What's happening in your shed?

I've finished the solid body steel string tenor I posted an incomplete photo of a few weeks ago. This has shop made bridge, pickup, and control knobs. I'm really happy with how it turned out, it has a nice classy look and lots of versatility in terms of tone.

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Dwizum, that is just too cool. I love the wood pickup, and bridge you made. I was just thinking about making a bridge of that very design, for an electric lap steel I am planning to build someday.
 
My latest tenor uke is taking shape. Nothing special . . . I'm using leftovers and spares I had laying around the shop. A back from a quartersawn Maple board I wasn't using. Ash sides from an old pallet board. A leftover Bear Claw Sitka Spruce top. A pre-fab neck from MGB Guitars, which I had originally purchased with making a cigar box uke in mind, then abandoned that project. First and last time for using Ash on a uke. I had a lot of trouble getting it to hold its shape, even with pressing it in a body mold to cool after bending.

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Dwizum, that is just too cool. I love the wood pickup, and bridge you made. I was just thinking about making a bridge of that very design, for an electric lap steel I am planning to build someday.

Thanks! The bridge is easier than it looks. Especially in brass, which machines really well. I drilled the holes on a drill press and then did the shaping with files. It probably took an hour or an hour and a half start to finish. Simple and effective. I'm making another one for a baritone I have in progress right now.
 
A couple of hours or so today working on installing a Koa soundport ring in my tenor ukulele. The ring has been rough sanded at this point. I borrowed this method from Brian Griffin.

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I took the time yesterday to make some jigs to produce simple rosettes for some concert sized instruments. I like the look of the early Gibson rosettes and used that as a model. I glued up strips of walnut and maple into a block, then sawed the block into about 3mm thick slabs. I made a miter guide for a razor saw to cut consistent angle and width inlay pieces. Then I made a form from Delrin plastic in which to assemble and glue the pieces. The CA glue doesn't stick well to the Delrin, and it was no trouble separating the finished ring from the form. The form is made of multiple pieces to help getting things apart. The completed rings are 3.25mm wide and perfectly round. By varying cut angles and material colors I can make other designs too. Probably nothing here you haven't seen before, but I was just real happy with the way it all turned out.

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Pre-bending a reverse lining strip by wetting it and clamping it to the outside of the tenor body for a few hours. I learned the idea from a Robert O'Brien "Luthier Tips" video.

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I don't get it. What would be the advantage? Why not just bend em' on the inside and be done with it. I'm sure there is something I'm missing here.
 
I think that the 'outside' approach is done because this is reverse-kerf lining, so doing it on the outside puts the kerfing's solid band of wood against the side (like regular kerfing is installed) which makes the bending easier with less cracking of the kerfing. Just dampen the kerfing and bend it. However - I now bend the reverse kerfing over a hot pipe to fit it inside. I clamp it down with clothspins to let it dry from the wetting/hot pipe bending. Better bends, less cracking, and I can better fit the kerfing over the inside reinforcement veneer for the side sound port which I run top to bottom, underneath the kerfing.
 
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It depends on the wood for me. The basswood reverse kerfed linings worked fine after wetting and pre-bending as I showed above; the Spanish Cedar and Mahogany linings I made of the same size and type would not take smaller curves without breaking if I didn't pull out the bending iron, even if I tried pre-bending them.

One of the other things I did today was cutting some Rosewood binding strips for the same uke. Using the shelf to hold the .09" Rosewood flat gives me much more accurate bindings and cleaner edges than any I've ever made with a bandsaw. The height of the StewMac fret slotting blade is set so it barely cuts through the Rosewood, and my fingers never go anywhere near a fast spinning sharp metal object.

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Soprano Martin style waist bends at 1 inch radius sometimes crack or leave gaps in mahogany linings, usually at each side of the waist bends...pre bending I find, gives a nice snug fit, but not always:rolleyes: it depends on the wood and sometimes requires after work...Concert size Tenor and those ukes that use much larger waist radius eg: Ditson & Dreadnought are no problem.
 
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Sanding the reverse linings flush with the body, stopping often to check my progress.

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I had a very productive day in the shop. In addition to the work on the kiku that I mentioned in my build thread, I ripped some narrow Rosewood bindings, cut the channels, and bent/glued the bindings on the smaller tenor uke body. I wasn't planning bindings or an end graft on this project, but I decided it needed some contrasting wood to break up the austere appearance of the Spruce top and Ash sides.

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First dry assembled look at the tenor ukulele from the above post which I built mainly from spare stuff I had laying around the shop. I'm planning to gift this to someone I know who had expressed interest in my instrument work.

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