Building a solid body electric uke

Linz

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I've decided to take on building a solid body electric uke with my father. I plan on buying a set of plans. But I was also wondering should I go with steel or nylon strings? I'd like to do steel but nylon would be fine as well. Will the strings affect which pickup I use and whether I need to put a support rod through the neck? I planned on cutting corners on this first uke by jus buying a neck from a kit. Also if anyone could point out any solid body uke specific literature/sites I should be aware of I would be very grateful.

Thanks in advance.
 
Nylon strings will not work with a magnetic pickup. A piezo pickup will work with both, but doesn't do much if you plan on wiring in a tone control. You can make a neck for less than buying one from a kit, design your own headstock and you will have greater pride in doing it yourself and increase your skill sets for your next one (and the one after that). Since you're doing a solid body, I'll assume you're doing a Strat-style neck - no scarf joint needed, just a string retainer. A truss rod would, IMHO, be almost mandatory of you use steel strings - much more tension there.

For an adjustable bridge, try here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-STRING-BR...ccessories&hash=item2c6e522346#ht_1628wt_1333

You might also check out the Cigar Box Nation forum.

Good luck with your build!
 
Thanks for all the advice. I still think I'll be buying a kit neck for now, considering my dad thinned out his tool herd a little. I'd like to make one eventually, and if I can't work a kit neck for a steel string uke them I'll start from scratch.
 
I would be making the neck for a steel strung instrument stronger than one for nylon strings. I wouldn't expect a standard neck to break straight up but it will be floppy and bend up over time. No need for the complexity of a truss rod however. Just laminate it. You can make a steel strung solid ukulele with regular guitar parts remembering that you will have to use guitar string spacing at the saddle (you just don't use the 2 outer saddles). If you want regular ukulele string spacing at the saddle then you are now talking about custom parts. You can still make the neck regular ululele width.

Anthony
 
Some nice stuff on http://www.mandolincafe.com/archives/builders/electric.html if you're looking for inspiration. I'm planning on buying an Epiphone Mandobird and tuning it as a Uke. I just want something that I can plug into TH2 or Guitar Rig 5 and wail away.

There really is some gorgeous stuff on there though. Maybe buy a Mandobird and use the neck and hardware on your Uke ?
 
I'd highly suggest buying Melvyn Hiscocks book, "Making and electric guitar." It goes through the process from design to completion in a very easy and understandable manner. You really should have a good understanding of the process before you make decisions. Basically, you have already decided to base your design around a neck which makes things harder in my opinion. A bolt on neck like used in the guitar world is a heck of a lot easier to make then to try and fit an acoustic neck to a solid body.
 
He did WHAT? Is that even possible..?

(I'm figthing not to press "proceed to check out" at the Lee Valley site right now. 25th is payday in Sweden.)

It's called divorce. ;)

Thanks for all the advice guys, I'm doing tons of reading, I want to do things correctly.
 
Thank you, that's bet useful!

Still, your travel uke is exactly what I'd buy if I could . Was that all from scratch or plans?


Which one are you talking about? I built them all from scratch.
 
I've decided to take on building a solid body electric uke with my father. I plan on buying a set of plans. But I was also wondering should I go with steel or nylon strings? I'd like to do steel but nylon would be fine as well. Will the strings affect which pickup I use and whether I need to put a support rod through the neck? I planned on cutting corners on this first uke by jus buying a neck from a kit. Also if anyone could point out any solid body uke specific literature/sites I should be aware of I would be very grateful.

Thanks in advance.

I wasn't aware of any solid body kits out there. There are no real commercial sites or literature available. Just individual builders sharing info. I am almost certain there are no pre-made necks designed to fit solid bodies but that's really not an issue as the neck for a bolt on solid body is easy to make from even the most basic tool set. I would use one or two carbon fiber support rods running from the body joint all the way to the nut. Solid body instruments need steel strings and mag pickups since there are no sound chambers to amplify the sting vibrations. You may have to draw everything out yourself since I don't think there are any plans out there for sale. Get a set of plans for the acoustic size you are thinking about and use those as a reference. Lay out the neck scale and bridge position and then reverse engineer the body shape and headstock shape the way you want it. Fitting the neck to the body is a simple mortise/ half lap type joint that you bolt on. You will probably want to fabricate a metal plate to reinforce it the way fender does. Buy the bridge someone referenced here and take height measurements. That will give you a reference for laying the height of the neck relative the body so you can get your action right. Draw it all out! Figure out the pickups you want- very limited options. I recommend Almuse but you could always wander down the pickup making road and design your own. You want to know the pickup choice because you are going to have to cut cavities for them to fit in. You are also going to want to research a little in how you want the controls to work. Simple if you have one pickup, more options if 2 pickups. Master volume/tone vs individual, 2 way or 3 way switch etc. This will decide how you lay things out. With solid body electrics, the choices you make regarding pickups, wiring, pots, capacitors, etc greatly affect the sound you will end up with so research it a bit before starting. Feel free to PM me along the way when questions arise. I've never done a flat solidbody but I have done a couple carved top ones but most of the principles are the same.
 
Hi,
I am happy to share some experience on solid body electric ukes.

For adjustable bridges see moongazer at http://www.moongazermusic.com/bridges.html. You can live without it by using a thicker than normal bone saddle and filing it for the different compensation for the different strings, but the moongazer's adjustability is essential if you'd want to try different strings or tunings, and you will.

They also have pickups, but if you want to experiment with making your own, you can get the parts to make telecaster style pickups to your own custom measurements at Stewart Macdonald. If you start with one Telecaster pickup kit, you'll learn enough to go forward. To learn more, they also have a book called "Pickups...and the guitar became electric" or something like that. Tuners, wiring, jacks, fretwire, etc. are available at Stewart MacDonald. They also have acoustic kits, which would teach you most of what you'd need to know.

My opinion is that you are better off with a "neck through body" design if you can get straight vertical grain wood, rather than a joint where the neck meets the body. I think there is inherent advantage in sustain, which is desired in an electric, with one piece of good wood directly anchoring both ends of the strings.

My first few were this way with maple for the neck and spruce for the body sides. Even with the neck shaved thinner than I'd ever like, it was overkill. This led to an experiment with a six-string uketar of red cedar and no additional neck reinforcement, based on "Left Brain Lutherie" book that showed the biggest contributor to stiffness was the fretboard. Now after two years including camping and abuse, it's still as true as new. I've been including a single carbon insert in the ones I sell, mostly to be able to say it's there.

For fretboard, you can buy pre-slotted maple or rosewood or ebony guitar fretboards also from Stewart McDonald, then cut back from the far end (wider spacing) to get to the approximate scale length for your design -which needs to be 2 x the distance to the 12th fret that you'll use. The precision on this is the most important, and while you can get the correct fret spacing dimensions I wouldn't recommend trying unless you are confident you can get accuracy to a couple thousandths of an in

One important thing - it won't sound very much like a ukulele, more like an electric guitar played up the neck. With a high-G reentrant tuning you'll get some ukulele feel, but you can be open to what you can do with your amp, effects etc.

For example, mine are at http://www.markvinsel.com/UKES.HTM

-Vinnie in Juneau
 
I'm going to get a bridge from Tom at Moongazer and make a new nut and restring my Mini Strat at a hashed up electric Bari. I should be able to do it as a fully reversible mod, so it's just for a bit of fun ........ :D
 
That sounds good to me.
I saw one of those mini strats and thought it would be swell with one of Moongazer's five string bridges - to make a five string electric like Keith Richards.
I this modification on a Ibanez Daytripper mini acoustic (not with the moongazer but by making a five slot nut and a saddle with five notches - to hold the strings since I'm only using five of the six bridge pin holes.

It sounds fine and is fun to play.

-Vinnie in Juneau
 
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