Side thickness?

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Steve-atl

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So I glued my neck on from my Stewmanc Ukulele Kit today which means I will be working on the finish. This will give me time to start on my scratch build.

I bought the 14-Fret Baritone Bell Ukulele Plans from Georgia Luthier Supplies. I have one of Robert Gleason's Bending Blankets and have made the bending forum. I thought I would start by bending the sides first

The plans have the top thickness but not the sides. I did a google search and found this "For ukulele sides, aim for 60-70 thou (1.5-1.75 mm) in thickness. I find that this makes bending easier and that the bent wood is stiff enough without the extra thickness"

The side wood is Mahogany. Does 60-70 thou (1.5-1.75 mm) in thickness. seem right.

Thanks
 
I prefer thicker sides, 80 to 75 thousands. If you start out at 60 you are likely to have area's that are closer to 50 after the blanket bend. Then after sanding and scrapeing maybe 45 thousands' in some areas. That's too thin for me and leaves no room to sand out a blip here and there, especially for a baritone.
 
My sides for all instruments from soprano through baritone are at the thinnest 1.6mm and thickest at 1.8mm. Depends on how difficult the timber is to bend and the amount of figure. Highly figured and difficult to bend timber goes towards the 1.6mm.
 
Thanks, Michael

The homepage image on your website is very nice. Did you shoot that
 
Thanks, everyone.

So the thicker it is the harder it will be to bend but the less likelihood to have any structural problems
 
When I restored an old 1900's island soprano a couple of years back..I took thickness measurements of the front back and sides..the sides were the thinnest at .050" and the back was close to .100".
 
mzuch said:
except the fear of bending.
Click to expand...

Yup and yup, fear is part of the reason I like them a little thinner. I think we tend to do things because that is what works for us. I have not cracked a side yet (knock on wood) so I tend to do things that are successful for me. However, I agree, the thicker the better. Not only structurally, but perhaps acoustically as well although the later is debatable. Also when I say I do ~70 I mean approximately because I tend to see +/- 0.005 in my thickness target (65 - 75 variation) over the length of the side. And finally, perhaps we are splitting hairs here; the difference between 70 and 80 is only 0.01 inch.
 
I make my living as a photographer. That's a nice shot. Maybe your in the wrong profession :)
 
Mine are .80" off the sander, but i'd suggest going as thick as you can for the species. eg- some woods bend easy so you can go thicker, some are hard and brittle so you have to go thinner.
I now do laminated sides so there are about 60/60/20
 
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