hand finished fire wood....!

take a look at the piccy! all was perfectly true then couple weeks later... I ve so seen the light!

all the brace bars are thick enough apparently? unlucky or of my own making?

should I carry on you think?

spoken to pete howlett (nice man) and reasons : to thin Was 2mm before sanding) and wood was stored in my semi underground and therefore slightly damp garage .... brought the uke in the house for couple weeks and hey presto self shaping backs.

will route them off in bit... live and learn ......no pain no wood grain...

x

There are a few Banjo ukes out there especially built with concave backs to suit blokes with pot bellies and pregnant women.

Bummer! You're now a member of a club that understands what it's like to back up and do it again.

Everyone who hasn't removed and replaced a back or top, please raise your hand.

No hands? I didn't think so.

But maybe you should forge ahead without replacing the back. Call it a reincarnation of Brad Donaldson's "Amy" model and give it to a fair lady:

http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com...Scale-Concert-Pineapple-by-Bradford-Donaldson

Yep, that's what happens if you brace in high humidity. If you don't have climate control, then next time you're ready to brace something, toss it in the oven for couple hours and turn it on for a few seconds every so often to keep it warm. Not too hot or it will dry too fast and crack. About 100F is good. A weaker heat source like a light bulb is easier to control. Get the braces glued within 20 minutes or so of taking it out, before it reacclimates to the room humidity again.

I have tossed a few ukes on the fire. Chaulked it up to experience and tried again. Don't give up.

oh not giving up... made of sterner stuff! been rammed with other work so will try in a week or so to cut the back off. in the mean time i ve brought the new back wood stock into the house for a bit.

best way to store wood please any pointers? do I lay it flat with weights on it.... i currently have it all between granite tiles flat.

I will move the wood store into the house I think soon.

any advise gratefully received!

r

Ideally you should seal all the endgrain with shellac or something, and stack them with spacers between each piece to allow air circulation. Optionally can put a weight on top, but it's only necessary for problem wood, and you can just put those at the bottom of the stack. And put them in a room that never gets wet enough for long enough to grow mildew, and is safe from bugs. Storing wood in a climate controlled room is fine, but variable humidity is possibly even better. Some say that allowing the wood to expand and contract with humidity over the years makes it more stable. I'm not sure if it's true, but it doesn't hurt... unless they're stacked without spacers or endgrain sealer, and then brittle woods can get cracks when the humidity drops suddenly.

I don't have a lot of space, so I just stack all my sets directly on top of eachother. But I do seal the endgrain on the brittle ones. Softwoods are fine without sealer.

The real goal of storage is just to prevent anything bad from happening to it. Humidity control is not needed until you're ready to start gluing things across the grain.

Having had similar problems on my first build, I now understand that I should observe humidity and only glue up when humidity is low. I now have hygrometers in my workshop and have noticed that humidity can change quite rapidly and dramatically. I can only imagine the wood stored in the workshop, doesn't respond in the same fashion and it's moisture content is more constant. So , how long does the wood take to reflect the relative humidity? In other words, if the relative humidity shows a constant low, over a couple of days for example, am I right to the think that the wood has dried out enough over that period to reflect the RH shown on the hygrometer, and consequently it is safe to glue up?

mikeyb2 said:

Having had similar problems on my first build, I now understand that I should observe humidity and only glue up when humidity is low. I now have hygrometers in my workshop and have noticed that humidity can change quite rapidly and dramatically. I can only imagine the wood stored in the workshop, doesn't respond in the same fashion and it's moisture content is more constant. So , how long does the wood take to reflect the relative humidity? In other words, if the relative humidity shows a constant low, over a couple of days for example, am I right to the think that the wood has dried out enough over that period to reflect the RH shown on the hygrometer, and consequently it is safe to glue up?

Click to expand...

IME, a couple hours will do it for wood below 3mm thick.

A good experiment you can do is to shellac one side, and expose it to a big humidity change. Watch how it curls when the bare side expands or contracts, and see how long it takes to flatten back out as the moisture equalizes all the way through. Although some woods curl from moisture change due to their grain structure even without having unequal expansion between the faces, and those won't flatten back out until returned to their original moisture content. But either way, usually most of the movement is done in less than an hour.

The conventional way to store lumber ( like 3/4" thick boards ) for long term and for proper drying is "stickered." For inside the shop, I use roughly 3/4" X 1" X (say) 24" lengths of something...pine, fir, oak. Lay the boards flat on either 2 or 3 of these "stickers," with the stickers spaced (for 3 stickers ) about a foot from each end with one in the middle or for 2 stickers, spaced at about 1/3 of the board length from each end. After placing a few boards on these stickers with a little air gap between each board, lay another set of stickers down directly above the original set, then another set of boards, etc.

You can make a darned tall stack this way. The number one problem is that mice/rats LOVE these caves. The weight of the stack holds the boards somewhat flat and true...at least I think so. The stickers let air flow. You can take the stack down and restack once a month,say, a few months before you're going to use the wood. I assume the exposed, top boards will be the driest. When I was going through a lot of wood for furniture and harpsichords I couldn't afford a moisture meter. Now that I own a meter, I haven't gone back into production.

That said...for soundboard material and organ pipes, WITHOUT STICKERS I make rectangular bundles of my lengths of 8" wide flat spruce. Like pages in a book. Then I wrap that in cardboard, and store it up around 6' high in the shop. This has worked for me over the years.

Big break from last post as work lifes been mad.

Anyway :

hey I ve now brought my wood into the house.....

routed the bent back off the uke and glued another one on. Getting to know my little dremel router quite well now!



did nt have the same wood in the correct size so put this insert in to pad it out..... think it looks okay?

lets see if this one bends! I put a very much stronger brace at the base much thicker than the hana lima states in the plans.

not a complicated matter. get a pin type moisture meter or any type you can find. keep a thermometer/hygrometer in your storage area. you will get in control of what is going on and know whether to force dry stock. these issues have been messing up work in furniture factories forever. you're not the first and you won't be the last. invest in the little do-dads that you need.

it been a while since on here.... normal work job to busy!

So I replaced the back (routed it off) and had nt enough bocote wood so spaced the back out with this dark wood (Think ebony) to make an arrow design which has turned out nice i think! I put much thicker bracing on the back after chatting to Pete Howlett. So all seems well and good then now. The french polishing is tricky on the front but after final coat I rubbed it down with that micro emery and used str8 washing up liquid as the lube to get the finish then some of my jewellers rough on a soft cloth. Be good to know how others finish a french polish off?

I know the design may not to everyones taste but i d like to play with the shape from a visual point of view. I think it sounds nice but starting to think I actually like the smaller sizes in ukes from a sound point of view now.

Want to build smaller uke nice time I think.

Just come back from holiday in wales and popped in to Pete Howletts studio and he welcomed me warmly and also his studio sharing Tommy who helped greatly to lower a fret that was sitting to tall. Learnt a lot when chatting away to them, i love to do a course there but due to having twins at 6 years old not really able to! Great to see some fab instruments being made there.

Think I need to start back playing the uke again as I am truly hopeless at it!

I ve brought all my wood store in the house now so hoping that should mend the moisture bit.

Been struggling to have enough flat workspace in my garage had been looking at proper wood working benches but was thinking they were way to low and heavy to move around as I need to roll machines about from time to time depending on what I am up to..... so found this nice little work table with holes for dogs and clamping stuff to and it sits on trestles that are adjustable height wise so I can now sit down and work when I need to... i really like this bench and the clamps I got with it will I think for good for something sometime! . like my dads says it will come in handy even if we never use it!