Shells complete

For some reason my resonator sides tend to get a bit hairy during bending and glueing. It's most likely because they're so fiddly to get a good and snug fit - maybe I should build a bending form based on a skeleton. Or who am I kidding with "maybe", of course that's what I should do. If I ever listened to reason. 

On these three I tried brown paper tape across the butt joint to hold the sides together during glueing, it worked but man did that tape stick to the wood. I didn't want to soak it through to get the residue off because I was afraid it might affect the wood or the glue so I went for mechanical removal. 

So the outcome was they required some scraping and sanding. Thanks to the rolling pin sander I got from Dominator it wasn't too hard, but I had to do it on the balcony since it has no dust collection. 

Now that they're done up to this stage it's time to choose fretboards and start on the inlay that a couple of them will get. The one with the bird holes will have a strict and simple job with fret markers (don't want to overload it with shapes) but the others will get their embellishments as inlays of some kind. 

In the pic are boards of ebony, rosewood and bubinga. Maybe they'll each get different as in the pic, or I'll choose one or two to work with. It'll depend on the inlay plans I come up with. 

But what of Chris's koa soprano? Well it's not been fast has it, but the level of humidity in the workshop has dropped to levels where I'm more comfortable with larger glue-ups so the sides went on (or the top went on depending on how you see it). And I picked out a neck blank too so I have some carving to look forward to!

Now I'm off to a troublesome corner of the Earth for a couple of days, then I'll get cracking on the fretboards. 

Backs on

The cast iron book press is back at the summer house and I won't be there for a couple of weeks. But it's possible to glue the backs without it, don't worry. 

Glueing the same small cleats as I used when I put the tops on saves me loads of  trouble. A drop of superglue and broken off pieces of kerfed lining strips, we could call them tentalones. 

The first two went together as a sandwich, each uke being the perfect caul for the other one. A cheap mouse mat lies between to even things out. 

The third one got clamped against a piece of plywood, and is still drying as I write this. 

Now I'll start with the fretboards, the bodies are close to done. I will trim the backs and sand and scrape them in preparation for finishing. 

Neck fitting

I trimmed the overhanging bits of the soundboard on all three ukes, so it was time to fit the necks. There is one step that isn't in the pics though, and that's me hollowing out the heel face slightly. It makes sanding the heel possible since only the edges are in contact with the abrasive paper. Had the entire heel been it would've rocked and gotten round. 

So after that crucial step I check the neck for square. The stripe makes it easy. 

Then with the pressure put where it's needed I drag the neck on sandpaper that's stuck on a piece of aluminium. I do this until everythings good and true, both sideways...

... and angle wise. My angle needs to be set now since the skeletons in the resos won't budge, but on acoustic instruments I make it 90 degrees and set the angle when I glue the back. (I will do that on a soprano in a few weeks.)

With the jig and my favourite drill, I make the two holes for the barrel bolt and the screw. The drill had two speeds, depending on where you attach the crank. 

The same jig is used on the body to make the one hole for the screw. 

And after a little fiddling (but it did go faster than normal on these three) they're all done. 

Next up, backs and fretboards!