Electric Solid Body Uke

MeyerUke

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I am building a Les Paul style solid body uke. I am using the Grizzly kit (neck, fingerboard, and bridge), humbucker pickups with 2 knob electronics, I will have to use light steel strings and enclosed mini gear tuners. I have not figured out the bridge, I plan to use the original and run the strings over them into thru-body holes (like Dean guitars sometimes have).

Any suggestions or ideas? What type of wood is best for a solid body? Anyone tried this and have problems? Any tips before I begin would be appreciated.
 
What kind of strings do I use.

I am planning to build a solid body electric ukulele out of a a nice chunk of Australian lacewood and perhaps another one out of piece of red mahogany. I have only built open body acoustic cigar box instruments and have no idea what what type of pickup or strings to use. Any advice?
 
I have actually been playing a little around with this idea too. But I'm kinda stuck at choosing pickups, can you please link those you've found Meyer?
Take a look at the ukulele this fine lady got http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGG_ZSH-1TU and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKF3bKadv_M
I also found that RISA makes steelstrings for ukuleles. You can get them from www.ukulele.de
I have been thinking about just using a Piezo under saddle pickup and then just make some fake lookalike pickups for the looks.. What do you think??
 
No different than an electric mandolin. I have used alder, mahogany and walnut then used a 1/4" drop top. If using hardwood I have milled out most of the inside to make it "semi-hollow" but not enough to have any acoustic properties. GFS makes some small, Tele neck pickups, that are also humbuckers so they look good on smaller scale instruments.
 

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No different than an electric mandolin. I have used alder, mahogany and walnut then used a 1/4" drop top. If using hardwood I have milled out most of the inside to make it "semi-hollow" but not enough to have any acoustic properties. GFS makes some small, Tele neck pickups, that are also humbuckers so they look good on smaller scale instruments.

Do they make them with only 4 magnets, or do they still have 6? Because I can only seem to find ones with 6 magnets..
 
What a beautiful burl uke. :cool:
 
I have a pile to do in July... strange because last year was the year of the soprano for me :eek:
 
Thanks for the ideas! I am trying on humbucker pickup that does not have poles and light steel strings. If this does not work, I will use a piezo. I threw around the idea of using a bass pickup that had similar distance between strings, but did not know if it would be to tall or would pick up higher pitches.

I am using birch and plan to begin the body constuction, I will post pictures later and let you know what worked for me.

Any better ideas for strong bridges or for attaching a neck, such as making a slot or bolting (I will need strength to steel strings)?
 
Take a look at this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2IPoY9GzMM Im sure you'll find it interesting. He also got a video were he makes a guitar, which also are quite good..

Im really looking forward at seeing how this work out for you, I got plans for a soprano telecaster right beside me, but I got to finish my acoustic soprano first.. I wish you the best of luck..
 
Check out moongazermusic.com for four string bridges. You can use a piezo style saddle with the hardtail bridges including a midi system. I'd recommend the Ghost sytem form GraphTech. Otherwise, use a standard magnetic pickup. I'd recommend using a bolt on neck to make the joint. Its a pretty easy process if you have a router. On this page, http://www.crossroadswood.com/shop.html, towards the bottom right there are a couple pictures of a jig that show one way of cutting the neck and pocket for a bolt on. I think its self explanatory.
 
Solid for a reaosn

Faking a full size electric guitar as an ukulele is a noble 'joke'. Today you can make any sound with an effects module and a standard uke with a piezo.

Hi Pete, dont quite agree with you there, I think that as with the development of the electric guitar from acoustic instruments the biggest obstacle to overcome using large amounts of amplification is feedback, this is where the solid body really comes into its own. Not so much a tonal issue as a practical one.
 
Please post pictures, I plan to build a solid-body, as soon as I finish my acoustic baritone and a gourd banjo. I would be happy to learn from your experience.
 
Seeing how this thread was started three years ago, I'd have to believe that its been completed by now if he had followed through with it.
 
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