Ukulele body mold thickness?

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Steve-atl

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How thick should a body mold be?

I’m building a baritone ukulele and the sides are basically 3 1/2 inches wide. I’m modeling the body mold from some youtube guy that was making a guitar mold. I’m sandwiching three pieces of three-quarter inch MDF to make the mold which basically comes out to 2 1/4 inches. Is that too thick? Do you think I could get away with just two pieces of MDF.?

Thanks
 
Steve-atl said:
18mm is basically three-quarter inch. Do you think you need that much support? Could it be thinner?
Click to expand...
This one is used for final assembly it's shown here in its basic form before the clamping devices are fitted...I have four in total , 1 for marking out the side lengths, 1 for gluing the end blocks and another at 18 mm thick for fitting and sanding the linings, and this type for the final gluing the backs and fronts...it's a progressive method...I'll try and make a video.
 
Steve-atl said:
18mm is basically three-quarter inch. Do you think you need that much support? Could it be thinner?
Click to expand...

Well to be absolutely truthful a uke can be made without any mould at all. You certainly can use one single piece of 18 mm. Every external mould that I've made has been much more of a skeleton type. They are very light. Just as well because I've probably made about 10 of the things. You may want to guard against racking but that's pretty easy to do. I'll try get a pic up of one of my moulds just to show how minimalist a mould needs to be.
 
Michael N. said:
Well to be absolutely truthful a uke can be made without any mould at all. You certainly can use one single piece of 18 mm. Every external mould that I've made has been much more of a skeleton type. They are very light. Just as well because I've probably made about 10 of the things. You may want to guard against racking but that's pretty easy to do. I'll try get a pic up of one of my moulds just to show how minimalist a mould needs to be.
Click to expand...

I guess I will keep it thin. I was not going to make one but the more I thought about it the more having a body mold seemed like it would make construction a lot easier.
 
All my molds are the full thickness of the sides minus about 1/4".

Mark the faces of the mold "Top", and "Back"

I band saw the mold to follow the radius of the back which gets thinner towards the neck.

Use 3/4" plywood, not MDF which is really heavy.

As i laminate my sides, I add 1 layer of 3/4" ply to the "Top" of the mold using about 20 screws- Then I can use the actual mold the instrument will live in until boxed up to lam my sides and remove the packer piece after i've done so..
 
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Beau Hannam Ukuleles said:
All my molds are the full thickness of the sides minus about 1/4".
Click to expand...

Yup, me too. I used 3, 3/4 thick pieces of plywood sandwiched for my mold on a 2 1/2" sided ukulele leaving a 1/4 side reveal. Why I did this I'm not sure, but I wanted to minimize racking of the sides. And yes it is true you don't even need a mold to make an uke. I like perfect plumb, 90 degree sides for accurate binding.

DSCN7805.jpg DSCN7835.jpg
 
This is the 'skeleton' type that I do. The wood blocks at the bout and the end block positions are also 18 mm ply, so 3 x 18 mm. On a guitar (shown in the pic) this would represent half the side depth. It's certainly enough to prevent racking. The spreaders are spring loaded go bars.

mould.jpg
 
Not having power tools, I found it difficult to shape thicker pieces of wood with a rasp and keep them square. I opted to use ¼” plywood. I did sort of the reverse of Michael N., by sandwiching some blocks flush to the insides between the outer plywood sheets. It's about ½” thinner than the body at the heel. This is my first outside mold - seems to be working ok so far....we'll see. Next time, I’ll probably try Masonite because the coping saw really tore up the paper thin outer layers of the plywood.

Edit- meant to say it was ½ “ thinner than the body at the neck (not the heel).
 
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Just one final picture for this thread. I use my body mold for clamping down the top and back. Actually it is total overkill (try making 24 spindle clamps if you want to have some fun) and I've never been that happy with the system, but I made the damn thang so I"m gonna use it :wallbash: I've become really good at spinning wing nuts. I do have to say it really does a good job of gluing down top and backs.

DSCN7914.jpg
 
sequoia said:
Just one final picture for this thread. I use my body mold for clamping down the top and back. Actually it is total overkill (try making 24 spindle clamps if you want to have some fun) and I've never been that happy with the system, but I made the damn thang so I"m gonna use it :wallbash: I've become really good at spinning wing nuts. I do have to say it really does a good job of gluing down top and backs.

View attachment 115251
Click to expand...


Wow

Thanks for posting it
 
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