Thinking about making

Graham
Your life will be far less complicated if you stop at this point. Once started on this slippery slope you will never recover. Your spare time will vanish; home maintenance will be put on the back burner; any spare income will be sucked into the black hole of more wood and new tools and you will seriously contemplate giving up a perfectly good job to become an impoverished luthier.

However, if you want to become a much more interesting person and make a truckload of interesting online friends, stop thinking and start making.
Miguel
 
I don’t know what went wrong there. What I was going t say is....

I have some tools machinery and experience of working wood; fine furniture making. So I should have transferable skills. My question is can anyone recommend any decent books, plans on Uke building or guitar making. Initially I would be most interested in tenor and concert size.

My second question is any thickness sander recommendations? I am in Uk, Manchester don’t hold that against me. I notice that jet do some relatively inexpensive machines. Ie 10-20 and 16-32. I know these are open ended so you can get twice the belt width, but never sure how effective these are if sanding in say 50% sections and tenor width in a single pass would be no doubt on the limit of a 10 inch machine.

Finally any suggestions regarding good source of suitable timbers in UK?

Any help would be much appreciated
 
Welcome to the addiction. One day you start "thinking" about making, you may never stop. Instead, you wake up in the middle of the night one day and realize you CAN'T stop thinking about it! Actually making ukuleles hasn't gotten me to stop thinking about it!

There have been a couple good threads lately on similar topics:

https://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/showthread.php?139905-Novices-review-The-Uke-Book-Illustrated

I don't own any uke-specific books but I can comment that the Cumpiano and Natelson guitar book is a personal favorite. It manages to be both thorough and practical at the same time.


https://forum.ukuleleunderground.co...-the-skills-needed-and-used-to-build-that-way
 
Graham,
I'm in the same neck of the woods(no pun intended). I started by downloading the Stewmac tenor uke diagram as a pdf file. It's not a full plan, but it's a start and it's free. then I watched as many Youtube videos as I could. There is a series of instructional videos by Mya Moe Ukuleles which are very good and you will learn a lot from these. I think the company have packed in, but maybe the videos are still there, I don't know.
As for woods, you could start down the road at Tonetech, Stockport. Bill and Danny there are very helpful. Other places to try are Touchstone Tonewoods and David Dyke. Ebay is another source. Pete Howlett (member)also sells Uke sets occasionally so it might be worth a phonecall or a message over the forum.
best of luck Mike
I forgot to add that I had the 10-20 sander but moved over to a 16-32 when I started making guitars( and also there was a special offer on it at the time from Axminster Tools, Warrington)
The 16-32 is a much better and more powerful machine although the 10-20 is good enough if it meets your needs, but just be aware that you may, as I did, graduate to larger instruments in time.
 
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I wouldn't bother with a thickness sander until you are 100% sure you want to make lots of ukuleles. They cost a lot, and there are lots of Luthier specific tools that you will need, much higher up the essentials list than a thickness sander (think fretting tools, binding tools, finishing supplies etc). You could always get a stewmac safe-t-planer for thicknessing, they work just fine.

David dyke, Keystone Tonewood and Timberline exotic hardwood can usually supply uke specific sizes Tonewood. Across the channel Maderas Barber and Espen Tonewoods can also.

If you want some back and sides, top and neck wood for a first build (don't spend lots, the first instrument is unlikely to be the finished article) then I have a reasonable stock of tonewood so can probably send something to you (assuming I have what you want) if that seems easier. I'm only across at Sheffield.
 
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Give me a call. Sign up to my FaceBook group (below). Unless you have 'constant' use for a thicknesser spend your money on other tools. I have some ideas. I also have uke specific tonewoods and hardware, and I employ a cabinet maker who is transfering his skills. I probably have the answers for you. I also live in the UK - admittedly the colonies (Wales)

You will get a lot of good US advice here and will look with envy on their tool and wood choices. I've navigated these waters a long time and along with the other British builders who post here, would love to help you get your start in making.
 
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Regarding you thickness sander question, I purchased a Supermax 19-38 sander a few years back and it has become the second most used power tool in my shop for a variety of wood working projects, including luthiery (my bandsaw is first). I was wary about the open ended design, but I have never seen an issue with it. It allows me to sand larger panels such as small table tops. My dust collector is attached to the top and I never detect any stray dust from it. I don't disagree with the above advice; for the money there are a lot of other tools you could purchase to get you going in ukulele building. But if you've got the funds to burn on your hobby, I would go for it. I've never used the Jet sanders, but they look similar.
 
Graham - what machinery do you already own? I agree with the others that a thickness sander isn't high on the list for most people, but if you've already got the other major power tools for instrument building (I'd say: bandsaw, router(s), table saw, drill press in that order) then why not? They're certainly nice to have.

I used to do all my thickness sanding at a buddy's house, he was well off enough to have a stupidly big and powerful dual-drum sander that was practically the size of a small car. He moved out of the area recently and I'm feeling the loss. My last few instruments I've improvised and it has been frustrating. I'm on the verge of buying the Jet 10-20 you mentioned. I've never used one but it seems like the perfect size for instrument work (not too big - important in a small shop space) and I've seen others on here mention liking them in recent threads.
 
Something to consider, it has been a year and a half since I made a thickness sander using a bench drill press, 4.5” drum with Velcro sanding belt attachment and a 2x4 and plywood frame. Yes, it is manually fed, but works very well. It has been used on over 30 ukulele so far and is going strong. I used the drill press as the power source because I had recently bought a new one, but if you already have a suitable motor, V belt and pulleys, you can build something similar for under $100 and a couple days time. There are lots of plans online, and my UU thread should still be around.
Brad
 
A real basic drum sander. Used a hole saw to cut out the discs. mounted them on a 1/2" cold drawn rod. Disks epoxied to the rod. bearings on the rod and a V-belt pulley on the rod. Mounted them and the motor on some 2x6's. Had a thick countertop as the table, mounted to the 2x6 using a piano hinge. With it mounted sand it with the discs turning and slid a piece of sandpaper on the table which ground them all level. Had a 0.002" difference in thickness doing a top from one side to the other. Have had mounting screws to lock down the sanding belt but the screws loosened up eventually, if going that direction the end discs from a hardwood would be best. Got the motor from a thrift store for $12, it is only 1/3 hp, an old furnace motor would work well. I have done over 100 guitar tops and a fair amount of back and sides. I have had some problems with sandpaper separating and sanding holes in the table, need to fill them in. I am going to build another but really this one can do all I want. I have a dust hood built out of 1/8" stock but it is off the drum.

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I am dimensioning a neck down to thickness and putting a slope to it with the shim. A little tricky but showing you can do more than thin stock.

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It appears to be the punctuation mark in shortened/abreviated words that causes the text to stop...like in Im, havent. etc:..very annoying bug :(
 
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Well spotted that man.
A very annoying bug. Surprising that it does not truncate posts when the apostrophe is used incorrectly in plurals. That would not be a bug; that would be a service to humanity.
Miguel
 
Thanks for that Timbuck I will take more care when posting in future. I was basically just wanting to thank people for their response. Much food for thought here.
 
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