Two ukuleles

[nicco]

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I've posted on here, but I've just embarked on a build that I'm hoping will be of interest to the community.

My parents started playing ukulele a few years ago now and have got right into it. I decided ages ago I wanted to make them ukes as a gift.

I have finished two electric builds now and am reasonably confident on the process for them, but not so much on how to make an acoustic instrument, so I had a crawl around on here and found threads talking about Graham Macdonald's book, so I bought that and am using it as the bible for the builds. Thanks for the advice, the book is good!

I want to use all Australian timbers, mainly just because. Sides and backs will be laminated from veneer because firstly I've got some really nice veneers at hand, and secondly because I find the process interesting. Mum plays a soprano, Dad plays a tenor, so different size forms unfortunately.

I've kicked off on the soprano to lead the way so if I mess up there's less material wasted. Ha ha.

So mum's soprano will have a tiger myrtle back, myrtle sides, bunya pine soundboard, mulga fret board and bridge.

Dad's tenor will be qld walnut back and sides, either a bunya pine or tassie blackwood sound board and a lace sheoak fretboard.

Both will have qld maple necks with a tassie blackwood lamination.

Progress so far is:
Soprano forms made
Soprano sides bent, trimmed, fitted together in the form with the top edges planed
Soprano fret board blank rough cut

[nicco]

I was hoping to get a couple more photos up, but it doesn't want to play ball just yet. I'll try again later

[nicco]

Trying to post pictures on my desktop. Seems to work once I've rescaled them - maybe they were too big straight off my phone.

Anyway, here are the pictures:
First two are the soprano sides straight out of the forms. They've got two bunya pine inner plies.

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Side bending form. I used a bit of 3mm insertion rubber in there to help.

I discovered after breaking my first myrtle side piece that I needed to pre bend them to get them in the forms. I soaked them under warm water for a few minutes and they went in okay.

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The tiger myrtle veneer that I'll be using on the back. I've got 2 slices, so can do a book match, but I threw the form on the one piece just for a laugh and the asymmetrical look is actually really growing on me.

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Bunya pine sound board for the soprano. The colour isn't actually very deep in the wood, maybe not even a mm. It's quite pale on the other side, so I'll need to be careful in doing final sand to not go through the interesting bit.

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I can sneak a second soprano sound board out of the same piece of bunya pine (not that I need it at the moment, but good to know for in the future) but it's getting mighty close to that knot. Would I be setting myself up to fail if I used this piece?

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One side of the book matched back for the tenor

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[kiwigeo]

For some reason pics loaded straight off an iPhone won't load up. I think photos on modern iPhones are saved in HEIC format not jpeg.

[kiwigeo]

I can sneak a second soprano sound board out of the same piece of bunya pine (not that I need it at the moment, but good to know for in the future) but it's getting mighty close to that knot. Would I be setting myself up to fail if I used this piece?

Should be ok but if there's any part of the knot within the back perimeter I'd first flood it with CA glue to fill any voids.

[nicco]

Awesome, thanks Martin re: the sound board. I think for this go I'll just use the other, safe end of the same piece anyway.

And for the pictures, I'm on android and the pictures are all jpeg's. Dunno. See how we go from here.

Thanks again.

Also neck and heel blocks are now made for the soprano, just waiting for some good weather to do the glue up on them.

[nicco]

Hey everyone, I've got a quick question about pickups for these ukes. I'm trying to work out what the best option is given the use case: mum basically never uses hers amplified, dad used to use his amped a bit more regularly but that use opportunity is drying up now; he'll probably use it once in a while at home. Neither of them are performing needing the pickup.

While I could justify not using pickups at all, I'd rather not send them backwards in specs compared to their current ukes.

I've been looking around on the net to see what's out there. There are things like the Peterman pickups made in Aus that look good, but at $100 for the non-volume control one, I'm not super keen given how little they'll be used. I've seen all the big dollar ones going up from there.

At the other end of the spectrum are the cheap, Ebay special ones; under saddle piezo and soundboard disc piezo; active and passive. I'm leaning towards passive (because I don't like the look of the battery boxes being stuck in the sides), and probably sound board disc. There are ones with a single disc and ones with 3 discs, with not much guff on why there's 3.

Does anyone have any experience with this kind of thing? Am I just wasting my time and the Ebay jobs are just rubbish? Do those 3 disc pickups work okay enough for this use case?

[kiwigeo]

I fit K and K pad style passive pickups on all my guitars and I've done one uke fitted with same. The main reason I use them...theyre reliable, easy to fit and they dont sound "quacky" like many under saddle piezos.

https://www.kksound.com/pure-pickup

[nicco]

Beautiful, thanks again Martin. I'll head that way too.

[nicco]

A bit of an update on these.
- The soprano rims are now joined and self supporting. Neck and heel blocks are left over Qld Maple from the neck of the electric guitar I've done.
- The soprano back plate is now made; laminated two inner bunya pine layers and an outer Tiger Myrtle face. The middle layer is cross grain. Decided to throw caution to the wind and go with the asymmetrical layout. I like it, it's a bit different.
- The mulga fretboard for the soprano now has it's fret slots cut, I just need to bring the whole blank down to thickness.
- The sheoak fretboard for the tenor has been thicknessed and is ready for fret slots.
- I've done the initial sand up to 400 grit on both fret boards and they're looking stunning. Very hard to photograph though.

Still having trouble posting photos off my phone. Oh well, stops me spamming the forum with updates!

[nicco]

Hey everyone, I've got another question for you.

I'm just about finished making the forms for the tenor uke, then I can get to bending up the sides from qld walnut. I only have enough timber to have one crack at it, so I'm definitely going to be pre-bending it before it goes in the form for final glue up - I really can't have a cracked side. Does anyone have recommendations on the best way to soften the timber?

With the myrtle for the soprano, a 5 minute soak under the warm water was enough to get it into the form.

I read something on here, but can't find it again, about doing similar but adding fabric softener or something along those lines to soften it up even more. Is that correct?

[nicco]

Oh and one other silly question, coming from guitars I'm quite comfortable with where the fret markers usually live on them, but where are they on a uke typically? Looks like 5, 7 and 10 usually get a marker. Does 12 usually get a special one if that's where the neck and body join?

I assume side dots normally go on the same frets? Double side dot on 12 like a guitar?

[kiwigeo]

I'm just about finished making the forms for the tenor uke, then I can get to bending up the sides from qld walnut. I only have enough timber to have one crack at it, so I'm definitely going to be pre-bending it before it goes in the form for final glue up - I really can't have a cracked side. Does anyone have recommendations on the best way to soften the timber?

With the myrtle for the soprano, a 5 minute soak under the warm water was enough to get it into the form.

I did a uke using myrtle a few years back. The stuff bent without any special treatment. A bit of a spritz with water from a squirt bottle before and during the bending session. You can use Super Soft or a fabric softener to help with bending. If youre using a blanket and form hand bend the waist first and then do the rest of the bending with the forma and blanket.

[kiwigeo]

Oh and one other silly question, coming from guitars I'm quite comfortable with where the fret markers usually live on them, but where are they on a uke typically? Looks like 5, 7 and 10 usually get a marker. Does 12 usually get a special one if that's where the neck and body join?

I assume side dots normally go on the same frets? Double side dot on 12 like a guitar?

Fret markers at 3, 5 and 7th frets. Then either 9th or 10th fret and then a marker at 12th fret. Usually 12th fret of different size or doubled to denote octave marker. Side markings....up to you. I match side markers with all my fretboard markers up to 12th fret. Extending them past neck join depends on fretboard thickness and other asthetics.

Note that side markers are more visible than fretboard markers to the player so a sensible option would be to have a full set of side markers and less fretboard markers (eg 3, 5, 7 and 12).

[nicco]

I did a uke using myrtle a few years back. The stuff bent without any special treatment. A bit of a spritz with water from a squirt bottle before and during the bending session. You can use Super Soft or a fabric softener to help with bending. If youre using a blanket and form hand bend the waist first and then do the rest of the bending with the forma and blanket.

Hey Martin, once again, thanks for getting back so quickly.

So first things first, why couldn't you read my mind as to how I'm planning on doing it?

I probably needed to explain, I've got some 0.6mm veneer that I'll be laminating onto 2 x 0.6mm bunya pine veneers to form the sides; which is also how I did the soprano, myrtle sides. The bunya pine can fit the form completely dry, it just bends in no worries. I tried to just chuck the Myrtle in as well and it cracked in half. A bit of hot water and it was flexible enough to fit the form. I just left in the form to dry overnight and roughly hold the shape, then I glued up the preformed layers with no heat or anything.

I was planning on doing exactly the same with the walnut; soak it, hold it in the form overnight to dry, laminate up preformed layers; but was just curious as to any tips to make that a less risky process.

I will try a little fabric softener though as well, I'd rather be safe than sorry.



And also, thanks re: the fret markers. That's good. I'll work to that.

[Allen]

Fret markers on ukes will sometimes have one on 3. I always include them unless asked otherwise. Then 5 , 7, 10, 12 and 15. Ukes never get them on 9. If you see one on 9 then you know that whomever built it doesn't know ukuleles. But as Martin said, the side dots are far more important than those on the face.

As far as pickups, by far the best and easiest to install is the K&K Aloha Twin. No preamp required and the most natural sounding one out there. I install the pads just north of the bridge patch by 2-3mm. Not on it as in their instructions which are more suited to guitars tell you to do. The sound is far more even.

[kiwigeo]

If you see one on 9 then you know that whomever built it doesn't know ukuleles. But as Martin said, the side dots are far more important than those on the face.

LOL...thanks for that clarification Allen. I spent a couple of hours going through pics of ukes on the net and couldn't really gain any picture of what the convention was. There were quite a few discussions on the 9/10 question as it applies to guitars and some interesting points were raised.....ie position of neck/body join and its effect on symmetry of markers etc.

[nicco]

Yeah, thanks Allen, appreciate the clarification. Like Martin, I had a look around on google and could see things talking about different positions being used.

And thanks for the tip about the pickup positioning.

BTW: Cairns is a lovely part of the world, I grew up there.




Okay, I've got one more question that I think is going to be a really silly one... I've read lots about using blackheart sassafras as a back and side wood... but what about as a soundboard? I think the fact that I cannot find anything about anyone using it suggests that the general feel is it's not going to be a great option. I've got other options that I'm leaning to first, but yeah, curious to get some thoughts on it.

[Allen]

Save that for backs.

I would pick spruce of some sort first for the instruments you are building.

If you are really wanting Aussie timbers then Huon Pine is great on soprano's or concerts. King Billy Pine is a good all rounder though it's fairly soft so if the player is not careful you can ding / scratch it easily.

[nicco]

Yeah, fair enough, thanks Allen. My suspicion was that it probably wasn't going to be a great option, but figured it was worth checking anyway.

[graham mcdonald]

Glad the book is helpful!

Cheers