UK Neck Blank Source

miche

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Hi everyone I just wondered if anyone knows a good uk supplier of neck blanks. I am making a baritone ukulele out of padauk and need a neck blank. I know I can get a guitar neck blank but it just seems a little wasteful.
Thank You
 
Not sure if you are looking specifically for a location/vendor in UK as in Great Britain, or are looking for UKE neck blanks, but here is what I know in the USA that is uke-specific...

Mainland sells parts, including ready-made ukulele neck/fretboard combos in all scales, see here:

http://shop.mainlandukuleles.com/ca...EF90ABB3C1EBC1DF.p3plqscsfapp003?categoryId=8

Also, you can get ukulele neck/fretboard combos on eBay and Amazon in a variety of scales, like from a seller such as KMISE from China, see here:

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st_...480495337&bbn=5524108011&sort=price-desc-rank

also, this seller Gittarmen, out of Turkey (who ships worldwide), has necks and parts for cigar box ukes and cigar box guitars, and it seems to me that he uses a CNC machine to cut the wood as opposed to doing it by hand either with power tools or manual tools, so it's possible that a batch would all have close tolerances due to the CNC machine's accuracy of cutting...

http://www.ebay.com/usr/gittarmen

Hope this helps! :)
 
What do you mean by neck blank...I just use lumps of wood ..either one piece or several glued together (stacked) ... I have some Paduk that I don't need.
 
I'm slowly working my way through a stock of old mahogany windowsills and quartersawn sapele door stiles, but you can find relatively inexpensive sapele blanks on ebay: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sapele-Ma...595877?hash=item281cb945a5:g:c-EAAOSwtnpXkbIg
The sapele I have is great to work with - just a little on the heavy side. There might be some waste, but the offcuts make good neck blocks and sapele isn't an endangered species.
 
Sapele is perfectly good, just harder to work. I find cedrela and honduran pretty easy to work in comparison, especially around the heel. I haven't used sapele a lot, perhaps on 10 instruments. If I come across straight grained stuff I buy it. It's probably the easiest suitable neck wood to source, it's commonly used by the furniture makers and joiners. The neck for a uke is really a small off cut for the joinery trade. You should be able to get it quite a lot cheaper than that ebay listing if you hunt around.
 
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