Stringholder

First time in ages I made something in an interesting way, and I forgot to take pics of the progress. I'll do that next time, since this will be the method from now on. 

So lacking pictures of it half done, we go straight to the end result. 

It's ebony from an fretboard offcut I found. I bought a couple of guitar fretboard blanks and ripped them to width before slicing them, so this was a decent chunk to work with. 

Here it is with more light on it. 

The holes for the strings are angled so they miss the screws. What screws, I hear you ask. These, that hold it from beneath. 

I also prepared the biscuit, the saddle and drilled all the holes for the coverplate. Not much left now! Just tuners, a nut and a final polish. 

On the subject of pores

I'm on the fence about going for a flat shiny finish, or a shiny finish with semi filled pores. A flat finish could quite easily be achieved by rubbing with powdered chalk, my alternative to pumice. But the nooks and corners are hard to get to and might be more visible against an otherwise flat surface. Oh well, pics will show this better won't they. 

As it was this morning. 

You can see the subtle V-shape of the neck which I now prefer. 

And then a couple of close ups in an attempt to show you the pores. They are a bit more visible in reality. 

What do you think? Beautiful enough? Or should I go for a more professional job on this one. I honestly don't know what I prefer anymore. 

Finishing

Sorry for not posting, the day job's been intense. Here's a report on the finishing procedure. 

As you might remember, I now give my ukes heavier first coats of shellac. And then I scrape most of it off again. Sometimes this will fill the pores, if not it's an excellent base for filling said pores with chalk (which I use instead of pumice).

At this time I have yet to decide if the mahogany soprano I'm making for the raffle at Hollesley will get the chalk treatment. But it did get scraped yesterday. 

Looks bad now, but this is only in preparation for the polishing. 

The top. Note that the bridge and the fretboard is also mahogany, from the same board as the rest. 

Simon's resonator does show promise I think. It's had three base coats but isn't scraped yet. 

And the top side. Thanks for looking!