neck thru body to improve sound on cigar box ukulele?

I found on this site the following information:

Neck Through notes:

The neck through construction method produces excellent sustain. The neck wood strongly influences the tone of the guitar, because it occupies perhaps the most important part of the body: the center. There is a nasal, thinner quality to the sound, often augmented with a figured wood top. Your side woods make up far less of the tone than on a bolt on or set neck guitar. You first have to estimate what that neck wood’s tone is like as a body wood, and then accentuate or counteract that with your side woods. So a Hard Maple neck through will be very bright and cutting. If you want to warm it up you’d use Basswood or Spruce sides. But if you like that quality, you might use Ash or Soft Maple sides. The effect is very different than the laminated top sound. A maple top on Basswood is nothing like a Maple neck through with Basswood wings, which sounds more like a Maple body. Generally, the softer woods excel as sides because they add back some low end resonance missing in the construction method, while dampening the highs.​

I'm not planning on making my first cigar box uke a neck thru body design, as I don't want to fashion my own neck for this first one, but now I'm thinking about fixing a thin hard maple slat running through the middle of the basswood box I have coming. Any thoughts on this?

That is an interesting question. A box which is strong enough not to deform under the pull of the strings does not need a "neck-through" design for any structural reason. It is no different from a conventional stringed instrument.

The basswood box you have ordered looks more than strong enough for the job. In fact I'd think it is probably a bit on the heavy side.

Ukes made from biscuit-tin boxes, and the like, need a through neck because the box itself has little structural strength, and would soon go out of shape under the tension of the strings. Can a through neck on a ukulele can give a better sound? I haven't a clue, but I've had such good results using the time honoured "stick a neck on a box" method, that I have no plans to change.

A well made cigar box uke can sound every bit as good as some very highly regarded "standard" ukes. I personally don't think a through-neck, or an internal strut, is likely to improve it, but I've never tried it, so what do I know?

Ukantor

That quote must have come from a solid body electric builder. The neck through vs. bolt on debate has been going on as long as both types of electric guitars have existed. Both designs are pretty popular so I guess the debate will continue. (I'll take one of each!!)
Accoustic instruments amplify the surface vibrations of the body. Something vibrating inside it like a neck extenstion wouldn't make much sound.....strike a tuning fork and put it inside the sound hole and it won't ring. Touch it to the top and it will. The neck does affect the tone by transmitting vibrations to the body, but spanish heel, mortise & tennon and bolt on neck designs all produce great results.
Neck through on an accoustic body would change the tone by decreasing the interior volume and adding weight. Most builders try to avoid both of those changes though.
But on a cigar box uke? who knows?? You could have the next big thing here

I've seen resonator guitars have a support that runs the length of the body but is cut in a manner that it doesn't touch the top or back. If you are looking at providing longitudinal support then that may be a good approach.

I also once repaired a banjo mandolin where the neck had a threaded lug in it. A threaded rod was run all the way through the rim and into the neck. There was a nut with a washer on the inside of the rim that bolted the neck to the rim then an acorn nut on the tailpiece end. Does that make any sense? Somehow it had came unscrewed and I was quite impressed with the rigidity once I tightened everything up.

Andrew

:agree:I'm with ksquine

I am all about the simplicity of the neck-thru, but thats probably because I never learned how easy it was to attach a neck to a box until I watched Dave G's videos. I love neck throughs...its a great start for anyone especially those completely new to tools and building.

I'm just a hack player and am entirely unstudied but the way I understand the bottom line is that acoustic instruments have a sound board, resonating chamber, and sound hole...thats how they operate (forget the neck for now). The vibrations transfer through saddle etc into the soundboard, throughout the resonating chamber for depth and VOLUME and then out the soundhole. A neck-through is only going to absorb sound within the resonating chamber rather than contribute to it since it is inside the chamber detracting from resonation rather than attached to the chamber and affecting more.

The main souce of volume and sound come from the soundboard and chamber...wood choice, size and shape all effect that sound in varying degrees. Certainly the neck does affect, but I would deem it as adding a subtle nuance (which can make all the difference in the world) to the sound rather than a primary contributor since you can have the best neck in the world, but w/o the body, you got nothing.

I've kinda gotten a feel for an evolution of luthiery starting from scratch with cigar boxes. W/o being soo long winded, there seems to be

1: standard neck-thru which dampens soundboard and is piezo dependent
2: modified 2-piece neck-thru freeing the soundboard- more acoustic value
3: Attached neck to cigar box - even more acoustic value
4: Attached neck to shaped body -traditional acoustic/highest acoustic value

Certainly there are more factors such as angle of neck, angle of strings on nut and saddle, saddle material etc, but I think the above are the major shifts in building from po-man to professional.

you gotta have a design that will produce volume