Here We Go! Hana Lima Ia kit summer project

I received my kit in the mail on Friday afternoon and started on it Saturday.

It's a really nice kit for the money. I chose a spruce soundboard to go with the mahogany back and sides.


They wrapped everything up and sent it my way. It came all in one piece.





Spruce


Some really nice looking mahogany

New toy!


Neck blocks all glued together

Gluing the top and back together


The Jig


Made some channels with my tablesaw


Oak Plywood bottom layer

The top/back then sits on top of that and both fit into the groves for clamping




The Garage


The joined back

Mahalo for the pictures....My friend took the class here about a year ago....he told me he would never sell it as he built it with his own hands and will give it to his son when he grows up...I played the uke and it was
pretty good...I think it was around somewhere around 400 (forgot) and something like 10 weeks on saturdays..can't remember..

RyRod,

You're doing well. Lots of progress for 1 day. Great documentation of your build. Thanks for sharing.

looks good so far. Thanks for sharing

Thanks everyone!

I've been working out there all day and have made a template for my sides. So far so good. I'm about to rough cut them, but I'm at a stand still until I can thickness everything.

I guess I could work on the neck.


Quick question... What are "ears"? Im guessing they have something to do with the neck/headstock process since they came wrapped together. The overall width of the neck is 2 1/16" which doesn't seem wide enough for your typical headstock.

Day 2

The mold has been modified to accept the spanish heel.


The sides and their template


Glued the scarf joint (not a fan). I was freaked out when cutting the angle in case I screwed up. It came out pretty good.


Trimmed the fretboard down to how I want it.


Now I'm at a stand still until everything can be planed tomorrow.

I also found out what "ears" were and I'm not too happy about using them. I'll definitely be buying a huge block of wood and making one piece necks next time.

The ears go on the sides of the peghead to make it wider than the neck. Save some of that mahogany and make a bookmatched veneer for the peghead to hide the scarf joint and the ear joint from the front.

Ah, the fun begins. Good luck with your project. The Hana Lima folks are great. (I love the way they wrap things.)
BTW, are you wetting down the boards to show the grain or for some other reason? I wouldn't be wetting the wood down with ANYTHING during glue up. You want your wood to be as dry as possible throughout the entire build but especially during the top/back gluing and the bracing.

I just needed to see the grain pattern for matching so I sprayed a little distilled water on it.


Today is thicknessing day and when I get back I'll be bending the sides and starting work on finishing the neck.

The sides are scaring me a bit....

I'm with Mr. Moore on this. For checking grain we usually wipe a bit of mineral spirits on the wood...no introduction of water.

I started typing my reply and this crazy storm rolled in and killed the power for a second.

Anyway....

Crap!

That's what that was, mineral spirits (which I have). Oh well. It's still super dry. The wood has been sitting for a couple days because I couldn't do anything with it until I had it thicknessed today.

I'll tell you now that I'll never make that mistake again.

Here are a few pictures of our friend's shop where I had everything thicknessed.







It's awesome!

I also had the neck roughed out while I was there.

RyRod said:

Day 2

The mold has been modified to accept the spanish heel.

The sides and their template

Glued the scarf joint (not a fan). I was freaked out when cutting the angle in case I screwed up. It came out pretty good.

Trimmed the fretboard down to how I want it.

Now I'm at a stand still until everything can be planed tomorrow.

I also found out what "ears" were and I'm not too happy about using them. I'll definitely be buying a huge block of wood and making one piece necks next time.

Click to expand...

Ears are pretty common Ryan. Most builders will use a veneer of nice wood as a headstock overlay that is one piece. That way the ears are only visible from the back. If you take a bit of time lining the grain up and the joint is tight the ears will be hard to see.

olgoat52 said:

Ears are pretty common Ryan. Most builders will use a veneer of nice wood as a headstock overlay that is one piece. That way the ears are only visible from the back. If you take a bit of time lining the grain up and the joint is tight the ears will be hard to see.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Now that I know what's up I'll have to make sure I do it right. I'll find some nice piece for a veneer.


As for progress...

I bent the sides.


When I took them out they stayed bent!!!

They're in the cooling form right now.

Well, I've come to the conclusion that you guys should build 'em, and I'll play 'em.

I'm gonna finish this because I don't like to leave things unfinished, but without all the tools and skills, it's not my thing right now.

I won't tell you what went wrong yet until I see the finished product.

I do make braces like a pro though!

Sides cooling


Neck carving set up




Kerfing being glued

You probably didn't need to park your car on the tuning head to show how strong it is.

RyRod said:

Well, I've come to the conclusion that you guys should build 'em, and I'll play 'em.

I won't tell you what went wrong yet until I see the finished product.

Click to expand...

That doesn't sound fun for you. Let me take some wild guesses:

1. You decided to arch the back but only arched it lengthwise, thus making the uke look like a clog.
2. You made the neck V-shaped because that sounded cool, but it got really uncomfortable.
3. Top got too thin.
4. You bent one of the sides inside out.
5. You bent one of the sides backwards.
6. You cracked a side and made a sub par repair.
7. You ran a chisel through the top when shaping braces.
8. After closing the box, it seemed like a good idea to remove sawdust with the hoover, but the nozzle covered the soundhole and created a vacuum that made the back crack and cave in.
9. A big chunk of wood flew off the back of the neck while carving, and trying to save the situation you had to make the neck too slim.
10. Shape of body got all assymmetrical.
11. You decided upon an aluminium saddle and it sounded like poo. But you were too lazy to change it for two years.
12. You took orders you don't have time to honor.
13. Headstock got too short.
14. Tuner holes got too big.
15. Finish got dull instead of shiny.
16. Bridge slipped during gluing, and got slightly diagonal.
17. Glue got on the outside of the box but was invisble until finishing.
18. Frets got misplaced and wonky 'cause you don't have a jig.
19. Wife "hinted" you spend too much time building.
20.

Of course, all these mistakes and misfortunes are completely made up, and have no connection at all to my experiences during the early stages of my building. Surely, anyone who'd suffered through stuff like this wouldn't continue building, and not be approaching 40 instruments?

All you've shown in your pics look really really good. If you made some mistakes, don't be too hard on yourself, or your uke. You don't have to build ukes. But I can promise you it gets more and more fun, it gets easier, it gets to a point where you would never give it up.

All the best man.

Sven

Wow, Sven! I've only built one uke and I had 5 things on that list happen to me.:biglaugh:
That being said, I can't wait to start the next one.