Scraped!

And my first scraping away of the finish is done! Hopefully the rest of the process is as simple, then the uke is sort of complete.

Cutting tape

Tape is removed from where the bridge goes.

Placing bridge

Hopfully the shellac won't be ruined by the masking tape.

French polishing cont.

It's time consuming, but I'm getting closer. Look at that curl.

To learn about french polishing, check out milburnguitar.com. Or milburnguitars. They have an excellent tutorial, as I tried to tell them in an email. But the address was faulty.

Anyone knows how to contact them, tell me pls.

Polished and strung up

At least the two new piccolos are strung up. They have a good sheen from the shellac finish, but getting a good surface near the bridge is damn hard. So the pineapple is finished without bridge, and I'll have to scrape it away before glueing the bridge.

This is standard procedure for most builders, but it's a first for me.

The hinoki soundboard has revealed cross grain curl, and it's gonna be beautiful.

Bound!

Not bad for a first attempt I think. The contrasting edge did reveal a slight irregularity in the shape though, one I didn't see before. But you can't get it all at once. At least it seems I can't.

Routing for binding..!

A spitcoat of shellac around the edges, and away we go. I've already made the part at the neck since I mount the neck before the back. I could put the back on (as I planned) before routing, but it feels stable enough. And I want to tune the top a bit before boxing up.

This might be the last you see of this uke. Routing is scary.

A pineapple for Michelle

Michelle in California found me on the internetz, and ordered a pineapple from me. She's been on the waiting list a while but this morning I started. I had walnut and some Hinoki for the top, and I ran it through the thickness sander at 10 o'clock. Then I bent the one piece rim and braced the soundboard. Blocks were glued and linings installed. Then I roughly carved the laminated neck and glued the top. I have now profiled the rim and take a break for putting Li to bed. Four hours effective building so far, and drying time for the glue. As you gather by now, I amaze myself.