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Just announced: tonewood supplier Allied Lutherie has been purchased by my friend Adam Buchwald, proprietor of Circle Strings and Iris Guitars in Burlington, VT. Adam is moving Allied's warehouse and operations from Healdsburg, CA to Burlington. He already has added some exciting new products...

This is where I live, and these are my neighbors.

Install an arm rest.

You're reinventing the wheel by grinding your own stone. This stuff works beautifully: http://www.inlaceonline.com/index.html. Easy to mix, sands well and looks great. I used it to make the uke pictured here.

My experiment with pore filling with CA isn't working out. After several applications using the methods detailed in other threads, the pores still are not filled. I've tried the paper towel method, the credit card method, and the flooding method, all to no avail. I want to start over using good...

I finished my first tenor resonator a couple of weeks ago. It came out well… or so I thought. The strings anchor to the coverplate as shown in the photo below. Based on reports that the sharp metal might cut the strings under tension, I deburred the slots with a needle file and tried to cushion...

Has anyone tried the combination of a Tru-Oil finish over CA glue used as pore filler? I'm wondering if I need to apply a shellac barrier coat between them.

I know this is a ukulele board, but I’ve gone temporarily over to the dark side and I’m working on a dreadnought guitar with a 25.4” scale. I'm not a member of any of the guitar boards and thought I'd ask here first. I don’t bother with a neck angle on ukes as I’ve found they’re not necessary...

A while ago, I had headstock logos and 4mm dots cut by laser on a maple headstock overlay blank. They look great and are less ostentatious than MOP or abalone.

Even the funny papers know that ukulele building is not a big money making career:

For me, my coolest uke is usually the one most recently completed. Here's one that shipped out today. Gorgeous, multicolored and curly mango soundbox with amboyna burl trim, Spanish cedar neck, East Indian rosewood fretboard and bridge, faux tortoise binding, and PegHed tuners.

I have an order for a tenor uke from Australia and I'm looking for the best and most economical shipping method. So far FedEx wants $580 and USPS wants $270 to deliver a 7.5lb package. Does anyone know of a better/cheaper method? Also, what are the requirements for customs forms, CITES...

I don't usually post my work here, but I'm making an exception because this tenor, just completed, is over the top for me. Spruce soundboard and curly maple back, sides and neck. Pearloid (aka Mother of Toilet Seat) headplate and binding. Turquoise InLace appointments. Double bound fretboard...

Today I sprayed the first coats of nitro on my current build, a spruce/maple tenor that uses InLace resin ("liquid inlay") for the rosette, tail graft and headstock logo. I'm getting small fisheyes on the InLace, none on the wood. A little online research suggests that I should add some fisheye...

Today I went to grab some mandolin-size kerfed linings for my current build, but discovered that I forgot to order more from Stew-Mac, and I was out. Not wanting to stop work until I could order more, I decided to make my own from some Spanish cedar offcuts. First time doing this, and it turned...

I had a small accident in the spray booth yesterday when I mistakenly thinned Cardinal nitrocellulose lacquer with denatured alcohol instead of lacquer thinner (d’oh!). I didn't notice until I was done for the day as the alcohol-thinned lacquer sprayed and flowed out beautifully. It dried...

I use different glues for different purposes, including hot hide glue for attaching bridges. News of a lifting bridge on one of my instruments motivated me to test the strength of a HHG bond against LMI Instrument Glue and Titebond Original. I prepared six pieces (3 pairs) of Spanish Cedar, each...

The only one I've kept of the 25 or so I have built is one I deemed my "experimental uke" in that it incorporated a number of elements I never had tried before, such as a new bracing pattern, rope purfling, a sound port, and one-piece koa top and back from a flitch that seemed less than stable...

My daughter, Melanie, wrote me a song on my #2 for Father's Day. Ukulele building content in the last verse. I'm a very lucky dad.

The second one is kind of like an F5 mandolin headstock. Someday, I'll make a uke in the style of an F5 mandolin, scroll and all.