Ubass action (string height)

I just made this bass ukulele myself using Aquilla thunderguts and have looked around for guides on how high the action should be and have come up empty handed. I must admit when I looked at the factory made ones i was generally surprised by how high the actions were.
How high over the frets would be a good height at the first and 12th fret?

Looks lovely!

U-bass strings are so floppy they'll need a much higher action than normal uke or bass strings. They're a lot easier to fret, and they wobble a lot more and will buzz with low action.

A quick measure of my solid-body hadean shows the E-string^H^H^H^H^Hcable at .05" (1.27mm) at the first fret and about .2" (5mm) at the 12th and this seems reasonable. I'd start pretty high, see how it plays for you, and then lower if needed.

Take my word with a grain or three of salt. I've been playing bass almost two weeks ). I'm not up to anything beyond the most basic plucking techniques, but I can barre these with less effort than I can fret single strings on a normal bass.

Thanks Arcy
I did my usual traditionalish treatment on the nut and went for a 5mm action at the 12th fret. The D string played up a bit so I rechecked and the saddle was a little flat compared to the 8 inch radius I had on the fret board so I radiused the saddle better and readjusted the action back to 5mm at the 12th.
For those interested the traditional method for setting the nut height is to press between the 2nd and third fret and have a "cigarette paper" between the string and the first fret. I don't use an actual cigarette paper but I do try to get it as close as possible without touching.

Very nicely done Titch. Yes, my solid body bass ukes have high action with Thunderguts and Road Toad Pahoehoe strings. (FYI, the Thunderguts will get more and more sticky and sausage/indent at the frets.)

I'm always amazed at the coincidences that happen to me. Yesterday I decided to modify one of my 24" scale Rondo Hadean solid body basses to look like a Fender Jazz bass. Here's a rough mockup drawing I made last night. I plan on using LaBella/Gold Tone 25" steel flatwounds, which I've done on a couple other bass ukes.

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This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly West near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 11 solid body bass ukes, 9 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 34)

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
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That looks fantastic. The template I used was from
https://sites.google.com/site/guitarplanscollection/pdf-files/fender-ish
I used the scaling in the PDF printing to scale the body to 90%.

Thanks very much. I'm a graphic designer and use Canvas Draw for Mac that combines the functions of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, drafting, presentation, desktop publishing. I took a photograph of the original bass uke, then imported it to Canvas Draw full scale, then made bezier pickguard parts, filled with proper colors, colorized the body. I'll print those as templates for my builder, Eric's Guitar Shop, to use to cut the pickguards. Paint will be done by Pat Wilkins.

I made a change inspired by your Jaguar design, adding an upper chrome section for an on/off slide switch, which I do with my active bass ukes, so I can turn off the battery in between sets and not have to pull the amp cable to avoid killing the battery.

Reviving an old topic. I just changed my journeyman from the roundwounds that it came with to flat wounds. I bought the flat wound nut from Kala, which was way tall. I sanded it down to to match my existing nut, but my action is 5 mm at the 12th. This is almost unplayable with flat wounds. Can the nut be sanded at all?

Joelh said:

Reviving an old topic. I just changed my journeyman from the roundwounds that it came with to flat wounds. I bought the flat wound nut from Kala, which was way tall. I sanded it down to to match my existing nut, but my action is 5 mm at the 12th. This is almost unplayable with flat wounds. Can the nut be sanded at all?

Click to expand...

I never changed the nut when I went to those flatwound strings and the action is fine for me. You said you sanded the nut, did you mean to ask about the saddle? The saddle is part of an assembly, it can't be sanded. The only other thought I have is cut down the bottom of the slot in the bridge where the pickup assembly sits.

Joelh said:

Reviving an old topic. I just changed my journeyman from the roundwounds that it came with to flat wounds. I bought the flat wound nut from Kala, which was way tall. I sanded it down to to match my existing nut, but my action is 5 mm at the 12th. This is almost unplayable with flat wounds. Can the nut be sanded at all?

Click to expand...

Should start a new thread about changing round wounds to flat wounds...I would've thought it to be a straight forward switch! Been eye balling the new 5-string solid bodies, but they only come with round wounds and I know I don't like them. Figured it would be an easy switch to flats whenever they become available.

3.5mm at the 12th on my 23-1/4" scale Hadean. I only bought it to tinker with and chose rounds for (more of) an "electric" bass sound. Works and sounds fine.

Before you sand the nut any more you should check its height against the frets. You can do that by pressing the string down on the 2nd fret [and maybe a couple of the others and verify you have clearance above the 1st fret [about .003-.005 or so [I understand for standard ukes], I would look for more though. Otherwise you can remove material from the saddle bottom. Be careful as it could cause buzzing or intonation problems if you remove too much.

The truss rod may need adjusting also.

I