Trimming a head stock?

And there you have proved the thought. I could move the four tuners to the positions of your four bottom tuners and trim 2-4cm as you say. I also notice you have angled the tuners in slightly as you move up the head stock to ensure the strings do not catch on the tuners below. I was thinking to do this but had not seen it on any other Uke.

Was thinking to use some dowel to fill the bottom tuner holes - and I will be trimming off the top tuner holes.

I will give this a go and let you all know how it turns out.
 
And there you have proved the thought. I could move the four tuners to the positions of your four bottom tuners and trim 2-4cm as you say. I also notice you have angled the tuners in slightly as you move up the head stock to ensure the strings do not catch on the tuners below. I was thinking to do this but had not seen it on any other Uke.

Was thinking to use some dowel to fill the bottom tuner holes - and I will be trimming off the top tuner holes.

I will give this a go and let you all know how it turns out.
 
I have only made a small number of ukes and still learning, but here is my copy of a soprano Kala travel. I did shorten the head on it, as you can see. Overall length is 20 3/8". I could get it down to 20" if I removed the little nub but I kind of like the look of it and provides a barely big enough place to hold a tuner. Kala lists theirs as being 21.0625". Scale length is 340mm - about 13.386". Kala is 13.5625".

So for me, it was a combination of a slightly shorter scale and a smaller head. Oh yeah - I also placed the tuner holes a bit closer together and closer to the nut. You could do that but this seems a bit messy to me for an existing instrument. As I posted above, I don't see any problems (other than finish) with removing a bit of the top of the head on your Kala. I do believe that I would.

Uke 4.jpg
 
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Hi, eclipsme! Thank you for sharing your soprano. Very cool!

Hi, robinfowler!

Now we have ukulele with 4 strings (A in the figure below). When we have 6 strings (B), we need compensation. In general, cheep guitar (C) has compensation. On the other hand expensive guitars and ukuleles have crown shape head stock and not much compensation (D). Hence you just need to think about appearance about the laws of tuners. Vertical string angle (E) is important for the nut. It prevent buzz on the nut. We just need to check it of the 1st and 4th strings, because they are near the nut. And the strings of these area (blue arrows on E and F) work, when bending. I think we need not much care about this length on travel ukulele. And there are some headless guitars which have nothing this area.

 
I have only made a small number of ukes and still learning, but here is my copy of a soprano Kala travel. I did shorten the head on it, as you can see. Overall length is 20 3/8". I could get it down to 20" if I removed the little nub but I kind of like the look of it and provides a barely big enough place to hold a tuner. Kala lists theirs as being 21.0625". Scale length is 340mm - about 13.386". Kala is 13.5625".

So for me, it was a combination of a slightly shorter scale and a smaller head. Oh yeah - I also placed the tuner holes a bit closer together and closer to the nut. You could do that but this seems a bit messy to me for an existing instrument. As I posted above, I don't see any problems (other than finish) with removing a bit of the top of the head on your Kala. I do believe that I would.

View attachment 121185

That is beautiful. It looks great. The thing about moving the tuner holes, at least in yahalele's photo, is that he proposes moving them much closer to the nut than you have and right on the curve on the headstock. It makes more sense to move the tuners closer together than to drop them as low as in this photo yahalele supplied.
kala.jpg
 
Another option is Gotoh Stealth keys. They are only 12g. We can install them on the front surface of our ukulele (see the fig.3 below), hence we need not drill new holes. Ukulele ones are bit different from guitars in terms of shaft. I've installed them on my Martin backpacker. As they are very light, now it is very good valance. They a build to order manufacturing. It takes about three weeks even in Japan.

 
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CIMG5406.jpg I think I cut this too short.
 
That is beautiful. It looks great. The thing about moving the tuner holes, at least in yahalele's photo, is that he proposes moving them much closer to the nut than you have and right on the curve on the headstock. It makes more sense to move the tuners closer together than to drop them as low as in this photo yahalele supplied.
View attachment 121191

Yeah, I agree - too close to the nut. This will lower the break angle of the string, perhaps too much.
 
OK so....

Cut some dowel plugs, glued in holes from geared tuners, sanded, used glue and saw dust to fill any gaps and tuner screw holes, chopped off 45mm, drilled and counter sunk for tiny Waverly friction tuners, all fitted together.

All clearances and angles seem OK - plays fine.

Was 20.7" now 18.9"

IMG_0450.jpgIMG_0451.jpgIMG_0465.jpgIMG_0466.jpgIMG_0468.jpg
 
Hi, robinfowler! Good job! Better than Martin. ;-) And thanks for showing us this great work.

 
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OK so....

Cut some dowel plugs, glued in holes from geared tuners, sanded, used glue and saw dust to fill any gaps and tuner screw holes, chopped off 45mm, drilled and counter sunk for tiny Waverly friction tuners, all fitted together.

All clearances and angles seem OK - plays fine.

Was 20.7" now 18.9"

View attachment 121318View attachment 121319View attachment 121320View attachment 121321View attachment 121322

Holy smokes you are brave! Really nice! Do the tuners get in the way of each other when tuning? I wonder why makers have so much clearance space between them. Are you going to leave it as is or are you going to put some type of finish on it, a black lacquer headstock would look amazing, but I don’t know how to do that.
 
OK so....

Cut some dowel plugs, glued in holes from geared tuners, sanded, used glue and saw dust to fill any gaps and tuner screw holes, chopped off 45mm, drilled and counter sunk for tiny Waverly friction tuners, all fitted together.

All clearances and angles seem OK - plays fine.

Was 20.7" now 18.9"

View attachment 121318View attachment 121319View attachment 121320View attachment 121321View attachment 121322

You did a good job of it. Well thought out. Could you post a picture of the whole ukulele? I would like to see how it works with the rest of it. Thanks.
 
Thanks for the kind words. I spaced the tuners so they would not extend outside of the edge of the headstock. There is plenty of space between then (pic below).

I will put some sort of finish on - I just wanted to string it up first and make sure all played OK.

Was thinking just some sort of oil - happy for suggestions.

I will take an over all pic later on.

IMG_0469.jpg
 
I already travel with the Kala (soprano) and it does fit in my hand luggage. BUT I have an obsession for the smallest travel Uke with a full sop scale. Kala was the best balance of quality and size I could find.

The Romero Creations ST Concerts are all soprano length overall (tenor-sized lower bout/body, concert scale). They come in everything from all koa body to low-maintenance laminate Uke Pack https://www.romerocreations.com/ukepack .

It's one option, with advantages over a traditional soprano, if you want to not spend the time/risk modifying your current soprano uke.
 
The Romero Creations ST Concerts are all soprano length overall (tenor-sized lower bout/body, concert scale). They come in everything from all koa body to low-maintenance laminate Uke Pack https://www.romerocreations.com/ukepack .

It's one option, with advantages over a traditional soprano, if you want to not spend the time/risk modifying your current soprano uke.

I liked the small body of the Kala for travel - see above the Kala has been chopped already.
 
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