New Tenor build

I’ll soon be starting on a new design and will be posting the build progress. I’m not exactly sure where this build will lead, and will most likely make small changes along the way. This is made easier because I don’t do custom orders and there isn’t customer involvement to consider. My trend lately has been larger bodies and short, stiff upper bouts. This leaves little room for a sound hole, so I’ve moved it to the front of the body. The drawings are already made and here’s what they are:

Sketch: The sketch is made on ¼” quad paper that allows for drawing to ¼-scale, making it easy to know what the proportion and dimensions will be. This is an organic sketch, not copied from any other, but it’s still a pretty generic shape. I scan the sketch into my computer, and then import it into a vector drawing program.

Tracing: I do a vector tracing of the sketch that is perfectly symmetrical and scaled to actual size.

Drawing: All the details are then added. Some of the components--like the neck and head stock--can be copied from drawings of other designs and pasted-in to save time. I like to position my bridge 1/3 the total fan brace length from the waist brace; this puts the neck/body joint at the 16th fret. If the upper bout was more traditional in length it would probably land near 14.

Template: The body portion of the drawing is printed out and pasted on to chip board. This will serve as a master template for tracing and checking dimensions. Other parts of the ukulele can also be printed and used as templates, or pasted directly on the wood for sawing and sanding profiles.

Loprinzi ukes and guitars has been doing a similar design, might want to check it out. Good luck.

Thanks. I couldn't find the ukulele you're talking about, but here's one I did about 5 years ago using a similar upper bout.

Love that design, very organic. So the sound hole is on both sides of the neck joint? If so I would think finishing the inside of that area would be important. Can't wait to see how this build progresses.

Here's the kamagong ebony back and side wood for this ukulele. The other picture tells a little about its history. I bought the wood in a nearby town where it had been stored for years. It was originally used to make a very large all-ebony ox-drawn sled to move heavy objects in a Philippines jungle (no lie). The board in the picture is one of the sled runners and it measures 2.5" x 12" x 10 feet. In all, I must have at least 1000 lbs. of the stuff.

That wood is amazing. Can't wait to see the finished product!

Here's another drawing with color and more details added.



Just added purfling - big difference. I'll start the build and post every day this week.

I'm about to put on my apron and start on this ukulele, but there are still some unresolved design preferences. This ukulele is going to replace my "kayak" model that I've been making since about day one. It featured sound holes on both sides of the fret board like the ones in my previous post. The photos here are of the Kayak and the heel block used with the sound holes. Now I'm thinking of using side ports instead. This will give me some easier to do trim options. The drawing shows what it will look like. A traditional sound hole isn't possible because of the way its braced. The last photo is a magnolia inlay I did for a customer last year, and it's an example of what I don't want to do. I'm working on some "organic" marquetry trim that I think I'll use on this one--more on that later.

I've always liked your sound holes on the kayak models and think the tenor drawing in post #7 look really cool. With only side ports I think it looks a wee bit electrical, at least in the full frontal in your last post. If you were looking for input. Otherwise, continue your extremely clean and nice looking work!

Cheers / Sven

Too late for the Kayak sound holes but I'm working on some other options other than sound ports.

This ukulele starts with heel joint I haven't done before. A new pin router template had to be made, but other than that no special setup was required.

Photo1: The Spanish cedar neck roughed to shape. I scrape the fret board surface concave with the lowest point being about .004”-.005” at the 5th fret. This builds in the amount of relief you would typically get with a truss rod.

Photo2: Template of the heel block printed out and pasted to the wood before profiling.

Photo3: the block roughed out to form the pocket.

Photo4: the fret board glued on to the neck and fit to the heel block.

Photo5: Completed heel joint.

Now that's what I call skill full work!

Bob

I came to my senses and lengthened the upper bout to accommodate a sound hole on top, that problem’s solved. It required that I redo some of the work on the heel joint. This brings up something that I think is important to doing good work. Sometimes things don’t go exactly right and you end up with a result that is different than you intended. Being willing to remove a top that isn’t exactly straight or routing out binding that has gaps is much better than thinking something is good enough, or a little filler will make it less noticeable. Once you start redoing even minor mistakes when there’s a problem, the solutions become easier with experience and the quality of your work keeps improving.
So, my “redo” put me about three hours behind but there is progress to show:

Photo6: The sides are bent and ready for gluing in the heel and tail blocks.

Photo7: A tapered pointer is inserted in the neck pocket to insure the neck will line up with the body.

Photo8: While the glue for the heel and tail blocks is drying, the top plate is matched and glued. One way to make the joint less obvious in light wood is to plane so the joint is in the early wood. Two late wood growth rings side by side really stand out in glue joints.

Photo9: Final fitting of the neck. The tapered joint holds it so firmly; it’s hard to shake it apart.

Photo10: Further neck and body alignment is accomplished by marking all around the body using a special square. This shows where the body is perfectly level with the surface of the fret board. After trimming to the line, the lining is glued in.

I'm watching this thread with great interest. The uke design looks great but its fascinating to see how you set about achieving the design.

I think the following advice is worth reading-its something I'm slowly learning to do:

'Sometimes things don’t go exactly right and you end up with a result that is different than you intended. Being willing to remove a top that isn’t exactly straight or routing out binding that has gaps is much better than thinking something is good enough, or a little filler will make it less noticeable. Once you start redoing even minor mistakes when there’s a problem, the solutions become easier with experience and the quality of your work keeps improving.'

This is the design and installation of the rosette before sanding the top to thickness. The sound hole still needs to be cut out and the inside edge finished with black fiber
.
Photo11: shown is the design I settled on after trying several others. The mahogany actually turned out to be curly koa.

Photo12: here are the three woods glued together into a pancake .060” thick ready for routing the spruce.

Photo13: the rosette glued in place. It was fit to where it was just ready to go in and needed a few taps with a hammer.

Photo14: Sanded flush with the spruce, and with the sound hole template showing its position.

I'm really diggin' that neck joint. Not super complex, but elegant just the same.

ModlrMike said:

I'm really diggin' that neck joint. Not super complex, but elegant just the same.

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Nice workmanship...But!
I'm thinking it's a bit heavy and over the top for a uke.

Timbuck said:

Nice workmanship...But!
I'm thinking it's a bit heavy and over the top for a uke.

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Yes, but there is a method to my madness that has to do with how this uke will sound. The neck stiffness is moved inside the body rather than stopping at the front of the upper bout. This adds to the stiffness between the front of the body and the waist brace (which also needs to be stiff), and isolates the more flexible lower bout. The result is a greatly improved sound. I’ll be doing the sound board today and will elaborate on other things that factor into how it all works.

As far as it being heavy, I do some things to lighten it up (like rout out the underside of the block). I'm a little skeptical about an instrument having to be very light to sound good. This certainly adds to its volume, but at the sacrifice of some tone and sustain. Last year I constructed a ukulele using all the lightest materials possible as an experiment. The result was a loud, crazy sounding ukulele with no substance. There is a place for this sound among musicians, but as a luthier, I'm always trying to get the highest quality sound with good volume and with nearly flat top at the same time.

The sound board is almost ready for gluing to the sides.

Photo15: I drilled a hole behind the inlay before gluing it in so I wouldn’t have to pry it out along the soft spruce edge once it fit. It also tells me the thickness of the inlay vs. the spruce when thickness sanding.

Photo16: All the bracing is glued-in. I use this gauge for brace thickness. Years ago I used deflection testing with a dial indicator, but got to a point where I had a sense of how thick to make the braces. The gauge helps tell me where I’m at.

Photo17: This is the completed bracing. It also shows my two bench chisels. I made the one on the left when I was involved in blacksmithing (the blade is made from an old file). The one on the right is a Veritas chisel made from the latest alloy tool steel—it set me back almost $100. They both keep an edge equally well, which tells me that good old straight high-carbon steel is still just as good.

Hluth said:

I drilled a hole behind the inlay before gluing it in so I wouldn’t have to pry it out along the soft spruce edge once it fit. It also tells me the thickness of the inlay vs. the spruce when thickness sanding.

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What a great idea to be able to see the top thickness under the rosette as you thickness. I always have this fear....

Nice clean work. Lovely. No bridge patch/plate needed?

I used to use bridge patches, but since the bridge will span the three center braces I don't think one is needed.