velofille
Well-known member
Here is a build i did for fun, i probably did most of it backwards or wrong, but i was more interested in having fun, and making something quirky than being a perfectionist.
I did try to get it as 'right' as possible, obeying all the rules of thickness,woods,bracing,measurements for the most part. My only big failing on this i think was the lack of a way to hold things whilst glueing. As you can see, my bridge slipped when glueing slightly, which made the strings slightly lop sided. Luckily it only moved sideways mostly and upwards was about 1mm (so intonation is slight off on higher frets).
I almost cried when i had to turn the lovely wood into a crappy looking old, dirty police box.
Biggest challenge I had with this build was getting all the measurements exact, all the angles to exactly 90 degrees, and painting it!
Woods used: Mostly Spruce back and sides, since it did not need to look fantastic. Top is solid mahogany .
I installed a pickup, and LED lights which flash several colours. The LEDs were originally part of a Xmas necklace , i ripped it apart and stuck it on the backboard around the whole. I wanted the flashing lights to be showing on the "windows" without the bulb being seen.
The controller/battery sits next to the pickup, so its easy to fix/replace batteries if needed.
My goal was not to make a new ukulele from scratch, but to create a unique ukulele. This was why i used a cheap donor uke i had around for the neck/frets/etc.
Photos of the lot from start to finish are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wishes/sets/72157629065644001/
As far as sound goes - it sounds really good! really happy with the sound, its probably better than all my other ukes, and definitely better than the original donor uke
I did try to get it as 'right' as possible, obeying all the rules of thickness,woods,bracing,measurements for the most part. My only big failing on this i think was the lack of a way to hold things whilst glueing. As you can see, my bridge slipped when glueing slightly, which made the strings slightly lop sided. Luckily it only moved sideways mostly and upwards was about 1mm (so intonation is slight off on higher frets).
I almost cried when i had to turn the lovely wood into a crappy looking old, dirty police box.
Biggest challenge I had with this build was getting all the measurements exact, all the angles to exactly 90 degrees, and painting it!
Woods used: Mostly Spruce back and sides, since it did not need to look fantastic. Top is solid mahogany .
I installed a pickup, and LED lights which flash several colours. The LEDs were originally part of a Xmas necklace , i ripped it apart and stuck it on the backboard around the whole. I wanted the flashing lights to be showing on the "windows" without the bulb being seen.
The controller/battery sits next to the pickup, so its easy to fix/replace batteries if needed.
My goal was not to make a new ukulele from scratch, but to create a unique ukulele. This was why i used a cheap donor uke i had around for the neck/frets/etc.
Photos of the lot from start to finish are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wishes/sets/72157629065644001/
As far as sound goes - it sounds really good! really happy with the sound, its probably better than all my other ukes, and definitely better than the original donor uke
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