Build your own uke?

Wanted to share this with you, while I was looking around for a uke, I stumbled upon this:
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Kits/Ukulele_Kits/Ukulele_Kit.html?tab=Pictures#details

pretty amazing I would so mess this up haha! Wonder if they could be any good.

The Stew Mac kits can be a useful tool for beginners that have no luthier experience, but want to experiment with building a uke.

Grizzly also sells a super cheapo uke kit for about $30 or less. It is poor quality, but some people buy them just to use the neck and fret board for a inexpensive cigar box uke.

hoosierhiver said:

Grizzly also sells a super cheapo uke kit for about $30 or less. It is poor quality...

Click to expand...

$23 these days from Amazon. I bought one but haven't built it yet. Some online reviews says the end result can be okay especially if you use better strings than what they supply, and if you deviate from the kit instructions in one or two places. There's a page here that talks about it -- unfortunately the page is on geocities so it will cease to exist in a few weeks, which is a shame. He recommends locating the bridge 3/32" further from the 12th fret. In a review on Amazon the same author also suggests shortening the nut to first fret distance by 1/16".

I expect my resulting instrument to be mediocre at best, but for $23 why not -- a very inexpensive bit of instrument building education. If I enjoy it I'll probably move on to the Stewmac kit, or one of the kits from Hana Lima 'Ia.

You don't need no stinkin' kit... ( ) http://www.wsukes.com/plans.html

dang Dave, that is a great DIY instructional w/o all the complex clutter. I've reaaaaally been hankering to build a traditional uke. can you dry the wood too fast...say I put it on the shoe rack in the dryer because I'm impatient.

I'm gonna run this by the local luthier instructing the guitar building class to see if he's got some easy stuff to help me out. I may be hollerin at you if I need some help

I'm stoked!

Stewart MacDonald is good stuff.

I'm not a huge stewmac fan, but I'm also dont have extra money for all the fluff.

you can also make alot of what you need on your own for pennies with a little effort, and improvise on alot of the rest. I cant say, however, that I would do those things on my own if I had the money to buy it outright.

Taylor built his first guitar from 2x4's, I saw it on a TV documentary on their company. Pine is similar to spruce, anyway, the top was made from several 2x4's glued parallel to each other.

I thought of building a uke from Home Depot materials. For example you can buy pieces of redwood for making benches and such.

Pete Howlett makes a kit with decent wood.

the only kit i would buy is one showing me how to make this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqDzOAuPD_g