KALA KONKUSSION.... Neck repair.

Hello to All!

I am new here and to the UKU world! This is a Great forum and another wealth of knowledge! Hopefully I may contribute in some way.
https://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/showthread.php?139076-Greetings-from-WNY

After being infected with the UKU virus and a life long glutton for punishment I decided to purchase my first ukulele... Meet the patient...

Kala ka-kcg. She's a concert, she's dressed in koa (laminate I'm guessing). I'll call her "Lady Koa" for now. She is a young lady fallen on hard times. At some point, a moment of abuse,neglect,carelessness rendered her to her current fate! Have no fear for this shall not be the end of her for it is merely a flesh wound!

The following is NOT in any way a tutorial on instrument repair techniques to be copied by any unassuming future inquiring minds, but simply an attempt of documenting my efforts to bring "Lady Koa" back to her former glory to sing once again with her brothers and sisters (3x kala 15s still in shipment from Amazon) Although she hails from Indonesia via the E Bay and her brothers from Amazon they all have Hawaiian Ancestral connections through their Mighty Koa Roots!

And here she is.... Lady Koa! (if I can figure out how to load a picture)




OK! Something went wrong causing my portrait of Lady Koa to display in landscape(problem now resolved). I'll leave this here and continue on as I gain the appropriate UU posting skills. Any and all questions comments and complaints are more than welcome and encouraged.

To be continued.....

Second attempt at image satisfaction



Here you may be able to see. Lady Koa has suffered a neck injury to include a chip in the gloss finish. The chip may possibly be the point of impact whereas I cannot find any other damage to the headstock or tuners.

With a little hand pressure the crack opens up. It is a super clean crack and although it is visible while clamping she will be unnoticeable while playing. The crack is just north of the scarf joint making example that the glue joint is stronger than the actual wood!

This is the set up for surgery....

made a clamping caul and wrapped the neck to protect the fingerboard and frets. Clamped into the vise. Using my high tech tensioning devices, I have control over how much pressure to apply and open the crack to insert glue. This is where I'm at today as I ran out of time last evening.

I will make another clamping caul to hold pressure while the wound heals overnight

I thought of flooding this with CA but am also thinking titebond will give me more time to ensure the entire joint is covered.



To be continued....

Here is a shot showing the open wound! No stitches so we are OK right

Finished making the clamping caul and gave everything a couple dry runs. taped up to minimise mess. All set to go for hopefully tonight after work in between baseball.

Just a reminder that Sunday is Mothers Day and if your significant other happens to be a nurse, all week has been National Nurses Week!!! How is one to keep up with everything?

Oh, by the way look who just got into town! Lady Koas' family. After further review the family genetics stop at Uncle Kala, with Koa on his side of the family and Mahogany on Aunt Kala side. Still wonderful to see them all together!!!

Update...


The procedure went well and Lady Koa is recovering nicely as suspected. Here's one last photo before the glue started flowing. I made quite the mess trying to get the glue down into the crack. With the aid of some compressed air I am confident that we have full coverage. The squeeze out was consistent all along the crack. Excess glue wiped up and in the clamp for the night.



While waiting for glue to dry I decide to move on to setting up the new sopranos before releasing them to their new owners. The action at the nuts and the bridges are all atrocious! The frets are a little sharp on the edges. The necks are all very flat without any buzzing going on. Over all not a bad little Uke for $54. I only have one set up for play but it is funny how different they all sound from each other. We'll see if this remains obvious after they are all set up and in the house.

Here is the nut from the first one. You can see the line where I sanded to. The action is now A Lot more comfortable and in tune!

So this has been a slow evolution into a new realm of ukuleleism. With kids in baseball, free time or me time is limited. I did get the three Kala sopranos set up. With all the Low action threads lately I decided to drop the action on one of them to approx 2.5mm. It plays great but does not sing as loud as the others with approx 3mm action. Nothing new there right. The children have chosen their uku partners and now have them in their posession. Momma made a statement that she did not receive one of her own so we had to remedy this potential catastrophe. She is now partnered with a Luna Honu Soprano. The action on the Luna was pretty spot on. The build quality is, IMO, better with the Kala, kerfed linings and bracing etc. However, the Luna may be the better sounding.

Anyhoo.... back to Lady Koa. I am glad I got the concert size for myself. I do like the sopranos but this one is more comfortable and sounds terrific to me. I have some drop filling and some sanding to do but that will have to wait for some me time.

Oh yeah. Can you spot the latest development in my shop? Lots to be done before this gets into action but getting exciting!!! I count six.... Well seven including the one on the rest.