John C. Campbell Folk School Ukulele Building Workshop

I live a few hours away from the John C. Campbell Folk School. They offer a week long workshop on building a ukulele next June (2019).

Anyone here have any first hand experience with the school or workshop? I'd kind of like to try my hand at buliding an uke, but am a little hesitant without maybe hearing from someone who has taken a course there. I'd have to blow a week of vacation from work, and $1000+ on tuition for the course, materials, and housing/food for the week.

Course info is online here: https://classes.folkschool.org/class_details.aspx?pk=21534

shanmoon said:

I'd have to blow a week of vacation from work, and $1000+ on tuition for the course, materials, and housing/food for the week.

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I have not taken John's building course nor have I ever attended a building workshop, but I have some thoughts on the matter. Others will disagree with me, but I feel these types of workshops are becoming increasingly obsolete in the day of easy to build kits and internet knowledge (complete with step by step videos). The real advantage of a workshop like this are access to tools and jigs and the psychological soothingness of having someone hold your hand while you learn the chops. Also you get to hangout with some cool people and maybe make some new friends.

It also depends on a few other things like your current woodworking skills and your access to tools. Also what your motivation is here; do you want to build just one ukulele or do you plan on taking up ukulele building as a hobby? A $1000 bucks will buy you almost all the tools you will need to set up a bare-bones shop. Ukulele kits will provide you with all the materials you need and some of the suppliers will also provide free hand-holding and answer technical questions in real time.

Keep in mind that simple anxiety keeps a lot of people from starting that first build. Given even a modicum of woodworking skills, they are not that hard to construct using a kit and simple hand tools. So for my money, save yourself some money and vacation time and build from a kit. (See my post on the new (old) kits from Stewart MacDonald).

Thanks for the info on the kit. I had come across it a few months back but didn't realize there were solid wood options. I am kind of interested in a more complete build experience than just a kit (the same reason I didn't choose a "quick build" kit option when building my plane). I enjoy getting a deeper immersion in build processes. That said, I might have to try building the kit just to see how it goes, and see if I really do want to commit the additional time, money, and effort to a workshop.

Some people want to be guided... not everyone is an autodidact. I've taught over 200 students and they get so much more out of the courses I run than a ukulele...