Recent Class Ukulele

Besides doing quick build classes each year at the beginning of July, I take on students when I get a small group who can devote one evening and a Saturday for about 8 weeks in order to do a scratch build.

This year I had two returning students who breezed through the class, and finished up in 5 weeks. With the others hopefully being able finish in another couple of weeks.

This is a concert made by one of the fellows. Made from West Australian Lace Sheoak with ebony trim and tortoise shell binding

Looks great. I`m sure he will be pretty proud of that.
Is the Sheoak good to work with? Do you have a preference to types of finish?

Beautiful! That rosette is certainly striking as well.

Not being a woodworker - although I really appreciate nice woods, what is the West Australian Lace Sheoak? I don't think I've seen it mentioned before.

Thanks, Allen.

Allen said:

Besides doing quick build classes each year at the beginning of July, I take on students when I get a small group who can devote one evening and a Saturday for about 8 weeks in order to do a scratch build.

This year I had two returning students who breezed through the class, and finished up in 5 weeks. With the others hopefully being able finish in another couple of weeks.

This is a concert made by one of the fellows. Made from West Australian Lace Sheoak with ebony trim and tortoise shell binding

View attachment 41951

Click to expand...

Maybe you can talk Rick into offering this class too

WA Sheoak (allocasuarina fraseriana) is hard like you wouldn't believe. Sometimes it bends quite easily, and others not. It burns going through the drum sander if you take anything more than a whisper off at a time. Glues well, and does look pretty.

It's not the easiest wood to build a uke with, but this student has built 2 other Blackwood ukes with me and wanted something different this time around. Personally, I would pair it with a spruce top, but he (and more importantly his grand daughter) wanted the look of that top.

I always use Miritone for the finish on my instruments unless requested otherwise. Lucky for you you're in Australia, as it's a local product.

This has 4 thin coats of high gloss that was rubbed back after a week, then 2 more thin coats of satin on top. If you go with straight satin you have to limit the number of coats, or the finish starts to look a bit cloudy.

The 1st uke I built was with Sheoak, I found it great to work with.
Some pictures here and the entire build covered on my blog.

Thanks Allen.
Regards
Ross

You should call it a classy ukulele instead. Very nice

Nice Work!!