Sunday, June 01, 2008

Build pics

As promised, some build-in-progress pictures.

This wood is labeled "lace" but I think it was called "Sheoak" in the ebay auction. I t came from Australia and was meant to be a guitar set. The guitar side broke in shipment but I had enough for top/back/sides for a soprano uke. I have no idea if this wood will make a good uke top, we'll just wait and see I guess.


Top/back are glued up bookmatched here and one set has been sanded.


The next pictures is the two side pieces, edge to edge, ready to go into the side bender. They're wet down and the grain is really gorgeous!



My first bend ever! The thermometer never got up were I wanted and expected so I just listened for cracking and slowing brought in the waist...



Here it is cooking in the bender. There is a 500 watt halogen bulb in there, seems to be plenty hot!



I let them sit in the bender all night and put them in my mold this morning. There is some trimming to do (on purpose) but it's looking great to me so far!



I'll add more pics when I make more progress.
Brian

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

If any of you decide to make your own uke here's some advice... don't smack your thumb with a hammer. I missed my 1st day of uke playing in a couple years yesterday after hitting my left thumb. Hopefully back to strumming tonight or tomorrow...
Brian
p.s. no, you don't normally use a hammer to build a uke. I was building a jig to build radius dishes so I can dome my top and back.

Anonymous said...

Your build pictures look great! Did you build the side bender yourself?

Anonymous said...

Yup, used the same pattern I used for the mold. Made it 6" wide so I could do both sides at once. I used some 1/8" x 1/2" aluminum bar stock to fit across between the two sides of the bender. The uke sides, between paper stock and aluminum sheet lay on the bar stock. Only bent one set so far but it went fine, I've got another set almost ready to bend. Currently I'm working on the neck and building jigs as I go. The next one should go a bit faster!
Brian