretboard blanks on the bandsaw. 

First piece was this, a floor board sample from a shop in Buenos Aires, pilfed on a work trip a few yeara back. It says ”lapacho” on it, which I gather is another name for ipe. It’s an insanely dense and hard species. 

This is the profile it had, as it was a floor board cut off. 



But what now?! The dried out old belt on the bandsaw decided it had had enough. It snapped and I was yet again up shit creek without a paddle. Finding and ordering a new one would take me ages. 



Luckily I had string and duct tape. I made a loop with some 15 turns and put the tape on so it wouldn’t separate. It works! If anything it runs smoother now. 



So here we are, three fretboard blanks and a cut off for bridges. Onwards, let’s resaw the ebony!



Ok. I got three blanks sliced off before there was a clunk, a sproing, and a sudden appearance of a wheel tyre on the sawtable. Now finding and ordering new ones will take me ages, I wonder if I have some self vulcanizing tape somewhere...

Back braces on soprano

I make my backs differently from most builders. Rather than bracing the back and glueing it on I mount the braces first and then the back plate. 

I needed some bracing stock with the right grain direction so I chose this piece of square section spruce with a tight grain structure. Using the Pax rip saw I split it into three triangular pieces. 

Rip sawing is very satisfying. 

Here they are, before I refined them with a plane. I made a planing jig to hold them, I’ll post a pic next time I use it. 



I arch my backs. The rim is already planed down to match a spherical radius dish, and after glueing in the kerfed lining strips I take the whole assembly to the dish. It’s clad with sandpaper and makes everything match the same curve. 

The braces are planed to the curve and finished in the dish, the pic shows me rubbing a pencil on the curved edge so I can see the progress during sanding. 



Using a wee saw I make notches in the lining to accept the braces. The notches goes in a kerf so the remaining pieces are equally big and offer support. That’s why the back braces of an Argapa can be slightly slanted. I’m sure many of you have noticed and wondered about that. 



The first brace is glued and clamped with my small Japanese bar clamp. 



And here’s the back of the resonator. The scribbled words on there shows my planning skillz. 

Neck work

I’ve spent some time with the necks. The reso gets the alder neck I found in that lump of wood from a few posts back. The mahogany soprano gets a mahogany neck, natch. 

In the first pic you can see me using my Japanese kiridashi carving knife. It is insanely sharp, provided I take care of it. 

Attacking the mahogany neck blank with my Pax rip saw. I really enjoy using the right tool for the job. Roughing out the neck blank is much faster with a coarse saw, no marks will remain for long anyway so why waste time with a smaller saw. 



I found some rasps I bought a while back so I used one of them for the entry point. I saved a bit more of the heel this time, it’ll form a nice curve. 



After making an exit point at the nut end I shift to the wee spokeshave to make the profile. 

I spent more time and used more tools. But didn’t take any more pics. Sorry about that. 



And look at this. Both ukes have their necks on. The reso uses a bolt on system with a machine screw and barrel bolt, the soprano has my new fangled method with a cross grain dowel.