Neck making

I need some soprano necks. I have a chunk of mahogany that I took home from the cottage and the larger scale workshop, remember the bandsaw there is up shit creek with no sight of a paddle. I’ve thought of pestering the wood shop teacher at Li’s school - I can see their bandsaw through a window when I walk past - but never got around to it. So tonight as I stood with a so far rejected neck blank of Spanish cedar I thought, feck let’s just saw this to necks and be done with it. 

So I laid out six profiles, nested as they usually are. 

I need holes later, to let a narrow saw blade turn, I found easier to drill them while it was still a large piece. 



Then rip sawing between the pairs. I tried my other new old rip saw, the pointy one in the background, but it needs a bit of sharpening. So I let loose my trusty Pax saw which made short work of the task. 



Then I cut the blanks to length with my father’s old cross cut saw. Despite the plastic handle it’s a great tool. 



Then the only tricky cut so far, going between the blanks with a bow saw. I bought the blades and hardware from somewhere but went cheap and fitted them on an old frame I had. Li helped me take the pic. 

Not quite done but enough progress for tonight. 

Resonator finished

Why not finish this one already, eh? Not much left and I’m back in Sweden. 

With the headstock clamped in the front vise I bevelled the fret ends with... wait for it... the fret end bevelling file. 

Go on and ask me why all Argapa headstocks have straight parallel sides. Anyone?

Then I rounded over the fret ends with the fret end file. Another excellent, albeit expensive, tool from Stewmac. If I wasn’t intent on taking ghis pic I’d have brushed the filings from bevelling off first. 



For reasons the nut had to be a wee bit thicker on this uke. I found a blank of buffalo horn that fit, and the dark colour goes well with the fretboard and the rest of the uke. Behold in the pic; the half pencil. 



I string all my instruments with fishing line leader. They’re solid fluorocarbon just like Worth strings. And having reels at hand really helps. 



And it’s strung up, set up, tweaked, stamped and completed. I like it. If the customer changes his mind I wouldn’t mind keeping this one, not at all. 



The blemish on the back of the headstock is from an insect bite. It appeared during carving and doesn’t matter. 



The headplate is made from the cut out disc of the sound well. To get rid of the hole I split it and glued it back together with the stripey strip in the middle. I’m sure I told you this when it happened. 



And the number to call if it gets too loud. 



And the last pic; when I tried it yesterday I found the corners on the stringholder a bit sharp. So I took them out with a sanding drum on my Proxxon. It now matches the end of the fretboard, and it’s a design by accident that I will use again. Very classy looking. 

Final steps on the resonator

A batch of pics from the last couple of days. I’m done with the finish, the result is a lustrous semi pore filled sheen. I like it and hope Daffyd will too. 

In the first pic you can see my jig for marking out holes for the coverplate screws. 

Then I put the saddle in the biscuit and the biscuit on the cone. It is held with a screw from beneath. 



Then the string holder. The holes in the coverplates are a bit shit so I fit a wooden string holder on my resos. The break angle over the saddle is reduced but that is balanced by the fact that the strings don’t snap. In the pic you can see the wooden rabbet plane I used to make the profile on the string holder. Massive planes are often useful for tiny parts, just keep them sharp. 



And here it is. Rosewood I believe. 



But what holds the holder? Screws do. I use the string holes for a couple of cut off screws. This is the most intricate part of the arrangement, I have to make sure the holes for the screws don’t go into the holes for the strings (which are angled in two directions).



This is what it looks like from beneath. The screws are at the edge of the holes to prevent any movement of the wooden block. With the screws in place I also put a drop of super glue into the holes in the plate. Don’t know if that will matter at all but it felt good. 



Ancient technology like resonator instruments deserve to be assembled with ancient technology tools. In Seeden we call this kind of screwdriver ”a Yankee screwdriver”. I suspect they’re called something else in Yankeeland. 



Only tuners, nut and strings left, eh? Sadly I’m off to make a new Swedish embassy in a far away country now, so I won’t get to that until the weekend. Stay tuned will you.