Parallel builds

tonyturley · Jan 20, 2022

The Kasha tone bars were ripped from quartersawn old growth Red Spruce from right here in the mountains of my home state.

tonyturley · May 20, 2022

I've gotten busy with other projects and let these builds stall. The past two weeks I've been working on gluing and voicing the tone bars on the baritone, thinning some Ambrosia Maple to make a cross grain sound hole patch, and binding the oval sound hole. Rather than a rosette, I decided to bend a strip of Black Walnut to match the bindings and end graft. Bending the Walnut binding to fit the hole was not as difficult as I anticipated it would be, and I like how it looks. It will be even better once the finish is applied. Next is the side sound port and end graft.

tonyturley · May 20, 2022

Dry fit of the top, fretboard and bridge to the body.

tonyturley · May 26, 2022

Just finished cleaning up glue squeeze-out about 30 minutes after gluing the top on the Kasha baritone. This is my first Spanish heel, so even after many dry runs to check alignment and fit, it was still a somewhat tense operation for me. I have a lot of work in this thing at this point.

tonyturley · May 27, 2022

Shaping the baritone's back braces using an LMI brace shaper, and the results of flush cutting the overhang on the Sycamore top. The tape was to protect the Sycamore rims from the guide bearing on the router bit. I learned that tip the hard way on a previous build.

tonyturley · May 29, 2022

A wash coat of shellac shows off the Black Walnut accents in the baritone's sound hole and side port. Final fitting of the heel and back linings is next.

tonyturley · May 31, 2022

The baritone back is ready for gluing in place. I designed a new label that I'll be using on all of my builds going forward.

tonyturley · Jun 5, 2022

The baritone and tenor both have flat soundboards and backs that are subtly arched both laterally and longitudinally. I made a 15 foot sanding bar from a piece of Maple. It takes about 20 minutes to fully sand the arch into the back of a ukulele.

tonyturley · Jun 27, 2022

I decided to go old school and put friction tuners on the tenor. I ordered a set of NOS Grover 4BG tuners. I was using Gotoh UKB tuners on one of my baritones until a plastic button broke. It was unfixable, and my attempt at making my own buttons from old violin pegs failed, so I replaced those with Gotoh UPT-L pegs. I also ordered a set of Grover 88B baritone friction tuners. I may put those on the new baritone when the time comes, but I also have a set of Grover long post geared tuners I may use. I haven't decided yet. I have a couple of other projects planned, so whichever tuner set I don't use for this baritone will be used later on.

tonyturley · Jul 8, 2022

One more look inside the baritone before closing the box. Always a satisfying step in the construction process after all of the measuring, re-measuring, and multiple dry fits of the major parts. Next: flush trimming and bindings.

sequoia · Jul 8, 2022

tonyturley said:
View attachment 141644

This is how I glue down my backs and tops except my spool clamps are not near as pretty and a little bit crude being homemade. I think the take home lesson here is the "Irwin quick grip bar clamps" or the blue and yellow things we all use, are perfect for use here. I use them to line up everything fore and aft, neck and butt, perfect on center ledger line and THEN start with the spool clamps because now I know that things are not going to drift off line because we are securely clamped perfectly on line. Also you can do this one handed which is important. These things frequently come on sale. Buy them. You can never have enough.

tonyturley · Jul 8, 2022

That's exactly how I use the Quick-Grips. They do come in handy.

tonyturley · Sep 3, 2022

I've been really dragging my feet on finishing my uke projects while I worked on other things (again). Truth be told, I always find binding a daunting task, no matter how many times I do it. But this instrument went off without a hitch (or a gap). I borrowed the twill tape wrap idea from Robbie O'Brien. Each twill wrap is as tight as I can make it.

tonyturley · Sep 5, 2022

Getting close now. Still need to finish dressing the frets, attach the fretboard, and finish shaping the neck to the fretboard before finish sanding and applying the finish.

tonyturley · Sep 10, 2022

Attaching the fretboard is always both gratifying and nerve-wracking, at least for me. I'll leave the clamps on 24 hours before removing them. Next step is to blend the Chestnut neck into the fretboard. I should be able to start the finish process by the end of next week.

tonyturley · Oct 22, 2022

After 14 months of on and off construction, the Kasha baritone bridge is glued in place, but not without some drama. My regular SM bridge clamps were too short to reach from the offset sound hole to the bridge, so I ordered the SM lightweight and long reach FRG bridge clamp. Its arms were too thick to allow it to get all the way into the sound hole. I had originally started making a laminated Maple and Walnut homemade sound hole clamp, so I finished that this morning. It seemed like it was going to work, but it snapped as I was gluing the bridge. I guess I was screwing it down too tight. I started to use a set of cam clamps, but I was concerned they would cause the soundboard to bow inward without any support inside the instrument.

So I held the bridge in place with my thumb as I cleaned up squeeze-out with a plastic straw and a damp paper towel. Then I began applying binding tape all around to pull the bridge down and hold it in place. I'll remove all of the binding tape and the blue painter's tape after a couple of hours, and let the instrument set overnight before tackling the pickup installation.

sequoia · Oct 23, 2022

That works. Bridges in bondage!

tonyturley · Oct 23, 2022

sequoia said:
That works. Bridges in bondage!

Well, it didn't work as I hoped. When I removed the binding tape, there was a gap under the bridge on each end. Dangit!! I just surrounded the bridge all the way around with double layer wide tape, and used a sealing iron to heat a pallet knife and carefully work the bridge free. Careful as I was, the knife's ferule left a few small creases in the top. So I ended up sanding the top down to bare wood with 220 grit and a medium foam backing pad, then I steamed the creases as well as I could, sanded again at 220 and 320, then cleaned the top carefully. This little adventure set me back 2-3 weeks, as I am back to the initial thin coats of dewaxed shellac. In the meantime, I've ordered a proper clamp that I hope will fit. Sometimes I am my own worst enemy. At least there was no damage to the top.

tonyturley · Nov 3, 2022

The Kasha baritone finally has a bridge. I tried four different clamps, including the two homemade ones in the background, before finally finding a long reach clamp from Lee Valley Tools that would fit in the soundhole and reach the bridge, as well as have enough clamping force to firmly seat the bridge. This project has been a long ordeal, taking a lot longer than I had envisioned.

Timbuck · Nov 4, 2022

The Kasha design always puzzles me ...why so much bracing ? And what if the player is left handed , does all the bracing and sound hole and bridge need to be reversed to suit. ? And was it originally designed for a ukulele as it's obviously not designed for re-entrant tuning ?.

Parallel builds

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