Koa Tenor and rope binding

B

BR Ukuleles

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A recent addition to my stock for display at the Cairns Ukulele Festival at the end of this month. Don't think I'll have time to get any more completed with the way my schedule is.

Koa is from some orphaned guitar backs. The recent soprano I displayed here was from the same sets. Low gloss lacquer over epoxy pore fill. Rope binding is fun to install and you have to keep in mind which way the pattern is going when you are bending each side. Really easy to get it backwards.

Head plate is a slice of burl I've had for quite some time. An Australian species of some sort that I can't recall the name. Carbon fibre reinforced neck as well as bridge patch. Entire instrument assembled with hot hide glue.
 

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Nice side joint at the tail block. The grain match looks great. Very dark Koa. Very pretty.
 
That headstock veneer is spooky. It looks like ghosts or skulls or something.

Very beautiful uke overall!
 
Aloha Allen,
As usual, beautiful work and great attention to detail...all the pattern of the curl match up perfectly...Only if I was in Australia...sheesh..MM Stan
 
Beautiful work, indeed!
 
That made me drool a little.
 
Thanks everyone.

The inner purfling on the rope binding is dead easy. I've got a choice of either black or koa for the line as the rope is made up with this one either side of the lamination. Helps keep all those little bits of wood together when you're bending it.

Nothing too hard about the heel to neck transition. It's a stacked heel that I use a large forstner bit to cut the radius very close to the final shape. Bandsaw the rest of the heel and neck. Clean up the radius of the heel to neck on my spindle sander. Taper the neck for the fret board rough on bandsaw then clean up with template cutter on router table. Swap out to round over bit and finish the edges on the heel. Because of the taper on the neck, the round over fades out the further you go towards the nut, but the hard part of all that end grain on the heel is done. The rest of the shaping is done with rasps, scraper and bow sander.

And Spanish Heels make for very tight fitting body to neck joins.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Your work is gorgeous. Every one seems to get better and better. Congrats this one is fantastic.
 
RyRod said:
That headstock veneer is spooky. It looks like ghosts or skulls or something.

Very beautiful uke overall!
Click to expand...

This comment made me go back for a second look. Maybe it's those drugs I tried back in the '70s, but yes! there are a lot of spooky faces in that burl, like the smiling lady in the upper right. Says this uke will have a lot of spirit in it's music! What a beautiful work of functional art!
 
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