Uke Making

rayan

Ukulele Underground Staff
UU+
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
2,391
Reaction score
56
Location
Kauai HI
I know Dominator makes his own ukuleles. I've always been interested in trying it out. I guess this question is mostly for Dom, is it tough to get into and does it cost a lot?
 
Is it tough to get into. Well that depends on whether or not you've had any previous woodworking experience. I have been building furniture as a hobby since about 1986. So when I decided to get into building ukes I bought a couple of books. One was called Guitar Making - Tradition and Technology by William Cumpiano and Jonathan Natelson and the other was called The Ukulele by Dennis Gilbert. The latter is not a very good book. It shows how to build a very crude instrument IMHO. I would recommend getting the book from the guys over at Hanalima on Oahu. Check out there website when you get a chance. They have kits and all the parts you need to build your first uke. http://www.hanalimastore.com/servlet/StoreFront

For me the woodworking part came easy because of my wwg experience. The harder part is getting a grasp on the engineering side of things (how thin to make the pieces, how to shape the braces etc. etc.) to produce good sounding instruments. I have had help from other excellent luthiers sharing their knowledge with me and that it why my ukes have come along as quickly as they have after only building 6 tenors. Without them sharing their knowledge and experience I would still be building boat anchors probably.

As to cost - Depends. I invested about $1000 into some specialized tools needed for instrument building. I probably could have done it for less but I wanted to have everything I needed to do it right. You could do a soprano kit from stew mac with a minimum of tools because the sides come pre-bent etc. If you are serious I could give it some thought as to what a list of tools you would need to assemble one of those kits. I don't have time right at the moment. Time to pay attention to my wife if you know what I mean.
 
thanks dominator for some tips.

i know for sure that i cannot make a uke on my own for the first time, but when i do, i will save all this and read up on the books that you mentioned.
 

Attachments

  • P1010802.jpg
    P1010802.jpg
    91.8 KB · Views: 222
  • P1010804.jpg
    P1010804.jpg
    86 KB · Views: 99
  • P1010806.jpg
    P1010806.jpg
    86.3 KB · Views: 206
  • Padoukulele rough scetch.JPG
    Padoukulele rough scetch.JPG
    16.2 KB · Views: 17
  • Padoukulele rough scetch 2.JPG
    Padoukulele rough scetch 2.JPG
    22.7 KB · Views: 21
  • P1010853.jpg
    P1010853.jpg
    20.3 KB · Views: 20
  • P1010856.jpg
    P1010856.jpg
    36.7 KB · Views: 16
  • P1010847.jpg
    P1010847.jpg
    27.7 KB · Views: 15
  • P1010840.jpg
    P1010840.jpg
    18.1 KB · Views: 18
  • P1010871_sm..jpg
    P1010871_sm..jpg
    47.8 KB · Views: 16
  • P1010873_sm..jpg
    P1010873_sm..jpg
    53.2 KB · Views: 15
  • P1010872_sm..jpg
    P1010872_sm..jpg
    62.3 KB · Views: 15
  • P1010862_sm..jpg
    P1010862_sm..jpg
    67.3 KB · Views: 13
  • P1010860_sm..jpg
    P1010860_sm..jpg
    65.7 KB · Views: 14
  • P1010963..jpg
    P1010963..jpg
    74.5 KB · Views: 17
  • P1010976..jpg
    P1010976..jpg
    86.4 KB · Views: 17
  • P1010961..jpg
    P1010961..jpg
    72.8 KB · Views: 16
  • P1010962..jpg
    P1010962..jpg
    76.7 KB · Views: 15
  • P1010977..jpg
    P1010977..jpg
    72.9 KB · Views: 18
  • P1010960_sm..jpg
    P1010960_sm..jpg
    85.5 KB · Views: 15
  • P1010957_sm..jpg
    P1010957_sm..jpg
    85.6 KB · Views: 13
  • fretfinder..JPG
    fretfinder..JPG
    12.8 KB · Views: 17
  • cbu 10 inch box..jpg
    cbu 10 inch box..jpg
    48 KB · Views: 15
  • P1010940_sm..jpg
    P1010940_sm..jpg
    57.7 KB · Views: 22
  • P1050222_md.jpg
    P1050222_md.jpg
    90.9 KB · Views: 11
  • P1050226_md.jpg
    P1050226_md.jpg
    92 KB · Views: 5
  • P1030833_m.jpg
    P1030833_m.jpg
    54.8 KB · Views: 3
  • P1030836_m.jpg
    P1030836_m.jpg
    60 KB · Views: 4
  • P1030838_m.jpg
    P1030838_m.jpg
    46.2 KB · Views: 5
  • P1030839_m.jpg
    P1030839_m.jpg
    53.7 KB · Views: 5
  • P1030845_m.jpg
    P1030845_m.jpg
    66.5 KB · Views: 4
  • P1030854_m.jpg
    P1030854_m.jpg
    49.1 KB · Views: 3
  • P1030867_m.jpg
    P1030867_m.jpg
    72.3 KB · Views: 4
  • P1030344_sm.jpg
    P1030344_sm.jpg
    28.6 KB · Views: 5
  • P1030343_sm.jpg
    P1030343_sm.jpg
    21.5 KB · Views: 3
  • P1030332_sm.jpg
    P1030332_sm.jpg
    21.4 KB · Views: 4
  • P1030351_sm.jpg
    P1030351_sm.jpg
    25.3 KB · Views: 3
  • P1030330_sm.jpg
    P1030330_sm.jpg
    25.4 KB · Views: 4
  • P1050300_md.jpg
    P1050300_md.jpg
    63.6 KB · Views: 4
  • P1050302_md.jpg
    P1050302_md.jpg
    69.9 KB · Views: 3
  • P1050311_md.jpg
    P1050311_md.jpg
    56.6 KB · Views: 4
  • P1050319_md.jpg
    P1050319_md.jpg
    71.5 KB · Views: 6
i've always wanted to make my own uke too. i remember my woodshop teacher said he used to teach his students how to make ukes but it got too expensive when people kept messing up lol.
 
mr dominator, how about if one of us would like to have you build one for us? do you have information on that?

Ok, finally a little time to address this question.

Currently, I'm only building for select people because of other commitments to my day job, my rock band, my wife etc. etc. I just never know how much shop time I will have so it's hard to commit to delivery dates etc. The people I have been building for have put no time limits on when their uke will be done and pretty much allow me to build at me leisure.

I haven't established a published price list as of yet and won't until I'm at the point of accepting orders from the general public. Currently, I just work up a price on a piece by piece basis. As an example, this grade AAAA Curly Koa tenor with Gotoh geared tuners and Mi-Si battery free pickup system sold for $1300. There are a number of decent production ukuleles that you can get for much less. It just depends on what you can afford and whether you want (or need) a hand made instrument that is crafted with mucho Aloha specifically for you.

tenor_6_front.JPG


I do have a list that I'm keeping of those that are seriously interested in having one of my ukuleles once I gear up to dedicate more time to building. Anyone interested can just email me to start a dialog and we can take it from there.
 
understood.

im somewhat of a do-it-yourself kinda guy. im an avid fisherman, both leisure and competition, with a couple of tournament wins under my belt. so it wasnt long before i started building my own fishing rods and making my own lures. so i would love to be able to build my own uke.

unfortunately, a lot of the value that goes into a high end $300 fishing rod goes into the attention to detail of building it, and understanding the components and their purpose. because i do, i could easily build a rod that could sell for about $400 and only spend about $150 in materials. those ukulele building kits are interesting, but basically, it comes down to building an ukulele that someone else designed. its great for learning, but man, thats an expensive lesson haha.

what i would love to do is, through a somewhat informal apprenticeship, build the uke of my dreams... slowly... under the watchful eye of an accomplished luthier. but i dont see that happening anytime soon hehe.
 
Beautiful..
I would hope my next uke to be a Dominator uke.. I'm now waiting for another William King Concert by the end of Dec, so I gotta save up the budget again.. I'm not in a rush at all, so this may work out. Do you do Concert scale Dom?

I have my own story regarding building.. I HAD that desire a couple of years ago, so I ordered a Tenor uke kit from Hanalima.. and Asa Chock was kind enough to include 2 bookmatched pairs of nice semi-curly Koa for top and back for a sweet deal. Also, I figured I ought to buy one of their Grizzly Soprano kits to get my feet wet at the same time. Also, Gotoh tuners, a heat blanket for bending... I had high expectations.:rolleyes:

The Grizzly kit is pre-built so assembly involves gluing on the neck, fretboard, bridge, finish, etc. Well one look at the plywood fretboard, and I knew that had to go. I dug out a piece of Cherry and surface planed it to the right thickness, measure and cut the slots for the frets, and proceed with assembly... had my son do all the sanding prep etc and finish with cheap brush-on furniture lacquer.

Well, as the pic tells, I hand cut the fret slots crooked..
griz_uke_2.jpg


finished .. pretty sad, but not too bad, good for when my 2 nieces come over.. this is the uke they can play/bash around with. Even sounds decent with the junk ghs strings. and it stays sort-of in tune pretty well for the cheap tuners included in the kit.
griz_uke_1.jpg


Needless to say, I gave up on the idea of building that Tenor kit, it's gonna take me too much time and in the end, I'll probably goof it up and ruin good Koa.. so the kit sits in a box.:rolleyes:
 
Top Bottom