2x4 challenge

It actually says '2 x 4 challenge'. That is pretty unequivocal I think. It's not a 'pallet build' challenge though we ought to do that next year or any other. The whole point of my proposal is you get out there, hunt down a suitable piece of lumber from a general lumber suppliers and make something out of it. It's open to all comers and is not a beauty/skill contest. Honestly folks, it's meant to be fun, not a competition to see who can select the best luthier grade stick from a pile of rubbish and create a $3000 piece from it! I cannot for the life of me understand why this simple idea needs to be embellished and made more complicated. And quite frankly, I much rather believe Ken who has empirically tested 'toasted wood' than someone with a mere opinion... Now I'll get back to work on a $2000 baritone ukulele and save my energies for the more testing build - 'The 2 x 4 Ukulele Challenge'!

:rulez::deadhorse::stop:

Hi all,
I too would like to join in this build (will be my first). My questions are, I do not own a bandsaw would a jig saw be accurate enough? Also, I have no drawn plans to make measurements from, any suggestions where I should begin other than measure my current ukuleles and attempt to make some plans from there .
Thanks for the challenge Pete.
Ben

Benscience said:

Hi all,
I too would like to join in this build (will be my first). My questions are, I do not own a bandsaw would a jig saw be accurate enough? Also, I have no drawn plans to make measurements from, any suggestions where I should begin other than measure my current ukuleles and attempt to make some plans from there .
Thanks for the challenge Pete.
Ben

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The answer to all those questions is yes!

Hi Ken
Thanks for the reply, now where's me tape measure?

Titchtheclown said:

You agree with me!!!!???

You poor man. Didn't your mother ever tell you not to accept advice from clowns on the internet? Don't you realise that sometimes we are joking?

Build what you like from what you like. I am an eclectic builder. Most of the time when I build I hear the tune they play in my head. Most of the time, for me the tune is my niece when she was 7 playing her self composition "I hate my brother because he" s so mean". With a couple of my nicer tin Ukes it has been Mark Knopfler playing playing Romeo and Juliet. I just wish I had the talent for it to be Chuck Morgan from the Janet Seidel Trio playing his 1920s Martin.

On a completely different topic, I wonder how quickly a piece would start to spalt, or at least stain a little if I put it in the compost tumbler? I might have to find a bucket with rain water to soak it in first.

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Is this really a challenge or not? Looking for a primo stick of wood to start with seems pretty spineless to me. What can you hope to learn? What's so clever about making your same old model? If we don't see some innovation and risk taking this is going to be a boring challenge.

This is the kind of stuff I usually start with, so a 2x4 actually makes it easier.

jcalkin said:

Is this really a challenge or not? Looking for a primo stick of wood to start with seems pretty spineless to me. What can you hope to learn? What's so clever about making your same old model? If we don't see some innovation and risk taking this is going to be a boring challenge.

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I have no doubt I can make a uke from a 2 x 4, the question is how long you want it to be playable for? Wild grain and knots will make a neck unplayable after a while, back, top and sides might fair better. Easy enough finding quartered stuff (relatively speaking) along the 4" side, makes for a better one piece neck. Not as good for top and backs as you have glue joints less than every 1.5". Not that you can't do it just that if the grain goes 90 degrees from this you have a conceivably prettier top and back. A soprano uke would be easier but I want to do a tenor, a little more of a challenge.

I am sort of laid up and won't be doing any running around looking for wood, use what I have around the house. May have to grab another short if I have one around here for the neck. The four foot piece I have would do well for top back and sides (even with screw holes), not sure if I can get the neck out of it also. Going to try.

So you joining us Mr Calkin? Show us how it's done?

Perfect excuse to get building my first uke!
Just bought my 2x4, 5ft redwood pine from my local timber merchant.
Grain looks as straight as I could hope for and minimal knots.




Plan is -

Cigar box style.
Sopranino 11.5" scale.
Everything will be made from this plank except frets and tuners.
Basic hand tools and a load of grit and determination. Should be fun!

Pete Howlett said:

So you joining us Mr Calkin? Show us how it's done?

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I'm in, Mr. Howlett. I just got back from Lowes with my 2x4, the second one I looked at. For better or worse I'll post pix and hopefully a video. I feel that uke longevity and cosmetic refinement are irrelevant to this challenge. In fact, I built dulcimers and electric guitars like this 40 years ago when the cost of even the plainest prepared set was more than I could afford. It was my experience that instrument longevity was never a problem. In fact, the reverse was true. They were still hanging around long after my chops and income outgrew them, and I was embarrassed to have them around. A few I gave away, a couple landed in the dumpster. and my 1986 pine camping dulcimer (Little Blue) just got swapped away two years ago. I need a tenor uke of my own, and this will probably be it.

If you are worried that the neck could warp , Don't worry just saw the timber into three 1" wide strips and glue them back together with the grain on the middle one running the opposite way to the outer two that will make the neck stable "thats the way I did the pallet job and it's still fine"..I dropped in a couple of carbon fiber rods as well just in case

I'm going to give it a go for a winter project. I hope to finish by May, so I can take it with me when I will be heading along to Snowdonia to make a Ukulele with Mr Howlett. PS Can't wait

Pete Howlett said:

It's a 2x4 challenge... I saw some excellent 4x4 today that I had to pass up. If you areg going to play the game, stick to the simple rules please Part of the fun is finding the wood and working within a generous set of constraints.
.

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I'd like to have a crack Pete .... but I'll be using some scrap bits of J.C. Dykes DIY emporium 2 x 3 rescued from my old go bar deck. Apart from the fact that's all I can find, 3" is right at the limit for my bandsaw, so 2x4 isn't going to happen without cutting back to 3" first! I'm aiming for three piece top & back on a concert. This is the wood pile so far - I think it is pine, and the resin has already gummed up the bandsaw blade and the drum sander......


I've got two days to bake the fingerboard & bridge before my wife gets back from holiday!

Nice piece of Redwood Pine, going to make a cool instrument. For me CF might be a little excessive for an instrument made out of a 2 x 4. Not too concerned of the neck going wonky as I did go out and got me a shiny new 2 x 4 that does not look too bad. If I could avoid the knots I should be fine. I feel all warm and legal now.

This is already fun. I found a fine 2x4 at the Depot. Gave them $2.25, and headed off to the saw. The moisture content is however a problem for this "Kiln dried" stick. Measured 14%, so I'm giving it a go in the oven on the nifty "dehydrate" mode. Haven't really tried this on thinned wood before, so just gonna go low and slow. Like pot roast, only lower- and slower. I'll see what the MC is in the morning. Check that moisture content! If you don't have a meter, find a friend or cabinet shop. If the wood is not well dried (typically around 6%), it might not be worth your effort to build with it.

So I've decided on a Martin soprano build. I drew up and laser-cut some pattern pieces this summer, as well as built a form. This will be my first Martin soprano "copy". Not sure what "style" it'll end up (0,1,2,3,or 5 even!) but it's gonna be a P -for pine.







Will give it a few days to chill before I start building. Tho I might put the fretboard, bridge, and peg blanks in the toaster oven tomorrow. See how that goes. And with any luck I won't be down at the Depot buying another 2x4 after all this.

Nice drying rack.

Changed my mind on how I want my grain. Almost impossible to find a spruce fir pine (SFP) 2x4 with the grain going up and down so you can use the 3 1/2" width. The 2x4's like this are cut around the pith of the tree (center section). Probably the most unstable part of the tree. Going to have to trim the pith out of some of my pieces. End up not much wider than the 1 1/2" width of the board. Good to know for next time and much easier to find acceptable wood to work with.

I surfaced both sides on my drum sander, low buck dust control, an old vacuum cleaner. Go through a few extra bags but well worth it not having the dust fly around. This way I can cut a sheet, sand the cut side flat to put through the bandsaw again, repeat. So when I am done I only need to sand one side smooth.



Need to get my dust control system built, bandsaw kicks up a little. First cut, looks good.



Have mor than enough cut for my sides, might just use the rest of the thickness for my neck. We'll see tomorrow.

So Paul you are not going to chose a piece of 2 x 4? This isn't about getting the perfect piece of wood. It's about accepting limitations and working with them. When I get to that stack of scantlings I saw the other day I'll pick the best of what I see. I know it won't be perfect or ideal. I am certain it will have a very high m/c so it will be cut, stack and conditioned for 4 weeks. Unlike most of you I will be building a simple design (I've given away all my soprano forms since I don't make these any more). If you take this too seriously, it will not be fun. Remember please to document the purchase/acquiring and build.

Hi Pete - Sadly no, it will have to be 3x2. I would love to be able to stick to the exact rules, but my hobbyist benchtop bandsaw simply won't take a slice off a 4" width (it was painfully slow progress through the 3") and I am far too old & rickety to contemplate hand sawing! I hope I am still operating within the spirit of the challenge (if not the letter of the law), and fear not I definitely won't be taking it too seriously.
In mitigation, it is genuine builders timber from the local DIY store, and other than the fact I always select straight pieces of timber whatever the intended use, I haven't done any special wood selection at all. The three 600 mm lengths I am starting from were literally just what was lying around in the workshop, having originally been used for a roof access platform strut, and more recently as a dish support for an old go bar deck. Quarter sawn it isn't, and it would have probably gone on the fire this winter. Using 3x2 forces me to use a three-piece top & back, so even more limitations to work round. I guess the only advantage might be that the moisture content is already down to ~8%.

Anyway, I'm determined to have some fun with this, be it 2x4 or 3x2. As I write, the fingerboard & bridge blanks have just finished cooking in the oven for the third time. The first attempt was nominally 200C for an hour, but the result was not so much a torrefication as a very mild tan. I gave it another hour at a nominal 220 C, now another hour at 250 C. Seems my wife was right all along about why her cakes sink in the middle! The temperature control is useless, as my thermocouple now bears witness. Seems I have been cooking at about 180 C max, which even though fan assisted, clearly isn't enough. It actually smells quite pleasant in the kitchen - fortunately no trace of Kens kipper aroma!
The oven won't go any higher, so I guess this is the end result:

Yesterday I got the sides assembled and the neck blank made. No mold, no bending, true outlaw lutherie. Looks like the body will be a shade large for a tenor. I haven't got time for such niceties as wood cooking. If I actually play this thing enough to put wear on the pine fingerboard I will be well pleased. Today I hope to resaw the plate stock, then the project will have to sit around for a week. I shouldn't even be working on this now, but I got sucked into the challenge. This week I have to put 45-style trim on an H&D as well as some other tricky stuff. This challenge is supplying exactly the informal kind of work I should do at home. Thanks, Pete!

Well there goes my reply, poof! away into the either. Try to reconstitute part of it while still sort of fresh.

I have been wondering about the baked wood for the fretboard. When I have baked wood I found it turned out stiffer but not stronger. Actually easier to cut, more crumbly rather than tough. So much for the memory, caint remember what else I was writing about.