Ukulele Build Thread

crokett

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I am in the planning stages of building a ukulele. My daughter and I built one of StewMac's tenor kits last summer. We had a lot of fun and it sounds better than the concert I have. It is also more comfortable than my concert size. I want to build another one, from scratch. I'm an experienced woodworker but have never built an instrument.

My uke will have a mahogany back and sides and a spruce top. I have maple I can use as a neck. A few questions to start with, and I'm sure I will have more. I have some figured hard dense wood that I want to use as a fretboard. It is a MM or two thinner than the fretboards on my other ukes. If used it i would need to lower the height of the nut and saddle to get the action I like. Would that make a difference for sound? The strings would be closer to the sound hole and the top of the instrument. I could laminate some veneer to the the bottom of the fretboard to make it a little thicker. A contrasting color would be an interesting look.

I am planning to use a hot pipe to bend the sides. Is it possible just to soak them for several hours and clamp them in a form? They're thin pieces of wood. Or do I need heat? Would a steam box be easier? The hot pipe is somewhat freeform, though I'd have a template to compare to.
 
Sounds like you are going about things in the right way. You built a kit so now you know the basics of how the things go together.

The thickness of your fretboard is not written in stone and a millimeter will make no difference because you adjust at the nut and saddle for height... Maple will work as neck material, but depending on the species can be hard to carve... DO NOT overly soak your wood before bending. All sorts of nasty things can happen as it dries out like racking, checking, etc. Soak quickly or just mist with a sprayer and use a wet rag. I don't bend on a heat pipe so can't give specific directions.

Good luck and quickly move from the planning stages to the doing stages or nothing will get done.
 
Side bending

Hi Crocket
Last year, I built a carved top and back jazz style uke based on the Hofner President. I bent the sides (including a single cut-away) using the hot pipe technique.
Two off-cuts of S/S pipe of different diameter were clamped together with Jubilee Clips. These were then clamped onto a scrap of 1" x 1" angle with an exhaust clamp. The whole was held in a vice and a hot gun poked up the larger pipe.
It only took a few minutes to heat up. It has to be so hot that when water is flicked at it, it explodes.
The wood was misted and then applied to an appropriate piece of the jig. You need to keep the jig very hot and the wood damp. WEAR GLOVES! I was surprised just how easily the sides bent. Once bent, the sides were clamped into the building jig and left to sort themselves out. They came out firmly fixed into the required shape, including the cutout. Very satisfying!
Best, Geoff
 
I am in the planning stages of building a ukulele. My daughter and I built one of StewMac's tenor kits last summer. We had a lot of fun and it sounds better than the concert I have. It is also more comfortable than my concert size. I want to build another one, from scratch. I'm an experienced woodworker but have never built an instrument.

My uke will have a mahogany back and sides and a spruce top. I have maple I can use as a neck. A few questions to start with, and I'm sure I will have more. I have some figured hard dense wood that I want to use as a fretboard. It is a MM or two thinner than the fretboards on my other ukes. If used it i would need to lower the height of the nut and saddle to get the action I like. Would that make a difference for sound? The strings would be closer to the sound hole and the top of the instrument. I could laminate some veneer to the the bottom of the fretboard to make it a little thicker. A contrasting color would be an interesting look.

I am planning to use a hot pipe to bend the sides. Is it possible just to soak them for several hours and clamp them in a form? They're thin pieces of wood. Or do I need heat? Would a steam box be easier? The hot pipe is somewhat freeform, though I'd have a template to compare to.
most of my fretboards are 2.5mm thick.
 
My simple set up: Note the ends of the pipe bent to form baffles. I mist the wood with a spray bottle and keep the wood damp while bending. 200 plus instruments and only one failure....torrefied curly maple.
DSCF0041.jpg
 
...well that one failure included 6 pieces of select flamed maple. :)
 
...well that one failure included 6 pieces of select flamed maple. :)

Well, compare to my success rate with ebony: Zero (0) or bloodwood Zero (0). Low sample size as I know when I'm beat. But can bend mahogany and rosewood like you can't believe. Success rate %100.
 
I have about a 10 % reject rate on bending mahogany... Sometimes due to grain runout or not being patient enough or the material is too thick "10 thou" makes a lot of difference between wrinkles and no wrinkles...but im bending the waist at only 1 inch radius on these sopranos..so i expect problems.
 
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To me that is extremely thin, but it goes to show that thickness doesn't really matter in a fretboard. Mine are approximately a quarter inch (.25 inches) or 6.35mm thick.
Yes! the Vintage Martin Style "0" and "1" are that thin as standard..and vintage Island type no fretboards...I often buy a 5 string Bass Guitar fretboard blank at 8-9 mm thick and I sometimes can get up to 12 soprano boards out of it :)

I replaced a worn out fretboard on a 1930's Wendell Hall Ludwig Banjo uke for a friend and I was amazed that it was only 1.5mm thick Ebony, and it was quite a difficult job getting the new fret slots to line up with the exsisting slots that had been cut through into the neck wood...same with the marker dots I remember. :(
 
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I have about a 10 % reject rate on bending mahogany... Sometimes due to grain runout or not being patient enough or the material is too thick "10 thou" makes a lot of difference between wrinkles and no wrinkles...but im bending the waist at only 1 inch radius on these sopranos..so i expect problems.

My bending pipe is 2 1/4" but I never bend all the way down to it, which explains a low failure.
This is my bending master piece: 42" single piece of claro walnut...
ameba.jpg

painting by Portland artist Wayne Jiang.
 
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