What's happening in your shed?

I didn’t set the angle of the neck to what I'd wanted and wasn’t happy with the look of the neck/body connection, so decided to bite the bullet and and steam it off with this pressure cooker, fuel line, ball inflation pin contraption. It was pretty hair-raising but worked out. I hadn't planned to to take the fretboard off but it came off the soundboard pretty easily and I decided to continue on up the neck. That sure made getting the steam into the joint easier.

Between this and doing the binding twice (because of scraping it too thin in a spot), this uke has been as much an education in repair as it was building....which is fine - I wanted to try to learn as much as possible.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S_wfHzh37NmRgbGYN3FlZ7FN-8n9-C9V/view?usp=drivesdk

Here it is prior to neck shaping and attachment. The fretboard is Osage orange and the bridge will be as well.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13ITu9Kv6gMI3Cnt-fY-gG1tR6MEHqNfe/view?usp=drivesdk
 
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Things to do today:
Burst pernambuco baritone body,
Work on pernambuco neck,
Clear coat selmer neck,
Install 3 end grafts,
Design a modern soprano shape with 14 frets to the body.

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What I'm doing today? Fixing oops... I can count on one hand the number of binding jobs I've done that were absolutely perfect. It seems to be always somthin... Here are two gaps that need to be filled. Note that these are super close-up macro pictures which makes the gaps look bigger than they are. Still they gotta be fixed.

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Things to do today:
Burst pernambuco baritone body,
Work on pernambuco neck,
Clear coat selmer neck,
Install 3 end grafts,
Design a modern soprano shape with 14 frets to the body.

View attachment 118239

Lovely stuff. Interesting the way you install the grafts, after the bindings are installed. I've never mitered bindings, and all the info I've seen online shows installing the graft first and then the binding. Your way seems to make more sense , if you are going to miter the corners. You may have inspired me to try this on a future build, thanks. Mike.
 
Not so much in my shed but I finally got a resaw blade for my bandsaw20190525_140002.jpg cut a piece of mesquite I found on the side of the road. Not sure if totally usable for a fretboard they're approximately 2"x12"
 
I've been doing binding work on my tenor uke and tenor guitar projects recently. If I had any hair I'd pull it out. Must have been beginner's luck when I built my first uke last summer, because that project went a lot smoother. I have routed out and redone two strips the past couple of weeks because I didn't like the way they fit.
 
I've been doing binding work on my tenor uke and tenor guitar projects recently. If I had any hair I'd pull it out. Must have been beginner's luck when I built my first uke last summer, because that project went a lot smoother. I have routed out and redone two strips the past couple of weeks because I didn't like the way they fit.

Just a few binding tips:

Make sure the binding fits relaxed in the channel after they're bent. Sand the binding channels a bit to make sure they're clean, no wild fibers anywhere. Knock off the inside corner of the binding just a bit with a knife edge. Apply a thin layer of shellac to the top to keep the binding tape from pulling up fibers and to help with the scraping / sanding process after the binding is installed.
 
Just a few binding tips:

Make sure the binding fits relaxed in the channel after they're bent. Sand the binding channels a bit to make sure they're clean, no wild fibers anywhere. Knock off the inside corner of the binding just a bit with a knife edge. Apply a thin layer of shellac to the top to keep the binding tape from pulling up fibers and to help with the scraping / sanding process after the binding is installed.
Thanks Victor.
 
Just a few binding tips:

Make sure the binding fits relaxed in the channel after they're bent. Sand the binding channels a bit to make sure they're clean, no wild fibers anywhere. Knock off the inside corner of the binding just a bit with a knife edge. Apply a thin layer of shellac to the top to keep the binding tape from pulling up fibers and to help with the scraping / sanding process after the binding is installed.

Thats good advice Vic :)
 
I would imagine sheds up and down the UK were busy today, thanks to the atrocious weather. Anyway, what do you do when you're waiting for laquer to cure, of course you start a new project. So I had a routing session , next up, neck and tail blocks for 2 OM guitars.
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Another segmented banjo uke.
Jarah, blackbutt and scrap something pot. Heat shrunk PET skin. Planetary banjo gears. Jarah neck. Blackbutt fretboard.
Picture rail hook converted to tailpiece.
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No ukuleles this time but I recently finished something I have been planning on doing for a long time. I have had a pile on old and worn files for quite some time now and I've been meaning to do something out of them. But only recently I found a place where to forge my very own chisel out of one of them! Definitely a learning experience and it gave me a lot of respect for the real tool makers out there. Not as easy as one might think. Something I got to learn during this project... :D
 

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Another segmented banjo uke.
Jarah, blackbutt and scrap something pot. Heat shrunk PET skin. Planetary banjo gears. Jarah neck. Blackbutt fretboard.
Picture rail hook converted to tailpiece.
Nice work Ian,
I really enjoy following your builds... they are always innovative and interesting.
How tight can that P.E.T. skin be shrunk without melting, distorting or weakening?... I'm talking sound-wise (think relative tap tone), not physical measurement-wise.
Is the solid bridge helpful in driving the thicker top? The reason for the question is that I have only made one floating bridge and spent an inordinate amount of time with a drill and a jeweller's saw cutting a lace pattern and three feet into it, in the hope that the reduced weight would provide some mystical magic …. the jury is still out, I found no definitive answer to that, as to me, it sounded a little brighter but not really a whole lot tonally better or worse than the beefier one that it replaced. That was on a commercial clear polyester skin (too long ago to remember the brand) on a factory-made concert.
It'll be interesting to see if the sound from the top deteriorates significantly after 25/01/20 when the “Best Before” date is passed.:):)
 
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