What's happening in your shed?

gerardg said:

Hello.
My latest uke in progress.
A soprano Santo style, mahogany back and sides,
flamed mapple top, herringbone fingerboard, cedar neck not so thick,
cressent moon shape with carbon tube stringer neck.
French polish in progress (14 steps, with sand paper, grit # 400 to #2000).
All the buiding story in my website.
Au revoir à tous.
Gerard.
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Hey! Gerard..You have no time for making ukuleles..You should be watching "Le Tour" on TV...Peut-être un français va gagner ce temps...I hope I said that right ..Now Froome is out

Hello Tim !
Yesterday afternoom in front of my Tv.
Of course.
Les pavés du Nord !
The hell day !
2014 Tour de France is going to be ONE in the history.
Yes, Froomy out.
Sorry for the Brit's.
At least, no one Frenchy is able to win.
The Pistolero ?
Stay tuned !
And yes, no time enough to work on ukulele building these following weeks...

Timbuck said:

Hey! Gerard..You have no time for making ukuleles..You should be watching "Le Tour" on TV...Peut-être un français va gagner ce temps...I hope I said that right ..Now Froome is out

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Bonjour, Gerard!

Perhaps no Frenchman will win, but Voeckler can be counted on to provide plenty of excitement. I'm rooting for Talansky, as he has momentum after the Dauphiné and may prove to be strong in the mountains.

In any event, the TdF will put on a great show as always!

Votre ami, David

Hum, see today...
Voeckler with 60" in the nose ...
A little too old, and still not enough brain under helmet...
Realy, Contador still in the race, and in mountain, show will be great, with Nibali !
Yes, no time as usual in uke building.
Friendly, David !
And Tim.

saltytri said:

Bonjour, Gerard!

Perhaps no Frenchman will win, but Voeckler can be counted on to provide plenty of excitement. I'm rooting for Talansky, as he has momentum after the Dauphiné and may prove to be strong in the mountains.

In any event, the TdF will put on a great show as always!

Votre ami, David

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Here the Santo back.


And the Herringbone fingerboard.

gerardg said:

Voeckler with 60" in the nose ...
A little too old, and still not enough brain under helmet...

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Très amusant mais aussi très vrai!

Timbuck said:

Just completed another copy..I'm getting closer all the time...One day I'll make a proper fake.. dings scratches and all that

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I'm sure there will be plenty of your sopranos still around in 50 years Timbuck, dinged and scratched all over through decades of enjoyment!

Just finished this for a friend. My second build, still working out the kinks but all in all it sounds great and he was very happy

Necks and headstocks

necks, headstock and end graft

Just finished a Uke stand tonight




Sorry for the sideways pics. They are straight on my PC.

Mitering stuff

I've got the last coats of clear on a couple of instruments. The first is a Guitalele in Sapele and Sitka.



The second is a Baritone in Black Heart Sassafras and Carpathian Spruce.

Number 3 almost done, nothing fancy but getting the steps down a little better.

A little experience I thought I would share, in case others did not know this.. I did not.

I damaged an almost completed set neck for a solid body electric that I am building. I had thought about tossing it in the fire, but could not, due to all the work, the Ebony, the inlay.... the project has been shelved since then, not knowing what to do. I decided to try to salvage the fretboard which was glued on with T-88 epoxy. I did not realize how easily it can be removed. I pulled out the heat gun set to 'high' and started heating the fretboard. There was never any smoke, only a faint smell of wood when it was hot enough, and I was patient to heat the wood. A chisel did the first bit of lifting, and it came loose fairly easily. Two razor knives, one on either side of the neck, run between the fretboard and the neck, a little at a time with heat removed the thing with zero wood pulled away from the neck or the fretboard. No cracking sounds. Just easy. The epoxy residue on the fretboard scraped off easily. The board had curled up, laterally and longitudinally, I believe from the heat. I wiped the concave side with a wet rag several times and left it clamped to a flat surface with a radius block. It is coming flat again. I will give it some time before regluing it to the new neck, but very happy to have saved the fretboard and the Ebony peghead veneer! It took maybe 15 minutes start to finish to remove the fretboard and veneer, 2 minutes to scrape it clean, if that. I use T-88 all the time, and always mix it with a scale, so this was a good hard cure.

I like epoxy for gluing fretboards, but had always considered the epoxy bond to be more permanent, and probably not worth the effort to remove if need be. There was zero visible damage to the wood. This was no more difficult than undoing a Titebond joint, maybe easier.

People who think removing an epoxied on fingerboard is impossible or difficult, have never removed an epoxied on fingerboard.

Found out many years ago that epoxy and heat are not a good combination. Epoxied a handle back onto a much loved bone china teacup for girlfriend's mother. Girlfriend's aunt ended up with a cup of tea in her lap. Girlfriend became ex-girlfriend.
Miguel

lauburu said:

Found out many years ago that epoxy and heat are not a good combination. Epoxied a handle back onto a much loved bone china teacup for girlfriend's mother. Girlfriend's aunt ended up with a cup of tea in her lap. Girlfriend became ex-girlfriend.
Miguel

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Thats Harsh, looks like the epoxy failing did you a favor

I've been using manzanita for my builds, so I have a lot of leftover pieces lying around that are not suitable for ukuleles. My daughter asked if I could make a small box for her, so here's what I came up with.

That's a cool little box, I bet the picture does not do the Manzanita justice. Very pretty.

Some rosettes installed for the next batch of instruments.