my 7th cigar box uke w/ new mainland cedar

I'v never posted a pic of my ukes before so I hope its o.k. to show this one. set my new mainland red cedar next to it for scale. It is so loud I have to close the bedroom door to keep noise down. Box sound board is quartersawn Mhg. and the neck is off an old sherwood made by gretch an ol fellow bought new in 1950 from Montgomery Wards. It sat in the attic for 45 years and was ruined so I repurposed it. I sand the box down thin to make it sound like a uke. I think thats the secret to bring out that mahogany sound. Sold the previous ones, to music store here in South OKC. but keeping this grandpa. thanks for looking. Dismount

That's pretty cool, the Mainland sopranos are great and even the rope binding looks pretty good on the red cedar top (love Mainlands and own several but still am not a huge fan of rope binding, though since I've been looking at it pretty much every day for going on three years I'm developing more tolerance for it - LOL).

As for sanding the cigar-box ukes - I think unless you're building a steel-string electric sanding the top would be the only way to go. The tops of cigar boxes tend to be almost twice as thick as the top on a good uke, just makes sense that sanding it down would help. Have you tried a cigar box uke with an offset sound hole? Seems like that would be even louder because more of the center of the top could vibrate. Finally, have you tried a regular uke-style bridge on a CBU? It seems like you'd get more energy transfer to the top that way.

One of these days I'm going to have to get some necks from Mike at Mainland and have a go at making a CBU or six. Maybe a good winter project if we ever get this big project at work put to bed.

John

Hey John, no i've not tried an offset hole. I'm making a tenor and if I have the guts, I will try that. I'm kinda learning as I go, its pretty fun but very tedious mating the bridge to the board lining up holes just right etc... I thought about a regular uke bridge, I tried one but the uke sounds better with a different type of wood than Rosewood. I gaet more volume with the wood I use. Not sure what it is , left over from a guy who was building knife handles!! Phil

dismount said:

Hey John, no i've not tried an offset hole. I'm making a tenor and if I have the guts, I will try that. I'm kinda learning as I go, its pretty fun but very tedious mating the bridge to the board lining up holes just right etc... I thought about a regular uke bridge, I tried one but the uke sounds better with a different type of wood than Rosewood. I gaet more volume with the wood I use. Not sure what it is , left over from a guy who was building knife handles!! Phil

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Hi Phil. By regular uke bridge I meant one where the strings attach at the bridge instead of just crossing the bridge and attaching at the heel of the uke. I could be wrong but it just seems like there would be a lot more energy transfered to the sounboard if the strings are actually attached to it.

Anyway, you've certainly done more than I have, in any case!

John

John, That is exactly what I learned, and the others I made go about 1 1/2 " behind bridge and go down thro sound board and i put beads to anchor them in and the sound is twice as much! I made this one before switching over. Live and learn Phil

dismount said:

John, That is exactly what I learned, and the others I made go about 1 1/2 " behind bridge and go down thro sound board and i put beads to anchor them in and the sound is twice as much! I made this one before switching over. Live and learn Phil

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Hey, you're inspiring me to have a go at this...in all my copious amounts of free time! LOL