Travel uke

I glued the sides onto the top on the koa soprano, and then I turned to that cherry blank I shaped roughly in the planer last weekend. First job was to handplane it on three sides, making it flat and shiny on the face and the edges dead square and parallel. 

Then I laid the pattern out. I'll use 280 mm as my scale length, same as on my piccolos. Say, I haven't built one of those in a while. Hmm...

Anyway here it is. Maybe you can see the pencil lines. 

Then flipping it over to excavate it behind the soundboard. I counted the turns on the brace drill so all holes were of the same depth and none went through. Drilling out the bulk makes it so much easier. 

And then onwards. You might think to yourself by now, why isn't he using a router? Well guess what, I am. A Record no. 71 1/2. Look carefully and you'll notice that the wheel is above the notch, I had to to get it deep enough. 

More to follow!

Prepping various parts

I didn't get a pic of the actual process, as I was on my knees in front of the sander, but Johan and I got the resawn walnut down to thickness. 

We did three side pieces so we have one to break when bending, but the third back can rest in its original thickness. 

And we found some one piece spruce tops! These we didn't sand, I look forward to planing them. 

 

And that koa soprano, I sanded the sides and will glue them to the top tomorrow. 

Remember the Dust-E-Whacker..?

A couple more projects

The first of the koa sopranos is coming along. The second will take a break for now, I was thinking only one project would be good for me now.

But then my boy wants a miniature guitar, after seeing a guitalele in a store. And my friend challenged me to build a cavaquinho. And I saw a super compact travel model uke and I want one. 

So we picked out some walnut for the sides and backs for the guitar and the 'quinho, and split it in three pieces so we have one spare. My condition for building the guitar was, predictably, that Johan would assist me at every stage. Here he works the kerfing plane. 

And here we use the frame saw - so much easier being two. Li took the pic. 

And here's the result, together with a cherry board that'll be transmogrified into a wee travel uke.