Setting up "Sharky"

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Ok I have had a play around with the shark now for a few days and have made a few adjustments/alterations that have really finished it off nicely.

First of all, the brass nut and saddle are gone, (nice idea and it looked cool) but the sound was too soft because of the brass and they had to go.

For the nut I went with a custon fitted graphite guitar nut, On this uke NOTHING is standard, the scale length is just under halfway between a concert and a tenor i guess, well not having a tenor to compare im not sure, but its about ooooo 4 centimeters longer than a concert anyway, and the neck is about 1 cm wider than my eleuke at the nut.

So I had to file and shape the graphite blank to fit.

P1170682.jpg

Then I had to custon fit a saddle, I went through a whole tray of them at the local music shop to find one that fitted perfectly in the bridge slot, it's pretty narrow in there lol, And also I really wanted to get the strings spaced out to get a nice even 2 to 3 millimeter gap from the edges of the neck all the way down, this meant that the bridge was a few mill too narrow and I went with the unique and yet to be patented Unorthodox webby designed overlong saddle that sticks out a few mill at either end, (hey if it works, go with it I reckon :p).

So that meant fanning the strings out slightly between the tie holes and the saddle slots, so the slots had to be pretty deep to keep them secure, I wasted 2 blanks before I got it right.

It looks like this....

P1170680.jpg

Also, in a moment of madness, I bought a set of the new aquila nyleguts but I bought TENORS instead of concerts, I don't know what possessed me but they say trust your own intuition so I went with the flow.

What a fantastic decision that turned out to be, they really lifted the volume but left the mellowness, and they feel so chunky they are just perfect for that uke, I've never played Tenor strings before but these are really nice under the fingers, OOOOOOOO NOOOOOOOO, you know what this means don't you, It means its now only a matter of time untill I just have to buy a new Tenor Uke to add to the flock, NO NO NO, UAS get back get back, nothing to see here !!! :)

Ok so what does it sound like ?

Well bear in mind that this was just recorded on the worst camera that was just closest at hand, and its in mono, and the movie has been totally compressed by youtube, and the new aquilas had been on the uke for 10 minutes when i shot this demo so they were dropping off key faster than obamas approval rating, but here ya go, first video of the shark in action.



Still a bit of fiddling around to do with the setup but it's getting close.

:)
 
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That is one wicked uke!!! Love it and sounds really nice!

Again congrats!!!!
How can one want another uke after having this one!!!??? :p I guess, when there's room, there's a uke.
Cheers
 
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