Hi, thanks everybody for your kind and supportive posts.
I don't count hours but I guess there are about 100 hours in each instrument. So that is 400 hours of my spare time spread over the last 6 months and I loved almost every minute. This is the second batch of these concerts I have done so the moulds and tooling were already in place which greatly helped in smoothing out the production flow. After 50 ukes, the area where I'm finally seeing productivity improvements is in finishing. Its now down to about 20% of the build hours and the stress has finally gone out of the process. For those that are struggling with spraying high gloss, stick with it, you will eventually stop having pin holes, runs in the wet spray and rub throughs. I did a post on my blog about overcoming those issues.
Michael Smith, I think I got almost the last gotoh stealths in the wild from the Southern Ukulele Store in the UK. Rob was an absolute pleasure to deal with and he might have a few more left. This was the second time I have used them after suffering all of the problems that have earned them a bad wrap the first time. But they are so small and cute I decided to give them another go. This time I found some 6mm ID / 7mm OD teflon tube on ebay and used it as a sleeve for the posts. It worked a treat and almost completely cured the backlash problem. I'd definitely use them again if Gotoh decide to put them back into production.
Zeka7, I'm a modest player but would record something for you if I had the facilities but I don't have a decent microphone or anything analogue to record it onto. If I borrowed a mic what is the best way of making an audio file available? I don't think we can attach audio files here can we? I might be able to host it on my blog site but have never tried.
My next uke project might be to try and make a copy of Joni Mitchell's first ever instrument which was a Harmony Baritone made in about 1962. All mahogany, peg tuners, tortoise binding only around the soundboard, hardly any rosette. It will take all of my discipline not to bling it up. I made a copy of one of her dulcimers a few years ago and enjoyed the research.
Anyhow, thanks again everybody for your support.
cheers
Paul
