Covid inspired Ukulele.......The Covilele???

I am leaning toward keeping ukulele string spacing (around 13 to14 mm at bridge). Maybe I'm just being stubborn, but I want it to feel like a uke, not a guitar. My Telecaster string spacing is 10.8 mm, and that seems about standard for the electric guitar derived parts I've found online for four stringed instruments. I wanted to use a Fender style bridge with four adjustable saddles but with 14 mm spacing. Not sure how I could make one, but I've thought about using four guitar saddles and spacing them out a bit on a new base. Maybe place some inconspicuous shims between them to hold the spacing. Or maybe make something completely different. I would also like to try my hand a making my own pickups.

Any way, this one is on the way back burner for now as there are several other project bouncing around in my brain.
 
Jayne01 said:
Might practice on some scrap pieces first.
Click to expand...

Always a good idea... I'm having trouble visualizing how the neck is going to be attached. I see you have rounded the end of the attachment point which puzzles me. Is the neck going to be as thick as the body?

Nice documentation by the way. Good pictures.
 
Agreed. The control pots plate is too big and out of proportion. A simple piece of thin wood rounded and screwed in with tiny screws could be a substitute and would look a little more... "organic"?
 
What part of the neck construction has you stumped? Just the overall process, or some step in particular?
 
Actually it is easier than you think at first. It is basically just an exercise in rounding off edges. Just do it symmetrically to your center line taking off wood the same on each side. People cringe when I tell them I use a course zester to take off the big bits first but they are cheap and available. Then use a file to take out the tool marks and smooth things out and then go to your sandpaper. Just make sure you do your taper in a smooth manner to the head stock. It is a bit of an art like sculpture. Actually kind of satisfying to see a neck emerge.

zester:

download.jpg
 
Do you have some instruments you like that you can measure for final dimensions?

My tenor neck blanks start at 15mm thick at the nut and 18mm thick right before the heel. Finished dimensions are probably 1 mm less than that. On larger instruments I aim for anywhere from 18mm to 20mm thick to start with on blanks. My uke fretboards start life as rough stock between 7 and 8 mm or so and finish at 5mm or sometimes just under.

Laminating your neck blank can make for a good looking neck, if you can arrange your boards in a nice looking manner and/or do things like add stripes of veneer between the laminations. Or you can just use a single piece neck blank like most people seem to. Try to choose stock that has straight grain with no runout or twist to the grain, otherwise you may be surprised if it moves during/after carving.
 
My fretboards are about a 1/4 inch (6.5mm) which seems about standard and corresponds to standard bridge heights. Not a dimension carved in stone though.
 
Since this is going to be a steel stringed instrument (I assume), I would be inclined to put in some sort of reinforcement as insurance. Yes you can use the aluminum or steel but remember obviously to put it in on end (skinny side down) and not flat. A pass or two on the table saw (or whatever) to make your slot and you are good to go to glue. Eazy peezy. Since this will be a non-adjustable truss rod I would make it permanent using epoxy glue.
 
A bar for reinforcement certainly won't hurt. It may contribute to neck dive, though on such a short neck that's not really an issue. FWIW I make short scale classical guitar necks at a slightly longer scale length and don't include any reinforcement. They are fairly beefy necks, and only nylon strung. But in my tenor guitars (also longer scale length, steel stringed, and very narrow/slim neck) I do use an adjustable truss rod. Some of this decision is dependent on the wood species you're using. If it's fairly stiff you don't really need anything else.
 
Though it's probably not required, for insurance I put a carbon fiber bar under the fret board of my instruments. It's light enough that you won't get neck dive. Lately I've been buying square bars (6.25 mm x 6.25 mm) from China on eBay and they're cheap enough that I just do it. I cut the slot on my table saw and use epoxy to bed the bars in the neck.
 
We all know what it is like to get hung up on the details and concerned about screwing up that nice piece of wood.

I would recommend that you ease your mind by practicing the shaping of the neck on some scrap wood. Just dimension a piece of knot free wood (years ago when I made my first neck I just used a piece of 2x4 that I dimensioned to the same specs as my mahogany board I intended to use). It went great and I worked out all my concerns to then move on to the real deal with confidence....

You can always have another go with scrap wood which will allow you the freedom to experiment and find what techniques and tools work best for you, but that nice piece of well seasoned timber is harder to replace and so you will feel way more pressure and a resistance to experiment. You can also try different neck profiles work out your joinery if that is of concern...you know work out all the kinks and end up where you want to be without as much stress.

Hope it helps and I am sure you will do great when the time comes....
 
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19mm is more than thick enough for a typical truss rod - as long as you have 3 - 4 mm behind the rod you're fine. I think you'll find your plan to end up with a total thickness of 30 - 35mm will feel really thick. Most commercial ukes or smaller guitars have total thicknesses more in the range of 18mm at the nut up to 25 near the heel.
 
dwizum said:
...thicknesses more in the range of 18mm at the nut up to 25 near the heel.
Click to expand...

Agreed. 35mm would feel like a baseball bat... The trend has been for thinner and thinner necks over the years. One of the first to go with the thinner neck was Bob Taylor and I've always liked the feel of his guitars. They are marketed as "fast" necks (always the marketing). But of course it all depends on what the player feels comfortable with. It is an individual thing... l think that inexperienced builders tend to leave too much wood behind out of fear they will go too far and ruin the work. I know my first few necks were carved too thick and I really had to take them back. Having an ukulele you like the feel of is important. Then just steal (copy) the dimensions.
 
Since that is an adjustable truss rod, do not glue it in as suggested with the previous non-adjustable rod. But you knew that.
 
I use those same generic blue-wrapped rods all the time in basses and guitars, and I don't do anything special to prevent rattles. If the slot is the right dimension there's really no need. Sometimes if the rod is totally slack it can have a slight rattle, but you can just give the nut a tiny little turn in either direction to put some tension on the rod and the rattle stops. Not a big deal.
 
Yes, the face of the nut gets aligned with the edge of the fretboard.
 
One thing to consider, though it depends on your headstock design. Since that rod appears to have round nuts at each end (instead of a square block) it could be made easily removable, if you're worried about dealing with a broken rod. On a tilt back headstock, it's pretty easy to do this by routing the channel clear out the face of the headstock. Then if the rod ever needs to be replaced, it can just be pulled out from the headstock end. If the headstock won't allow that, you can flip flop the rod for a butt end adjustment (as long as you route a pocked in the body to allow a wrench to reach it) and make it removable out that end. Of course, rod breakage is pretty rare, but I figure if it's something that's possible with a given design, it's at least worth considering.
 
Jayne01 said:
Then trimmed the fretboard to the correct size and glued it to the neck blank.
Click to expand...

You can do it that way, but I attach the fretboard after I trim and shape the neck blank because if something goes wrong shaping the neck (what could possibly go wrong?), then I don't have to remove the fretboard which can be a tedious process and inevitably damages the valuable fretboard.
 
Looks great! Now I'm becoming inspired to build one of these too.

My real motivation is that I'm refurbishing an old tenor banjo, and I anticipate that actually learning to play the tenor banjo could damage my marriage (I've found that practicing finger picking patterns takes a lot of repetition, and banjos are loud instruments). So I want to build an electric tenor guitar with the same scale length (22.5") and string spacing. While I'm going to the effort, I might as well put a pickup in it so it could be played with headphones or plugged into an amp. I'm thinking of using a typical uke-type bridge and an under-saddle piezo pickup.
 
Ukealot:
Try stuffing a pair of socks under the skin in the bridge area. This will muffle a lot of the sound and your wife will be less disturbed by your learning the instrument. There's usually a dowel or bar from neck to tail to keep the pot round. Wedge the socks between this and the head.
 
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