Demo of number 68

I haven't any new grainy pics from a cluttered workshop, I'm in Palestine on a work trip and far away from making any progress on the current builds.

Two bits of good news however; today we probably landed a great deal regarding new premises for the Swedish embassy, and this evening I saw this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHtK4l8JSVY&feature=youtu.be

Don Monteleone's piccolo done

I'll just leave the pics to say it I think. Mostly great, some dings and gouge marks but mostly great. 

Final construction steps on mr. Monteleone's piccolo

Some rather interesting procedures have been made, without blog posts. And even worse, not all is photographed!

But today I will show you a few things. First is the piece of ebony in which I inlaid a star of mother-of-pearl. I made the five pieces first, with my Knew concepts fret saw. An excellent tool, there's a post about it somewhere around here. Then I scribed the contours on the ebony and routed most of the cavities with my Proxxon drill and its coordinate table, and since it was held there rock solid I left it there as I glued in the MOP and levelled it all. 

Then I sawed out the round disc which was inlaid into the headstock. This proved quite dramatic as the glue stuck to a caul and a couple of splinters got torn out of the ebony. I won't go about it the same way next time, and I've gotten great advice from a couple of master builders. 

The fretboard was fretted and glued on yesterday. In the next pics you'll see me sneaking the neck contour up against the edge of the fretboard. Li took the pics! She knows a good shaving now from a poor one. 

Then we move on to the bridge! I made a really sweet small ebony bridge and the last pics show the preparation and then glueing. 

Now I'll start another piccolo I think, but a standard model of cherry. 

Wrapping up

Well there's a couple of days left of 2013 and I won't make progress around New Year's eve. But today I fitted the back braces and glued the back on Patsy's piccolo, and gave the resos a few glaze coats. In a few days I'll fit the hardware on them!

Merry Christmas

A great big thank you to all of my readers, regulars and occasional. 2013 wasn't the most productive of years, fewer ukes and not as many blog posts. I've started making the posts a bit longer though, a new app makes it easier to fit more images in each. 

And the ukes I've shipped have been better and more consistent. I have become better at french polishing and better at using hand tools such as planes and my big rip saw. I've gathered more material, some reclaimed historic wood and some koa and other species. 

Before I show you today's pics I must say that I miss my dear friend Brian Newman who passed away much too soon this summer. I will miss him and his wonderfully mean comments on this blog. This spring I will repair a tenor guitar that he gave me. 

Okay, on to this morning's going-ons; I put the kerfed lining strips in Patsy's uke last night, so today I planed them down to be level with the sides. Oh and the neck's in place, must've missed that particular Kodak moment. 

And here are the resos. I wet-sanded them yesterday to level the shellac and now they await the final "glaze coats". This is a challenge. I've yet to finish the french polishing process without resorting to a bit of buffing with a rubbing compound but this time I aim for a by the book finish. 

Merry christmas and I actually wish all of you a great new year! 

Sven

Facing my fears of binding

A few Argapa ukes have been bound. I think binding is needed around a softwood top such as spruce or cedar, but avoid using it as a decorative element  on for example koa, cherry or mahogany instruments. 

This is only because I think it's so damn difficult. 

So this afternoon as I was getting ready to fit the neck on Patsy's piccolo I had this feeling that I'd forgotten something. Of course, I promised myself to bind the spruce top. 

Out with the router and a couple of wooden strips I had kicking around. I use the tiny Stewmac router adapter for archtop instruments. It's fiddly andhard to use but a more dedicated router setup hasn't been needed this far. 

And here's why I post this (apart from vanity). To bend the strips more easily I taped them together with brown artist's tape so they'd get support from each other and be bent in the same way, to start with. 

And I found that the tape helped the strips from cracking! Here's the strips. 

The tape is on the outside of the bouts and the inside of the waist. I'm not sure if it was purely mechanical support or if the cellulose glue on the tape wicked into the wood, but in any case the tape kept the moisture in the strips and they didn't crack. I'm so happy. 

After both were bent to fit one side I sliced the tape apart and adjusted one to fit the other side. This involved some pretty hard work, the uke wasn't totally symmetrical. 

Then I glued them with regular Titebond glue. Superglue is so messy and I didn't want to attach bits of finger. The back isn't on yet so I stuffed the body with blocks of wood and wedges so it wouldn't collapse. So far it looks good but I won't get my hopes to high up - I have had binding looking so bad after glueing I had to route it off and start over. 

Carving a neck

Once more, I'll rant about neck carving. It is (I think) my favourite stage in a build. I've gotten a bit too fast for my own liking though - it's over almost as soon as it's begun. 

So tonight I worked really slowly and tried to make it last. [It took 25 minutes in the end, hardly a success.]

What I had was the rough sawn neck blank with the tapered sides. I used these tools:

- double handled draw knife

- small contour plane

- sloyd / whittling knife

- 1 1/2 inch chisel

- low angle apron plane

- small finger plane

But doing it slowly paid off. The mahogany had some rather difficult reversing grain that I could control by angling the contour plane carefully to match it. 

And look at these pics of the result. It damn well shines! It is totally untouched by any abrasive tools or sand paper. I'll tell you my secret at the bottom of the post, after the pics. 

The secret of my success tonight, then. Sharp tools. 

Sharp. Tools. 

Scared man's router

Here's me trimming the overhanging bits of soundboard. Others prefer a flush cut bit in a router but I'm, ahem, past that. 

The truth is I don't dare to use a router, and they create un-manageable amounts of noise and dust. Not an option in an apartment workshop. Plus they're no fun to sharpen, chisels on the orher hand... Wait, what? This blog is about ukes? Sheesh. You people. 

And here's the box so far (what's important is that you can get a glimpse of the Argapa tool shrine - never mind the pesky uke).

Cutting a rosette

I have gained a bit of confidence, and an excellent tool. So I'm not as terrified of rosettes anymore. 

The cutter comes from the talented tool maker Micheal Connor in Australia. I can't say enough good things about it, or about Micheal. 

I scored two lines, flipping the cutter between them, then routed out the wood with a chisel shaped blade. Pics of the rosette later. 

Press to fit

When I bend my one piece sides by hand I often get the curvature a bit aggressive at the neck end. The ends should ideally have a straight couple of centimeters but typically the preceding radius goes on. This makes it difficult to glue the neck block. 

If I shape the mating side of the block to meet the mis-shaped ends it works but then I don't get the flat spot on the outside. I aim for flat since the 12th fret is at the joint. And sanding the outside risks going through the sides. 

So, did you get all that? There will be questions afterwards. 

Straightening the ends on the hot pipe is hard because I don't get any leverage. So I sandwiched the sides between some flat scrap pieces, steel flashing and my heat blanket. After five minutes everything looked wonderfully machine made. 

Progress on some of the current builds

I have a lot on the bench. I count two resos, one concert and three piccolos. One of which is a custom model, not my standard cherry job.

Tonight's pics show:

- The braces and the bridge patch on the koa concert in the go-bar deck

- The old mahogany and the ancient spruce for mr. Monteleone's piccolo

- A reso body. It's clad with wood on the sides, and I need to trim that flush with the top and bottom. I forgot to run it through the drum sander the other night, and I never grasped the concept of flush trimming with a router. So planing it is... But maybe I'll roll out the sander again. Even if it's cumbersome and noisy.

Splitting a spruce log

Armed with a riving froe and a helpful brother, I set out to split a log from an old barn. The barn was from the 19th century and fell down near a mate of mine.

Splitting was hard work, but the wood is perfect.

Ripping wood for mr Monteleone

Why keep good news secret? Patsy has asked me to build a mahogany and spruce uke in my piccolo size. And I managed to find a scrap piece of my highly valued 1960's mahogany, the same plank as my own soprano and a few others are made from.

The piece is about the right size.

I planed the edges and scored deeply with a marking gauge. 

Then, with my Pax rip saw, I started to cut from the corners. 

And look, three pieces from a 14 mm board. That's better than I could hope for with my bandsaw at this time - it's wobbly and the driving belt just broke. 

Buy a Pax rip saw, join the 19th century (it's a bit lonely here).