Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Most of the builder I know use outside moulds and a bolt-on neck.

But there are lots of other ways - increasingly I build face-down on a flat board (sopranos, no doming) without using a mould at all. Usually Spanish heel but sometimes bolt-on.

For ukes, even a block plane can do the job remarkably quickly, and is small enough to work on tiny plates. Planing cross-grain at an angle (45-60 degrees approx) is usually enough to prevent tear-out. It is essential to sharpen the blade well, and stop to resharpen whenever planing feels difficult....

I use solid linings, often offcuts from the sides, so they'd be about 1.7mm thick. But 2mm thick binding seems too thick for a uke, it looks out of proportion. The max thickness I use is 1.5mm, but admittedly on sopranos. 2mm might look OK on a tenor, in which case I'd double up my solid linings.

Anything above 20mm should work OK - even on a tenor there's not a huge amount of string tension. 25mm sounds like a happy medium.

Luthiery is clearly one of those businesses where the emotional attachment to the work is more important than the business aspect, at least for many people. I say this both because many luthiers seem to be working for very little income, and because most of the posts here never mention financial pla...

When a rosewood bridge popped off I was advised that the magic trick for rosewood is to scrape the gluing surface immediately before gluing. Minutes at most. I think the idea is that any surface contamination can make adhesion harder (including oils rising to the new surface). This seemed to do the ...

I play soprano uke and have built a few, and can confirm that intonation is rarely better than "thereabouts" because of the short scale and low string tension. If your 12th fret is in the right place and the others are within 0.5mm then it should play pretty well. I just checked, and increasing fing...

I'd say it's a 50/50 call between a Spanish heel and a bolt-on (for a soprano uke, this means no tenon and mortice or anything complex like that, just a good fit heel to body and a single barrel bolt/machine screw). The Spanish heel has all the advantages Allen says, and I used it for my first few s...

Floating bridges may be less inclined to rock the soundboard, as you suggest, but the main reason why floating bridges produce less sound (in general) is that the tops of the instruments that have floating bridges are generally much stiffer and much heavier than typical flat-top, fixed bridge instr...

I've got in my head a mental picture that strings work by transferring their energy to the top in two ways: 1. By rocking the bridge back and forward (if a fixed bridge). 2. By pushing it down and relaxing (for both fixed and floating bridges). This helpfully explains (to me) why a higher saddle = m...

Shameless plug for your edit work there Chris :lol: :lol: Nice one! Not exactly a bit of light bedtime reading I suspect but just enough weight for 'holding down' :wink: It would be if there were any potential buyers here, but i think they all have far, far better things to do! This is the 7th edit...

There's nothing wrong with gravity clamps. Here's the bridge plate going onto my most recent ukulele.



Mind you, this only works if they're your own books (though only edited, in this case).

I use a scraper plane for thicknessing ukulele plates. When I get chatter it's either because I've set the blade too deep, or tightened the screw too much. For blade depth, place the plane sole down on a flat surface, insert blade and let it rest on the flat surface, tighten blade holding screws. By...

Hi Chris, because without a clear aim this won't demonstrate anything other than that these techniques can be used to build a musical instrument at a smaller scale. Is this in itself such a bad thing? Oh no, not in the least. That's the kind of inquiring mind I like (unless it's a child with matche...

This is a fascinating build, and I'll be interested to see how it turns out. Although I'm the veriest amateur uke maker I am a researcher by trade, so I've read widely about traditional uke making (not the Gore Gilet book, though, I'm too amateur to justify the cost). That tells me the conventional ...

I found a toothed blade for my plane made a huge difference. Probably the best solution for thicknessing with hand tools. I also have a Record scraper plane, which works well but is much slower. Toothed blade down to nearly the thickness, scraper plane or card scraper to finish off. Mind you, I only...

It's been done:



http://www.lunchtimeshopper.com/musical ... uitars.php

How they did it is still a mystery though.

As a simpler test, why not (temporarily) move the pickup sideways a centimetre or so. If the problem moves to a different string, you have a faulty pickup.

This exhausts all the ideas I have about electrics, but it seems to me that it would work as a diagnostic and only take about 10 mins to try out.

Martin,

Yes, I think 1mm +3.2 mm saddle should put you in the zone.

Looking forward to hearing how this sounds.

There's a compensation table here: http://www.ukuleles.com/Technology/compensate.html (in inches, but can be converted quite easily). This suggests around 1mm for G, E and A (if you're using re-entrant tuning) and around 2.5mm for C. But ukes are very sensitive to different brands of string and to a...

Stepping back to the discussion on Chladni patterns, my reading suggests that it's hard, maybe even impossible, to transpose that work to something as tiny as a ukulele. The top, back, sides and bracing interact so much, certainly on sopranos, that I suspect that the research on guitars may not be m...

am thinking ukes are a great way to get into building; regardless of how they turn out you can always get a half-decent sound Well, maybe. You might be right for the larger sizes, but sopranos are contrary little buggers, and I've been able to make one that didn't make it to half decent. Well done ...

What is the required width of a board for a tenor uke? I have some small boards that could be used for this purpose to perhaps build my courage before building a larger acoustic haha. Alan's given you the fretboard dimensions. For top and back the lower bout would be 8 to 9 inches across (200-230 m...

Strings are hard to find in Australia if my Google search is accurate. However, you can get both Worth (note sp for future searches) and Orcas fluorocarbon strings here: http://www.guitarfactory.net/Folk/Ukulele_accessories.htm . Prices seem similar to the UK. But if you think your top is a bit on t...

I've never had a problem with Aquila Nylguts on my sopranos, but I rarely play tenor (though i don't hear tenor players complaining of bad strings much). You have to find strings which suit you and your uke. I'd say there are two basic divides: a. Do you want the traditional plunk of a uke, or somet...