Another uke is born

dustartist

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This seems to be the week for new ukes to be finished. I'll add my two cents. It's a tenor, spruce top & bubinga sides and back. I ordered the materials and plans from Hana Lima 'Ia. I'm starting a second one now, w/ walnut sides and back. The Gotoh tuners make it a little neck-heavy, but not too badly. I installed a Mi-Si pickup after reading about them on this forum and I am impressed with its sound. There are a few changes I think I'll make to this next one, the plans are a good starting point though.http://img97.imageshack.us/g/20100625imgp6966.jpg/
 
That looks really nice. The bubinga is gorgeous. I got a misi from MGM a while back and am thinking about finally putting in an 'uke. Any chance you could post how you went about installing it?
 
The Mi-Si wasn't much trouble to install. I found the center for the endpin hole and started it with a 1/8" bit, finished up w/ a step drill. Drilled an hole angled at about 45 toward the side for the UST in the saddle slot. I followed Chuck Moore's advice and allowed for about 1/4" of dead space at the end of the transducer, which I ran back down another hole at the other end of the saddle. After that it is just a matter of fishing everything through and securing it. I used a 1/4" dowel shoved into the jack to pull the circuit board/jack assembly down to the endpin hole from the soundhole. I taped a piece of wire to the UST and fished it up through the hole in the saddle. I had a problem at first with the pickup wire rattling around inside the ukulele, but I coiled it a ltttle tighter and that went away. It was pretty simple, the hairiest part was drillling the holes in a finished instrument. Charged it up and it sounds really good, better than most piezo-type pickups I've heard. Not so much of that cardboard toilet paper roll sound, but pretty smooth and detailed.

Pete, I'll post a video as soon as I can make one. I found the bubinga a bit difficult to work, and very dense and heavy, but with the spruce sounds pretty balanced. Looks nice too.
 
Looks like a sharp pro job! congrats.
 
Congrats on the nice uke and job!!
And thanks for sharing with us....
Btw- I've noticed that you use image shack, is it a free program or is it expensive
and how easy or good is it????
MM Stan...
 
Imageshack is great. It's free and very easy to use. You don't even need to create an account. It's easier for me to post a link than to upload a bunch of pictures, and I guess it might be easier on the UU server..
 
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