Ukulele + Dremel = Any takers?

Nice tutorial vid. I've had some hand engraving done on a soprano uke by Sydney artist Eli Evangelidis

Not a chance. Interesting that we don't see many tutorials on engraving guitars. This sort of "adornment" tends to portray ukuleles as less than serious instruments, in my view. Yes, he is working on a $20 uke, but maybe that underscores the point. That, for many, the popular view of ukes is that they are either toys or nick knacks.

YMMV

bborzell said:

Not a chance. Interesting that we don't see many tutorials on engraving guitars. This sort of "adornment" tends to portray ukuleles as less than serious instruments, in my view. Yes, he is working on a $20 uke, but maybe that underscores the point. That, for many, the popular view of ukes is that they are either toys or nick knacks.

YMMV

Click to expand...

Check it out. One of them serious bass pro gibson guitars.

It's also not an acoustic instrument where taking material out of the top back and sides seriously affects tone. I've seen a ton of solid or semi acoustic electric guitars with engraving, lipstick, stickies and magic marker scribbles. While the playability is not necessarily diminished, the esthetics suddenly become rather limited in appeal.

To each his own.

Yeah, I think I'll run right out to the shop and tool an Elvis under a palm tree on the top of my new Myamoe.

Personalizing a ukulele - whether with etching an inexpensive uke with a power tool or inlaying a custom one with abalone - is fine with me.

As someone with limited drawing and mechanical ability, using Dremel is cool. I can't even put stickers on straight.

wow! I hadn't even thought of embellishment with the Dremel tool. I have used it to drill the holes for through the body string mounting or to make entry holes where I do different designs as side ports. I did do the top of a Martin backpacker mandolin with 32 lines per inch checkering to thin the top. I have a soprano Eddy Finn banjouke that I have fitted with a backing plate that stands away from the body. It is 1/4 inch thick plexiglas. Etching on the inside with my Dremel is what I shall do. It will probably be a Celtic braided rope around the inner edge. The outside will still be smooth. THANK YOU for stimulating some ideas. I may try some chip carving on the bridge area for openers.

I've wood burned a name onto a uke for a little girl. I'll need to try the dremmel now I think ukes are art in their own right anyway. That's one of the reasons I collect so many. It's not always for the sound. I have my players and my lookers.

Personally, I don't like it, artistically or physically (as in the effect it has on the finish and the wood). I tend to like plainer instruments, but I also would worry that the effect on the surface would lead to cracks (and chipped coating is it has one), and accelerated degradation of the wood. I also put my hands on the top, often anchoring my fingers when picking. That would erode that area faster and leave a darker spot from my finger oils.

An engraved pistol if done well looks very good and can add to its value to the right seller. Of course bad engravings are out there as well, you just don't see as many on guns.

As an artist I understand art is not the same for everyone so what I like is not what everyone likes. I do not like either of those ukuleles, as a tattoo artist I have to understand how a design flows with the lines of the body, not much difference here. It would have been so easy to curl the tentacle under the sound hole. The second does nothing for me at all, I'm not a big fan of blonde wood and the style of art reminds me of teenage doodles on a girls notebook.

But its art and not all of us are going to like it. The mod podged ukulele treatment seems much more suited to a person who doesn't draw. I'm also not a fan of the now unsealed wood. Whomever said to practice first on scrap that is very good advice just like tattooing or playing the ukulele if your hands don't have the muscles built up to do the work your just going to fight yourself and not have a good time. There are also different attachments for a dremel for engraving.

This is pretty of course its metal as well.



Wood (the right wood) has a beauty all its own.



~AL~