What's happening in your shed?

Primitive thickness sanding on my Shopsmith. I used a plywood slab as a carrier for the Western Red Cedar to help ensure an even feed. I paused often to vacuum the mess and check the thickness with calipers. Not ideal, but it works. I cancelled the order that I placed last week for the Jet 1020. My garage is already pretty packed with woodworking equipment, and I came to the conclusion it would be yet another machine to move around when I wanted to work in there.

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This elephant in the room is annoying me because I can't see why the C string will not intonate properly when the other strings are fine. Time to swap it out I guess. I never had the problem with nylon fishing line but every 3 or 4 ukes one flourocarbon fishing line string is just wonky.
The bass uke is pretty groovy but.
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Some say the mark of a craftsman is learning how to correct mistakes; I guess I'm still very much learning. I made a real doozy yesterday evening. I decided to go down to the shop and get in some late evening woodcraft. Not paying close enough attention, I managed to bore the sound hole in the wrong end of the concert cigar box ukulele soundboard. I realized my mistake instantly, but it was too late, but I also realized the potential fix right away.

I pulled out my small sealing iron and set it on max, then used it to heat a putty knife and carefully work the heated knife into the seam between the top and body. It was slow, meticulous work, but I removed the soundboard without damaging anything, then I used the heated putty knife to remove all of the braces and cleaned off the old glue. I'll reglue the braces back in their intended locations, then glue the top back on. The blunder set me back several hours of extra work, but the repair won't even be visible when I'm finished. Lesson: don't work in the shop late in the evening after battling insomnia the night before.

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Some say the mark of a craftsman is learning how to correct mistakes; I guess I'm still very much learning. I made a real doozy yesterday evening. I decided to go down to the shop and get in some late evening woodcraft. Not paying close enough attention, I managed to bore the sound hole in the wrong end of the concert cigar box ukulele soundboard. I realized my mistake instantly, but it was too late, but I also realized the potential fix right away.

I pulled out my small sealing iron and set it on max, then used it to heat a putty knife and carefully work the heated knife into the seam between the top and body. It was slow, meticulous work, but I removed the soundboard without damaging anything, then I used the heated putty knife to remove all of the braces and cleaned off the old glue. I'll reglue the braces back in their intended locations, then glue the top back on. The blunder set me back several hours of extra work, but the repair won't even be visible when I'm finished. Lesson: don't work in the shop late in the evening after battling insomnia the night before.

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Say what?

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That reminds me of a friend who needed to cut a cat flap in a door. He took the door off and took it into his workshop. After much careful measurement, he completed the job. It was only when he came to refit the door that he realised........................

the cat flap was at the top.

His wife never let him forget it.

John Colter
 
Insomnia again. 3 AM work sessions can be productive, but are not my preference. Here we see the first fitting of the baritone cigar box ukulele neck. Lots of sanding left before I can start applying the finishing layers. The much smaller soprano next to it is finished. I'm just waiting for the strings I ordered to arrive.

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Looks good Tony. That's a nice big box on the baritone.
 
My workshop is busy. I have 5 instruments in various stages of construction: 3 cigar box ukes, a standard baritone uke, and a 23" scale steel string guitar. I have 2 more instruments I want to build when those are finished, then I'm going to step back and work on other things. It will be a very busy summer and autumn.

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One of my projects is a Kamaka-style concert scale cigar box uke from another Davis 1886 box, this one with curly Maple bindings. Here's the Black Cherry and Ovangkol neck blank before and after the rough layout cutting.

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Glued the Rosewood heel cap in place this morning, and spent several hours refining the shape of the heel to make it more streamlined. Much of the rough profiling was with a belt sander, followed by a B&D Mouse sander, followed by hand sanding. A lot of wood was removed after this image was taken.

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Thanks John. Here's a pic from this morning showing the fully carved and sanded neck. This morning I'll be working on a task I find most difficult to get consistent results: fretting. I'm using small fretwire on this project.

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Fun with veneers. Maple and cherry "false" fretboard, and headplate decoration.
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There's a weird optical illusion going on with the fret spacing.

It is a fun look.

John Colter
 
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