Single piece Uke from solid wood

I just recently got my first uke. I need something to occupy me over the summer and the idea of building my first ukulele sounds nice.

I guess my question would be, How feasible would it be to carve a uke from one solid block of wood? I've read of some luthiers carving sopranino scale ukes this way. If I carved the shape then cut the soundboard and back off, that would make removing the inside of the body easier. Lets say I just leave the back and carve from the top. Would it still need the bracing on the inside? I'm not asking for an extensive answer of tools and such. Have any of you tried this? What did you do? I searched and found nothing.

Not too feasible. Sure it's possible, but think about how the grain is running. You are going to end up with so much short grain in the sides that to get them down to a suitable thickness they will break just by looking at them too sternly.

Otherwise you will need to make it quite thick and it's going to end up being a mallet instead of an instrument.

Charangos are made from one piece of solid wood with a separate soundboard added. My main charango is extremely sonorous for its size; it has the same scale as a concert but the body is rounded and appears smaller. It is thick, the thin soundboard compensates for that. I like the one piece of wood idea.

I believe the Cara Mia model from Iriguchi Ukulele (iriguchiukuleles.com) almost fits what you are asking about. The body is carved out of solid wood!:



Also, please check out her bigger (ubass) sibling therein.

Hope this helps.

That uke from iriguchi is made from plywood. It won't have the shrinkage or weak endgrain issues a uke from a single block of solid wood will.

And I bet it's a lot more work to carve / route that, than to bend sides.

That last uke looks like it'll weigh more than my car, you might as well make a fruit bowl on a lathe and stick a neck on it.