What's happening in your shed?

This Kenbacker is a solid body bass ukulele loosely patterned after a Rickenbacker inspired by Lemmy from Motorhead Ace of spades theme. Hence all the mother of pearl spades all over it. Body is made from an okoume fj project panel most of these sorts of panels are a bit multicolour/patchwork looking but this one looks nice and uniform and I'll get a few body blanks out of it. Neck is Tasmanian oak. Fretboard and bridge are recycled ironbark flooring. Fret markers from some mosaic shell tiles I got on ebay cut by me to shape. The tuners, pickup, strings and preamp from Aliexpress. Volume and tone knobs are just cheap plastic but they seem to fit.20231219_120139.jpg
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I just completed 3 days of marathon shop time, finishing the second of my two-clamp project from wood scraps found around my shop. The wood I used for #2 is shown in the first two pics. The larger clamp has 3 pieces of wood; the smaller, which was inspired by the SM mini cam clamps, has 12. My family says I can be obsessive when I'm into a project. I like to think of it as "highly focused". Besides, one can never have too many clamps. It would have been easier to hit the BIN button, but not nearly as much fun.

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tonyturley said:
I just completed 3 days of marathon shop time, finishing the second of my two-clamp project from wood scraps found around my shop. The wood I used for #2 is shown in the first two pics. The larger clamp has 3 pieces of wood; the smaller, which was inspired by the SM mini cam clamps, has 12. My family says I can be obsessive when I'm into a project. I like to think of it as "highly focused". Besides, one can never have too many clamps. It would have been easier to hit the BIN button, but not nearly as much fun.

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I read somewhere that in the olden days the first job of an apprentice luthier was to make cam clamps. THEN you got to start making instruments,
 
When I was at joinery college, in the furniture department next door, where I spent an awful lot of my time, the first thing the students there were made to do was build a frame saw.
THEN they got to make some furniture.
 
Orra said:
When I was at joinery college, in the furniture department next door, where I spent an awful lot of my time, the first thing the students there were made to do was build a frame saw.
THEN they got to make some furniture.
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A couple years ago I built a Roubo frame saw to resaw spalted Maple from some logs I had found. Even after rough slabbing a log with my chainsaw, truing the slabs with my planer, and cutting starter kerfs with my table saw, it took me 3 very hot July afternoons to finish resawing one 24" log with the big frame saw. That saw is still hanging in an honored spot in my shop. Resawing even spalted Maple by hand was a bear.
 
Finally finished updated building jigs for my newest instrument build. A new method of joining the mold sides that I recently saw in a YT video. Don't know why I didn't think of it sooner. I've had the all-thread and metal kobs bouncing around my shop for at least 20 years.

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I've been making teardrop "Favilla-esque" concert ukes for some time. This is my very first soprano of any kind.

Call this "inspiration" and "execution." Favilla sopranos from the 30s were commonly made in birch and mahogany. I chose a flamed birch to reflect that American wood heritage. (Can guarantee my second soprano will be an improvement over this first one.)
 

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That’s a coincidence.
My 3 yr old has been showing a real interest in builds and asking me to build him one, but he wants it to be ‘smaller’’, leading me to knocking up a mold yesterday for what will be my first soprano also.
I offered a few sets up and he chose this Olive Ash which was left over from the cot I made for his older brother which he inherited and but now grown out of, which made me happy.
And he said “I like this one because it looks like a tree”, which made me very proud 😂IMG_5917.jpeg
 
tonyturley said:
A couple years ago I built a Roubo frame saw to resaw spalted Maple from some logs I had found. Even after rough slabbing a log with my chainsaw, truing the slabs with my planer, and cutting starter kerfs with my table saw, it took me 3 very hot July afternoons to finish resawing one 24" log with the big frame saw. That saw is still hanging in an honored spot in my shop. Resawing even spalted Maple by hand was a bear.
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Just an observation and a relay of something I’ve read elsewhere - I claim no expertise. Saws and indeed all new cutting tools are not necessarily supplied in as sharp a state as they could be. From what I read it’s wise to sharpen / touch-up new cutting tools before use.

This is kind of separate but maybe overlapping. I use bow saws to cut branches into firewood logs, after regular use the blades wouldn’t cut straight and were generally hard work to use. Eventually I got a saw tooth set and (after using it) found that the old blades that I’d saved now worked just great, a lot less hard work.

TLDR: Sharp and well set saw teeth make a big difference.

These days Sven doesn’t post much here but he‘s done a lot of re-sawing by hand (with a roubo type frame saw) and if asked he might share some useful insights.

edit. https://argapa.blogspot.com/search?q=Resawing
 
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This is my new Tenor, flamed Big Leaf Maple and Torrified Spruce. I was visiting my bowl turning friend a couple of weeks ago, talking about wood and he mentioned his brother cuts a lot of Maple and finds lots of figure he doesn't really appreciate. I suggested we go visit him and came home with a lot of figured maple for the price of a lunch and some fuel . This is my first try at the new wood, and a little tweak to the bracing.

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Island Jim said:
This is my new Tenor, flamed Big Leaf Maple and Torrified Spruce. I was visiting my bowl turning friend a couple of weeks ago, talking about wood and he mentioned his brother cuts a lot of Maple and finds lots of figure he doesn't really appreciate. I suggested we go visit him and came home with a lot of figured maple for the price of a lunch and some fuel . This is my first try at the new wood, and a little tweak to the bracing.

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That maple is glorious! What did you think of the figured maple for working with?
 
The Maple was easy to bend, sand and hopefully finish but it was brittle because of the serious grain runout. I was rolling along until I took my chisel to trim some pieces, not a good idea. use a sharp saw. The chisel will follow the grain and maybe cause problems. I like it though , closed pore so I can do a nice finish without pore filling .
 
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