Converting small electric guitar to uke?

Deaks

Deaks

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Please be gentle with me if this is an absurd idea, but my next purchase will be a solid body electric uke and there's nothing off-the-shelf that really appeals to me, although the Stagg S style comes close. I started thinking about small electric guitars like a child might start out with and was wondering what would be involved in converting one to play as a uke?
 
Its probably more work to convert one than to build what you want from scratch. Most child guitars still have ~20" scale lengths which would put you beyond the typical baritone uke size.
Even if you can find a guitar with a short short scale length, you'd need a new neck and change the pick-ups, and change the bridge hardware for the string spacing. Even after all that you'd only have a compromised conversion hack job.
Go for a scratch build!
 
I've converted three into octave mandolins and a mandola for a couple customers. They thought they'd save some money and I thought I'd do it as a favor. It was a nightmare. It would be just about impossible to do for anything smaller than a tenor and even that is marginal. A baritone would be easier. The biggest problem is that the distance between the bridge and the end of the body can be more than half the total scale length of a soprano or concert which means you'd have the neck joint at about the 7th fret. The body would be longer than the neck.

You can buy a kit from moongazermusic. I don't think he lists them on his site but he'll make one for you.
 
Thanks for the comments. Commen sense told me it was a daft idea!
 
Suggest you run past this group exactly what you are looking for in an electric uke.
 
Ok, a slow sunday afternoon and I'm revisiting this.....

I've found that 1/2 size childrens electric guitars have a scale length of 19.5 inches which is pretty close to the 20.1 inch of a baritone uke. Is this close enough? I know I still have the problems of the pickup, bridge, nut, and tuners but I think they can be solved.

I don't have the skills to make something from scratch, or the money to have one made, but this would allow me to create something unique and that appeals to me.
 
I have a kiddy sized electric guitar... Got it quite cheap off of craigslist, actually. What I did was just tune it up a 5th... I left all 6 strings on, just for asthetic balance (I was debating pulling off the A and D strings, but decided to leave them on, although I rarely if ever touch them, as I have no memory as to the full chord shapes.)

so, basically its tuned like a Low G Uke... the chord shapes are the same as the uke (basically) and, sounds pretty cool amped.
 
What appeals to you? Perhaps there are electric ukuleles already being made that you haven't discovered yet. In my view, it'll save you a LOT of trouble.
 
First and foremost whatever I buy needs to be a decent instrument, I don't want something that I think looks great, but sounds awful. Beyond that I like the visual image of a small electric guitar, this is currently top of my list:

imgcontrol.php


I've got upto (maybe) £200 to spend and this Stagg EUK-S BK falls well within this but it's missing something I can't quite put my finger on. I'm not as keen on any of the Eleuke or Risa models.
 
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Oh umm, I used to have that exact Stagg.
Now I've owned quite a number of solid body electric ukuleles...
Stagg was the worst by my experience so far. The action/neck was badly done on mine, causing a bad fret buzz. The local luthier could not fix it as it was a problem with how it was made to begin with. On top of that, the pickup insisted on humming loudly on my Roland Microcube.

I experienced much better quality with Eleuke and Risa.
 
Maybe quality control is hit n miss *shrugs*
 
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Stumbled across this thread as I've been googling this exact topic myself (cue another thread I posted about scale lengths). I'm going to keep my eye out for a cheapo kids guitar and give it a go - if nothing else, it will be a cheap source of bits .......
 
I converted my Airline Mandola to an 8-string Uke. Here's what it looks like today.National 8-String Uke.jpgNational 8-String Uke 2.jpg
 
Deaks said:
http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=161222752227

Someones doing professional conversion!
Click to expand...

The Strat conversion looks great but I'd be wary about getting accustomed to the much different-from-uke spacing between the frets at the top the neck. The gaps there are too great for my comfort. I have a Strat, and if I want to play it like a uke I simply capo it at the 5th fret (where distance between frets starts to shrink) and mute the E and a strings.
 
I really want a steel-strung for the different sound to a piezo pickup. I think I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and start saving for a Risa LP.
 
Thanks for the review, VERY interesting. Even with shipping to the UK that would be cheaper than a Risa and could mean I can afford it this year instead of next!
 
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