Uke Building class Palomar College San Diego County

pahu · Sep 17, 2016

The Renowned Cabinet & Furniture Technology Program has a few Luthier courses, as well as advanced furniture building.
http://www2.palomar.edu/woodworking/
I just started the Ukulele Beginning class.
For a Tenor you get your choice of top woods(Acacia,Spruce, Redwood or mahogany)
Back and sides: Maple, Highly figured Maple, Acacia, Mahogany.
Mahogany neck blank
Rosewood fretboard blank and bridge blank.
Choice of bindings(Maple or Acacia)
Purfling and kerfing
Spruce brace blanks
Headplate, end graft and heel cap (Acacia,Rosewood)
Abalone rosette.
Strings
High quality geared tuners
Corian nut & saddle.
Price for all parts ranges from $85 to $120 depending on choices.
It's a 16 week course(1 day a week all day)

pahu · Sep 17, 2016

The first week students were assigned to Teams in order to streamline the process. Teams were tasked with breaking down raw lumber into the individual pieces needed:

I chose maple back and sides and spruce top. The Top was from a guitar set so I have extra!
First individual task was to cut slots for the frets. Using a LMI jig and thin (.023") blade
Pencil-ed a top outline to see how it fits. There's some nice figuring in this Maple.

pahu · Sep 17, 2016

Next: cutting the neck blank into stacks for heel, and cutting the scarf joint.

Next I will true up the scarf joint in preparation for gluing.

pahu · Sep 17, 2016

This all seems elementary to experienced Builders, but it's my first build and new territory for me-thanks for letting me share!

Kevs-the-name · Sep 17, 2016

Thanks for sharing your experiences.
I look forward to your building ventures!
KEV

Vespa Bob · Sep 17, 2016

Thank you for sharing, it's always helpful to me, anyway, to see how others go about building a ukulele.

Bob

pahu · Sep 19, 2016

Scarf joint after tru-ing with block plane. Pretty labor-intensive...how do you guys do it?

Heel stack glued up and ready

tenor madness · Sep 22, 2016

I looked at the link and offering, looks interesting. Did they require you to take the prerequisite they have listed for the uke building class?

pahu · Sep 28, 2016

tenor madness said:
I looked at the link and offering, looks interesting. Did they require you to take the prerequisite they have listed for the uke building class?

Yes, the CFT100 Class is a pre-requisite. That class deals HEAVILY with safe operation of the power tools in the Labs. I have been in the construction trades for decades, and found out I was lucky to still have all my appendages, even though I thought I knew all about power tools. Familiarity breeds contempt, I guess. Are you in the So.Cal. area?

pahu · Sep 28, 2016

Some updates from the Class: Neck blanks were sawn and scarf joint glued up/Heel stack attached. The scarf joint is by nature a slippery slope, so carefully clamping everything in a dry run is necessary.

Simple jig to align everything

pahu · Sep 28, 2016

Tops were book-matched and glued together after carefully 'candle-ing' the joint for gaps. This rope jig applies just enough pressure without over-doing it.
After wrapping the rope around, wedges are inserted to get it just tight enough(and avoiding breaking the top with the rope.)

pahu · Sep 28, 2016

Rosette purflings were offered in bwb and wbw configurations. These were laminated and sliced by the Team doing this operation. Students then
inserted the strips (hot from the water soaking PVC tube) into the circle jigs and left to dry.

A groove was then routed around the center hole

pahu · Sep 28, 2016

After cleaning up the edges of the routed groove, the inner and outer purflings were cut, and the Abalone pieces dry-fitted. At '12 o'clock' the fingerboard will cover the top of rosette, so that area was not finished.

pahu · Sep 28, 2016

Next, the rosette was glued in, planed/sanded flush and center hole routed out.

Its starting to look like an Ukulele

pahu · Sep 29, 2016

Bracing next: spruce was cut to size, radiused on the radius sanding dish and glued on the Go-Bar deck

the brace above the soundhole was not radiused in order to keep the top flat in that area.

Braced and ready for thinning

Thinned braces..how thin should I go?

You might think I wasted time making the bracing so smooth when you cant see it?
I dont know about you, but I always put my finger in the hole and feel around(maybe OCD?)

Next week we'll do the same to the back-wish I had a Radius dish at home-I guess that's ANOTHER tool I 'need'

sequoia · Sep 29, 2016

Thanks Pahu. Enjoying watching the build. I do like watching other people do the work so I don't have to. Also when somebody else is doing the work, I can't screw anything up so no pressure...

pahu · Oct 3, 2016

A few pieces of the abalone look a little less shiny than the rest-is it possible to polish it after its in the rosette?
I either placed it upside-down, or I may have sanded too much(220) getting the purfling flush with the top.
Suggestions appreciated.

pahu · Oct 4, 2016

Today we thickness sanded the sides to .085

This large thickness sander is a great tool!!
marked sides from template, then
Planed bottom sides for taper/ jointed top sides

Then off to the bender

Laminated the headstock veneer
White/Black/Acacia(to match the Acacia binding)

I still havent decided on shape of headstock, but I'll
probably stick with a simple one like a Martin

pahu · Oct 14, 2016

I changed my mind on the headstock veneer-the cut-off pieces were a nice book-match, and I used a B-W-B veneer on the Acacia.
It was trimmed to the nut with a jig on the table saw(Thanks, Terry!)

The Maple sides were a PITA to bend-it took 3 attempts to get them 'set'
I'm pleased with the figuring and color, so it was worth it.

I trimmed the bracing and glued the head block and tail block to the top. We're doing a bolt-on neck.

Next week we'll use the radiused Solera to start gluing up kerfing/sides/top

pahu · Oct 23, 2016

Glued on the kerfing(a little proud of the sides) and sanded flush.

Trimmed the kerfing to clear the bracing.
Cut the sides at head and tail blocks for approximate fit

and dry fitted sides to top in the Solera.
Cut the sides to (I hope) a tight fit at head and tail blocks, and started gluing/clamping
This was an intense glue-up for a newbie, and a few extra hands were helpful

All is well with the world as it came out of the Solera looking good.
Next week we'll flush cut the sides glue on the back and start on binding.

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