58 Ukuleles Set Up!

UkeStuff

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Thanks to the tips at The Ukulele Site and Got a Ukulele, I took it upon myself to (re) set-up all of the ukuleles we purchased last January. They are very low quality Mahalo MK1s, and my goal is to eventually sell them to my students (at an extensive discount) and replace them with Caramels (which stay in tune and are 10 times the instrument).

The process included sanding down the string guides in the nut (the action on every Mahalo was incredibly high on both ends), sanding down the saddle, sanding down the sharp edges of the frets, and leveling the frets with an eye towards taking more off the top and the bottom of the frets.

The saddles ended at 5mm each. They involved a LOT of sanding. I used folded-over sandpaper to sand the string slots on the nuts...would have been nice to have nut files, but they are a little on the expensive side.

By the end, it was less than 10 minutes per ukulele. While these Mahalos might be crummy, they at least were cookie cutters in assembly....no surprises to be found.

That was a big project...hard to imagine doing that all day long like The Ukulele Site, Mim, or Uke Republic.
 
Good job Choirguy! Sounds like quite the undertaking. Although low action is so much easier on the beginner fingers (my fingers too!)
 
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