Wenge Tenor Build

After lurking around here and seeing all these awesome build threads (Moore Bettah amazing work) I've decided to attempt my own ukulele build. I built an electric guitar last year but this is my first attempt at anything involving all the challenges that come with acoustics so we'll see how this goes..

I started out building a side bender powered by two 200W bulbs. Pretty standard I guess. Bending the sides was initially my biggest concern but I bent a couple sets without incident so I went ahead and did the set of wenge sides. These didn't bend quite as easily as the first couple woods I tried (walnut, monkeypod) but no real problems.

Side Bender

Inside the side bender



After the sides were bent I glued up the wenge back. I did a stripe of curly koa down the center with a fine bwb purfling bordering it.



Full shot

I made the mistake of getting mahogany tone bars and spruce kerfing. Hopefully it won't be a problem and will just look a bit different inside...guess it goes with the color scheme at least.



Gluing the back on the sides. Borrowed this idea from Pete Howlett's very informative Youtube videos.



Try to ignore all the junk on the back...I use carpet tape to fix the wood on the workbench when I thickness it with the router, normally works fine but I tried some different tape the other day that was an absolute mess...been a nightmare trying to get the residue off, hopefully nothing's ruined. If anyone has suggestions on thicknessing parts without a planer/thickness sander I'm all ears!

Anyway that's where I'm at for the moment. I've got a mahogany neck cut out, but still deciding on the top material. I think the contrast of spruce & wenge would look nice, but I also have a cool looking piece of monkeypod. Decisions decisions...open to any suggestions or feedback you guys might have, thanks for looking!

That looks fantastic - koa bindings I suppose to match the back strip? You can build a very simple vacuum chuck for holding down wood and routing off. It consists of 2 layers of 12mm ply and one layer of 6mm in this order: 12,12, 6. The 6mm piece is the top and is drilled out like peg board. This is glued to the next piece which has the centre routed out leaving around 1" at the end. The "back" piece has a hole drilled into it as an inlet for your shop vac (I've even used a domestic vacuum cleaner). I also had one of these for ribs and fingerboards before the days of my Safe-T planer and subsequently thickness sander. I used to screw these to the bench and suck away with my vac and they worked fine. In fact I'm building a fingerboard one tomorrow... shall I video it?

That is amazing work. Especially considering that it's your first build. My first build wasn't very pretty.

make the video

Pete make the video. What ever happened to the mini soprano you were making?
Mike

Make it Pete! I love your videos, they are what motivated me to begin my first ukulele build journey.

I tried planing some wenge just the other day. It instantly removed the edge of my block plane, as if magical. So I had to sand it. And sand it. With belt sander and thickness sander. It was damn hard.

I was surprised when I bent sides from it though, bent fairly easily.

Your build looks very good, especially for a first.

Good luck with the rest, I'm going for a cedar soundboard btw.

Sven

The only problem I see with wenge is it's very open pored. Lots of grainfiller required for a smooth finish. Great colour though - dark chocolate yummy.

Yes. I'm afraid you can expect some questions about pore filling in a few weeks Pete.

Edit. Those questions are gonna be coming from me. Chuck is of course right about the priorities; sound first, finish later.

Nobody said the grain needs to be filled. For a first build, you're a long way from thinking about advanced finishing techniques. Put your energy into producing a good sound until you get a grasp on that. Some of the most beautiful sounding and looking guitars I've seen have had open grained finishes.
Nice work BTW.

Wow that looks good. Alot better than my first uke projekt.

Good luck and have fun on the journey of making a uke

this is just waay over my head...astounding

Nice, looks impressive allready! Can't wait to see more pics.

I think I'd go for epoxy filler on this one...

Looks fantastic for a first build. Nice work on the jigs too.

:agree:

What they said. Really nice work with the koa strip. Looks like you've done it lots of times.

Lookin' good.

Wet sanding with an oil finish (varnish/poly) works well to fill in the pores.

Sand to make some mud then squeegee off.
Final coat just apply without wet sanding.

Wow thanks for all the responses guys!

Pete I think you may have your answer already but I would definitely be interested in seeing that video, and thanks for the advice! Yes, the plan is to do curly koa binding with the bwb purfling same as the back strip.

On that note a quick question about working with the purfling; it's obviously easy to bend one way, but I'm not sure if there's some technique for bending it the other way for the bottom of the binding channel (not sure if this makes sense).

As far as grain filling goes we'll see...I did something similar to what RonS suggested with Tru-Oil & padauk on the electric guitar I built but I'm not sure what I'll be finishing this with so I guess I'll worry about that when the time comes.

Small update for today, flush trimmed the back down to the sides.



Still need to make a decision on the top...I've got a set of Sitka spruce but I think I may have taken off a bit too much when I was trying to take it down to the right thickness Still have enough to make a top, but also have a pretty interesting looking piece of monkeypod.



This might look better as a back though so I may use that for another build.

Thanks again for all the response guys, appreciate the replies!

wow my brain says the right choice is the sitka but my natural obsessive compulsive matchingness says the monkeypod would look amazing with the binding

I've never used wenge in a build before, but I am familiar with it. The owner of the local Woodcraft franchise is always showing me his wenge collection when I go down to their shop. I think you'll find great results with a spruce top. Should produce something similar to spruce/ebony or spruce/rosewood. Not to say that the monkeypod wouldn't sound good. I think that the spruce would be a better combination.

In theory, the spruce should provide good quick response and clarity, while the wenge will help deepen the tone and sustain. Kind of the yin/yang you get with a soft top and stiff sides/back.

Skita spruce is nice but takes a while to open up with nylon strings.
Steel string guitars can take a couple of years with this wood..

Cedar, Redwood and Englemann spruce, (in this order) open up quicker. I have no idea about monkey pod but that is a nice looking piece.