more plate work

 I un-clamped my remaining plates today and then sent them through the wide drum sander.  They're at about 0.120" per my calipers which is just about right.  There will be additional hand sanding after they get attached to the rim and the goal is about 0.110" when complete.  I wet the Sheoak, it's so beautiful!

I also trimmed up the back plate and put it in my 8ft radius dish, wetted and weighted so hopefully it will take a bit of that shape.  I'll need to make braces to hold it to shape next, just trying to decide if I should order QS (quarter sawn) Sitka Spruce or just go with some of my leftover WRC (Western Red Cedar).  I can't find the spruce locally so it would be a StewMac order.

I also reprinted my logo and glued it to the headstock plate.  I'll need to cut that out somehow, either via router, Dremel, or Xacto knife.  Then I'll need to cut a positive in a contrasting wood to inlay.

That was all for today.

Brian

top & back plates and headstock plate

 Today I pulled out the glued up bookmatch for the top plate.  Used a chisel and card scraper to remove any surface squeeze out.  Then headed to my wide drum sander (which I built and is documented way down in this blog, about 15 years ago).  I love the figure in this wood (Australian Sheoak)!

I'm also going to use Sheoak for the headstock plate.  I used a couple smaller cutoffs which were also book matched, jointed and set up to glue them.

Next up is the plates for the front.  I grabbed a couple Cedar plates (WRC?  These weren't labeled so I'll have to dig into my purchase records later.)   These are guitar sized, about 9x23, just barely too narrow to use just one.  So I prepped for the book match glue up.  Just look at that tight grain and quarter sawn!

I used an iron block as a weight on the joint this time as the headstock glue up was using my other weight.

I also printed out a version of the headstock logo I used once before to check for size.  I think I'll need to shrink it a little to fit between tuning machines.  Hopefully I'll be able to inlay it with either maple or ebony, not sure if I want the logo white or black this time.

And what's with that fretboard?  Just something I designed years ago but haven't pulled off yet, but I think this is the build to do it!  It will use a thin 1/16" inlay strip between the 4 string courses and should appear more checkerboard with the frets perpendicular to the inlay.

Brian

glue and the headstock takes shape

 First things first.  I cut the carbon fiber rods in half, cleaned up the ends, then epoxied them into the neck.

I used about half of the epoxy and the package said to toss the "mixing applicator" and then cap the syringes.  Well that seemed like a waste and I had the compressor hose a few feet away... so I blew out the applicator.  Then ran a little mineral spirits through it, followed by more air.  Decided to blow air through backwards and the spiral mixing bit inside blew out.  Convenient!  Now I wrapped a half inch wide bit of paper towel around a 1/8" saw blade and was able to run it into the applicator and spin it around getting it squeaky clean and all ready for next use.

Next up was headstock shape.  I'd looked at a few online for inspiration and liked some aspects of this Epiphone shape.

So next I looked around the shop for anything curved to try to trace for the sides.  I found a cookie tin (saving for a cigar box type build), the form for the body on this uke, and the cast iron platform for my jigsaw.  Jigsaw it was!  But, it still took 3 tries for the right side and 2 for the left to trace lines the way I wanted.  I decided on the S shape for the top rather than the "open book" and I just freehanded that.  You may have noticed that it's asymmetrical, that's because as a 5 string it'll have 3 tuners on the left and 2 on the right.  Leaving a little extra space on the right also helps ensure the hand isn't jammed up again the tuner there.

After cutting the headstock shape on the band saw I realized that I was missing about 1/8" on the face side at the top (I'd traced the shape on the back side).  I just freehanded the extra 1/8" on the band saw and then went to the oscillating spindle sander to smooth everything up.  I'm liking it!

And finally, I worked on my 2 book matched plates for the back.  Ran them through the jointer to get perfect edges to glue together (but still hand sanded them just a bit).  I then cut them to width and length and set up my edge gluing jig.  I'm using different glue than I've used before, Apel waterproof polyurethane made for boats and supposed to be heat resistant and waterproof.  After the back gets glued up I intend to curve it in my go-bar deck to an 8 foot radius, which might require heat and moisture.  I'm thinking about using the clothing steamer my wife got a while back while clamping in the go-bar deck.

For now it's clamped up with a milling vise sitting on top to hold it down flat.

Brian

carving the neck

 I consider this one of the hardest parts of a build.  I tend to end up with a neck that is too thick after I add the fretboard.  But thinning it down without the fretboard it seems SO thin!  It's a balancing act.

Since I'm planning on steel strings for this build strength may be an issue.  String tension should be 10-12 pounds per string, so a five string will be about 50 lbs of pull.

Carving the neck I used a combination of tools.  First I tried a rasp but decided I should go Dremel 1st.

Using the Dremel with a small rasp bit made quick work of things.  I was interesting how the plywood layers could be used to help keep the shape even.  I put a center line on the neck and then just worked the left/right sides down and toward the center line using the layers like a topographic map to keep things even.

On the 1st pic here I used a jointer to get the front of the headstock flat, since the band saw got it close but left it a bit wavy.

Kind of cool seeing all the layers.  While I'll put a face on the front of the headstock I'm thinking about leaving the back like this so you can see the layers.  It will be stained though (amber or black).

Using the Dremel also left the surface less than smooth.  Using a micro plane rasp worked great to get things smoothed out and nice straight lines to the neck.

I routed slots for 2 - 1/4" carbon fiber rods that will be epoxied into the neck to strengthen and keep it absolutely straight.

I'm liking the progress so far.  After the epoxy it may be time to work on the front and back plates!

Brian

sides cleanup, inside and out

 Headed out to the shop today to address the glued up body.

StrumMn!

The magic happens upstairs.

Un-clamped everything and there was a mess of glue.  I should have wiped up the drips but with all the clamps I was just feeling done.  I went to work with a hand chisel to remove the excess glue.  I also tried using my spindle sander.  I have decided I do NOT like the Gorilla brand wood glue.  It just seemed rubbery and was difficult to remove, unlike Titebond.  I think I'll buy another bottle of "the good stuff" before doing any more instrument gluing.

I did do a lot of sanding as well.  This has been money well spent.

I ended up just using a card scraper for over an hour to clean up the interior and exterior surfaces.  For those that don't know a card scraper is a piece of thin steel, maybe 1/16" but about 3"x5" rectangle.  You file the edges to create a burr and then use a burnishing rod or screwdriver shaft to turn the burr.  You then scrape the wood with the burr on the edge.  It can actually give a better surface than sandpaper.  On these curved surfaces though it was a workout to both hold the workpiece and scrape.

I next laid out the neck and headstock side profile and made the initial rough cuts.  I'll work on cleaning those up in my next work session.  There are layout lines but they're tough to see.

It's starting to look like something!

Brian

glue up of body shell/neck

 Today I did the glue up of the 3 pieces that make up the body sidewalls and neck.  I wanted to fill the 1/4" alignment hole but didn't have a dowel the right size, so I made one (sanded a 3/8" dowel down to size using a belt sander and spinning the dowel in my fingers).

You can never have enough clamps...  :)

Brian

LOTS of sawdust yesterday.

 I routed the body/neck shape to match my pattern board.  There was some flex in the plywood (or it wasn't held as tight to the pattern as I'd like by double stick tape) so they aren't perfect.  But, after I glue them together they'll get sanded perfect anyway so I'm not worried.  Spent a bunch of time with the shop vac after today's progress.

Posting this a day late because the pictures weren't showing up in Google drive.

Brian

a bridge too far

 Yesterday I decided that I needed to free up my router table, table saw, and band saw.  They were each set up for bridge work after I'd done a couple test pieces in cedar.  My actual bridge will be rosewood.  Now, while I have length and width figured out, I don't know the height for sure.  I decided that if I just leave it tall I can bring it down later during fitting.  I have a suspected height but final fretboard thickness and any top shaping will play into it later.  That said, I grabbed my rosewood and went to work.  I ended up using a rotary rasp bit instead of a router bit just because I liked the shape.  I also used a 1/8" piece of hardboard clamped to the router table making a "zero clearance" insert.  This is nice because the work piece is pretty small and the test pieces wanted to hang up or drop into the larger hole around the router bit.

Groove in the bottom done.

Bottom radius done leaving 4 feet.

Tapered the sides in the band saw.

Tapered the ends.  

If I lower it from the top I may take a little more off the ends.

Another view.

Next step was get ready to trim cut the body pieces against the pattern piece.  Went to swap router bits and the collet locking lever broke off, the screw holding it had snapped.  I took the router motor out of the grip section (after unmounting it from the router table).  I then used a bit extractor (basically a left handed drill bit run with the drill in reverse).  Wasn't sure it would work but it finally bit and spun out the broken screw.  Then off to one of my "buckets of bolts".  You do have one of those, right?  Dug to the bottom and found an identical screw except it was slotted head rather than Phillips, no worries though.  Put the router back together and mounted it back in the table.  Rather than routing I decided to trim a little closer to the line on the band saw and save the routing for tomorrow.  Also vacuumed up a LOT of sawdust that had been missed by my limited dust collection.  I'll feel better starting the routing fresh that way.

After I route these to shape I can then glue them and proceed to neck and headstock shaping.  I'll also get to work on the top & back book matching glue ups.  Getting to the fun parts soon, top and back thicknessing, bracing, and seeing if I can get a hemispherical shape in the go-bar deck with the help of a little heat and steam.

Brian

fretboard design layout

 Spent some time today in Microsoft Visio.  I've been using it since before 2000, which is before Microsoft gobbled them up and tied it into all their Office products.  This made it more useful?  It also bloated it in my opinion.  The red lines are "cut lines" while the black represent the strings.  Basically I layout the 2"x7.5" 12 fret fretboard, extend it to full scale length of 15".  Then I add hash marks at the nut for string spacing, hash marks at 7.5" (12th fret) for fretboard width and string spacing again, and the lines get extended to the bridge to get that spacing correct.  Note that I've got 2 G strings 1/8" apart at the left, also 1/8" from the outside strings to the edges of the fretboard.  On this fretboard I intend to do a line of inlay midway between strings (not between the octave G's, of course) which explains the extra red lines.

FYI, in the past I used Visio to design entire uke body shapes for both soprano and tenor, getting the curves that I wanted, rather than copying someone else shape explicitly.  I started with upper and lower bout widths, waist width, and length of body.  Then I started playing with the curves and sound hole until I liked the looks.  These can be printed full size and transferred to the wood used for body side bending molds.

I also mixed up some Rock Hard Water Putty to fix my "oops" from yesterday.  Hopefully tomorrow I can sand it out and get back on track.  The scrap piece clamped to the side has a piece of masking tape to prevent "gluing" these together.  Hopefully I get a clean edge to work with, I can always do a second coat.

Brian