Minimalist Ukulele

I bought 12 tuners on eBay for $7.50, direct from China, free shipping. Mostly to see if they were junk or not. They arrived and look decent, but I do not really like the color (translucent white that looks like soft plastic, I prefer the harder non-transucent look).

So I am wondering what to do with them. I asked myself what would be the easiest, cheapest uke to build that is still a real musical instrument?

I am thinking a can-bodied banjo uke. I would fret the neck directly and only fret the first 8 frets. My thought is that I rarely play above 8 and a beginner surely would not. The can eliminates building a body. The banjo bridge is adjustable so I would not worry about intonation, the user could adjust it by sliding the bridge. Getting the intonation exactly right always takes a long time messing with the saddle/bridge, I'd save a few hours by using a banjo bridge. Plus by the time I've taken the bridge in and out four or five times the strings are shot.

I would build them all at once so I'd make three necks, three bridges, three tail pieces, etc. I'd get pretty fast as I went.

I'm not trying to sell these, I'd probably give them away.

Any thoughts??

if you are building an instrument around tuners, they should be a strong point...

Chris_H said:

if you are building an instrument around tuners, they should be a strong point...

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Actually I'd be building them to see how fast and cheap I could make them and still have them be decently playable. The cheap tuners were just the stimulus that got me thinking. I'd like a canjulele for my stable, I even bought a bizarre -looking can with that in mind.

With frets in neck you will want the neck raked back a little.To avoid spending hours setting it, why not run a dowel from the end of the neck to the tail, cut a vertical slot in the end of the can, threaded rod glued into the dowel and a wing nut and spring washer to tighten it up. Then you can adjust the neck angle by loosening the nut and moving the position of the dowel end.

I made this as a tailpiece on my tin can reso, and something similar could be bolted to the back edge of the top. Just a flat piece of wood with 4 slots in it.:



But I'd give it at least 12 frets, and 15 would be better. Because it's easy to reach them that high C (12, 12, 12, 15) becomes irresistible. And it may look unbalanced without enough frets.