jinny
Well-known member
Yup, hard to believe.
I got one!
I should explain a little first...
Ahnko Honu's thread got my all inspired to buy one of those UK Sponge Bob Pineapple Ukes... here's the thread if interested...
http://www.ukuleleunderground.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20527
well, in researching the item, I noticed that they have Sponge Bob 1/2 size guitar with Classic headstock... and I got to thinking that I might be able to convert it to a 6-string uke pretty easy...
Well, I contacted a company and with shipping... it would have been too expensive to try just for fun... so before I spent too much money on a project that would end in disappointment, I decided to see if I could do it with a 1/2 size guitar that was available here... Well, I found a Lauren 1/2 size guitar on amazon shipped to me for $34.95... wow! cheap!
It also has the Classic Headstock so I was set for my experiment. I got some 6-string Baritone Strings and got to work.
Here is the results of my preliminary tinkering...
it might be a small guitar, but it makes a HUGE uke... here it is compared to my Travel Uke (don't look too carefully at all the junk on my table... I hope there isn't anything embarrassing there)...
to get the string spacing, I made little rings with a paperclip and fed the strings I wanted together thru them... like so...
and luckily for me and this experiment, they use a zerofret so the nut didn't have to be perfect. I just pried loose the cheap hollow plastic nut and flipped it around and cut rough notches into it... I messed up so there are a whole mess of notches in mine... luckily the zero fret masks the butchered nut...
and, yes, it IS crooked... hey, it was $40! perfect fretboard it does not have.
I think I strung it wrong... the Aquilla string set packaging says GCEA tuning and has a wound low "G" but I snapped the low G string on the first attempt at tuning it as G... maybe a defective string but I suspect it should be DGBE... I swapped one of the steel strings that the guitar originally came with for the snapped one and while it's not perfect, it gives me an idea of what it will be like. there is also a wound C string in the set (G string for DGBE tuning)... I thought that it should be tuned to an octave lower than the regular C string, but when I get the two "C" strings tensioned the only thing that makes sense is that the wound string is the regular "C" and the un-wound is an octave higher... wierd since they could have used an unwound string to do that. it sorta messed me up since I ordered the strings in hopes that when I did some in-to-out or out-to-in picking it would sounds normal. Oh I forgot to mention that I did re-entrant tuning, by swapping one of the double "A" strings (E string for DGBE) with the Low G and tuned the A one octave lower. hope all that made sense... if not, it's okay, 'cause the result is...
It's not a very good uke... but then again, for a $40 6-string baritone uke it's pretty darn nice.
At minimum, it was a fun experiment... and I'm not done. I think there are few simple things I can do to get it sounding better...
like I'm gonna drill out the bridge to get rid of the temporary paperclip-rings. and probably straighten the finger board at the nut and replace the nut as well. maybe new saddle too. the original plastic saddle was way crooked anyways. I had to file it down to get it the way it is now... and the action is still a little high for my tastes.
I'll keep you posted.
I got one!
I should explain a little first...
Ahnko Honu's thread got my all inspired to buy one of those UK Sponge Bob Pineapple Ukes... here's the thread if interested...
http://www.ukuleleunderground.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20527
well, in researching the item, I noticed that they have Sponge Bob 1/2 size guitar with Classic headstock... and I got to thinking that I might be able to convert it to a 6-string uke pretty easy...
Well, I contacted a company and with shipping... it would have been too expensive to try just for fun... so before I spent too much money on a project that would end in disappointment, I decided to see if I could do it with a 1/2 size guitar that was available here... Well, I found a Lauren 1/2 size guitar on amazon shipped to me for $34.95... wow! cheap!
It also has the Classic Headstock so I was set for my experiment. I got some 6-string Baritone Strings and got to work.
Here is the results of my preliminary tinkering...
it might be a small guitar, but it makes a HUGE uke... here it is compared to my Travel Uke (don't look too carefully at all the junk on my table... I hope there isn't anything embarrassing there)...
to get the string spacing, I made little rings with a paperclip and fed the strings I wanted together thru them... like so...
and luckily for me and this experiment, they use a zerofret so the nut didn't have to be perfect. I just pried loose the cheap hollow plastic nut and flipped it around and cut rough notches into it... I messed up so there are a whole mess of notches in mine... luckily the zero fret masks the butchered nut...
and, yes, it IS crooked... hey, it was $40! perfect fretboard it does not have.
I think I strung it wrong... the Aquilla string set packaging says GCEA tuning and has a wound low "G" but I snapped the low G string on the first attempt at tuning it as G... maybe a defective string but I suspect it should be DGBE... I swapped one of the steel strings that the guitar originally came with for the snapped one and while it's not perfect, it gives me an idea of what it will be like. there is also a wound C string in the set (G string for DGBE tuning)... I thought that it should be tuned to an octave lower than the regular C string, but when I get the two "C" strings tensioned the only thing that makes sense is that the wound string is the regular "C" and the un-wound is an octave higher... wierd since they could have used an unwound string to do that. it sorta messed me up since I ordered the strings in hopes that when I did some in-to-out or out-to-in picking it would sounds normal. Oh I forgot to mention that I did re-entrant tuning, by swapping one of the double "A" strings (E string for DGBE) with the Low G and tuned the A one octave lower. hope all that made sense... if not, it's okay, 'cause the result is...
It's not a very good uke... but then again, for a $40 6-string baritone uke it's pretty darn nice.
At minimum, it was a fun experiment... and I'm not done. I think there are few simple things I can do to get it sounding better...
like I'm gonna drill out the bridge to get rid of the temporary paperclip-rings. and probably straighten the finger board at the nut and replace the nut as well. maybe new saddle too. the original plastic saddle was way crooked anyways. I had to file it down to get it the way it is now... and the action is still a little high for my tastes.
I'll keep you posted.
