What's happening in your shed?

Back to the garage on a rainy day. Here are the results of jointing and thickness sanding a nice set of bees wing Black Cherry. This body will be the size of a baritone ukulele, with the same 17" scale as a tenor ukulele and neck join at the 12th fret. The top will be salvaged old growth Redwood. The neck is Black Walnut with a Cherry core. Fretboard will be a piece of Rosewood I've had bouncing around the shop. I also think this will be a 6-string, with a 48mm nut and tuned E2-E4. Mimmo's posts about the Aquila 187c strings was the inspiration. I've been working on the kiku project, but the thought of a shorter scale 6-string has bounced around my head from time to time.

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After mulling it over the past 30 years or so, I decided I was tired of the squealing and dragging from the tiny steel wheels on my 66 year old Shopsmith. I purchased Shopsmith's caster upgrade kit with 3" polyurethane wheels, the appropriate drill bit, and a pre-drilled steel drill bit guide to ensure perfect drill placement. The hardest part was flipping the beast over on its back to get at the casters. Major improvement.

Shopsmith upgrade.jpg
 
Ham-fisted guitar maker here, I've been getting a little frustrated with the rest of work lately so I thought I'd have another go at trying to make a decent ukulele (I think this is about the fifth one, with mixed results) as a bit of a palate cleanser. Started it at the beginning of September, put the strings on today. Pretty loosely styled after an early Martin OM guitar with pyramid bridge etc, tenor size with a 17 3/4" scale.

tenor uke1 reduced.jpgtenor uke 2 reduced.jpg
 
Nice work Potter. Did admire your ukes but spent most of the time looking at your wood stash.
Maybe another thread here? "Show us your wood stash"
Miguel
 
I get a lot of my timber in as boards, just off to the left of the picture is a sizeable veneer-cutting bandsaw, it's amazing how quickly the racks fill up when you're getting four or five sets in a go. Also I buy a lot of the stuff that doesn't grow around here (spruce, ebony etc.) in quite large quantities, partially for me and also for students, it's pretty cost-effective and I do use it. I probably have about three to four years worth on the shelves at any one time. Occasionally I even sell some of it, but we all know that hoarding is half the fun of having a decently sized shed.
 
The fret spacing rule is a good idea. I would never rely on a paper plan for fret spacing. If your plan includes the actual measurements, as it should, you may want to check how accurate the drawings are.
I use StewMac's fret position calculator, and then sometimes cut them by hand after printing out a template, but more likely use a cnc to cut them.
 
Using a hand plane to taper an Osage Orange tenor fretboard. After this was done I tapered a similar one in baritone scale. Both are 1.5" (38mm) at the nut, and 1.75" (44mm) at the 12th fret.

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Sure you can do it that way. But I just cheat and use a bandsaw and then clean up the edges.
Although I have an adequate supply of power tools, sometimes I just want the quiet of a hand tool. In fact, there's a part of me that wishes I had the courage to divest myself of power tools and go totally unplugged. Then there's the other part of me that reminds me I couldn't cut a straight, square line with a hand saw if my life depended on it.
 
Soprano, tenor and baritone necks. Ready for pore filling. All for commisioned instruments. Thought it interesting how different they are in terms of tuners and fret board treatment options that the clients specified.
 

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Soprano, tenor and baritone necks. Ready for pore filling. All for commisioned instruments. Thought it interesting how different they are in terms of tuners and fret board treatment options that the clients specified.
What's the metal you have in the heel block?
 
Is the metal dowel epoxy'ed in? I had a problem with a somewhat similar design, using a threaded barrel nut and bolt. The hole up the neck weakened the neck and I had two crack across the heel, with the grain (both after some abuse). I have gone to using an oak dowl where your metal dowels are, and then put a brass insert in with the threads of the insert threaded into the cross grain of the oak dowel rather than just the end-grain of the neck itself. I tested this with a neck mock-up. Dropped a 3 lb sledge onto the headstock and it just bounced off.
 
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