Posting in a rush, been having more problems with my broadband.

But I did get work done this afternoon. The reglued fretboard was fine, so it was straight on to shaping the 2nd neck.

I removed some material at the nut end first and then got on with some initial shaping.





As you can see, I like a volute on my own necks and I made good use of the Dremel flexshaft with a sanding drum to start to shape things.

Then I decided to trim off the excess on the heel.



And then back to shaping the volute and preparing to shape the heel.



So far I've been mainly working on the side profile. Once I get that close at the nut and heel I'll start to work on shaping the neck itself.

But all going smoothly so far.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Coming along nicely. That volute looks very exotic. I don't think I've ever played a guitar that has one. Nearest I can get to it on any of my guitars is by putting a capo on the first fret (i.e. I can't)! Looking forward to seeing what neck profile you decide upon for yourself Andy.

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Strictly project and just for fun

I like a volute, but I'm not fussy about neck profile. I'll probably go for a V profile similar to Ruth's.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

An afternoon spent largely with the chisels rough carving the heel. I've actually removed quite a lot of material, but it doesn't look like that from the pic !!



I'm just carving away freehand at the moment and doing it all by eye. At least the Peruvian Walnut is a pleasure to work.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Yes, you guessed it, more shaping of the second neck.

A little work with sandpaper, a little more with the Dremel sanding drum on the flex shaft, a lot more with the chisels, and most of all with the cabinet scraper.

Beginning to look like a proper neck now







Oh, I also took the chance to use the Dremel and the headstock template to tidy up the nut area of the neck. Makes a big difference.

More of the same tomorrow, and looking forward to it.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Looking better every day. Great to see how the form is developing.

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It wasn't me!
(Well, actually, it probably was)

Cheers Will,

And as todays pics are along the same lines I'm glad someone will appreciate the evolution

I did do a little work on the back of the headstock too, preparing to carve the final shape for the volute. But mostly working with the scraper to form the neck and heel profile again.

But it is getting close now





I did take out a few minutes to run a sharp chisel along the fretboard edge too. The template following bit does leave a tiny overlap, fractions of a mm, but nothing a sharp chisel can';t quickly put right.

More of the same tomorrow I'm afraid.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

As promised, more pics of the second neck being shaped. Really exciting, I know !!

I spent the afternoon concentrating on the volute.



Here I've already used the razor saw and chisels to remove plenty of material leaving a nice V shape to work on. And I've applied some chalk to to top of the V so I can see clearly how much material I remove next, the idea is to leave a nice slope on either side.





And here's how it looks once I've worked some more.

I've already started working on the front edge, and will take a little height off the volute now it's taking shape.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Back to work after the Bank Holiday weekend. Worked on the heel first, then some fine tuning around the nut. As promised, I took some of the bulk off the volute, then sat back to assess what I had.

The second neck is mine, and I decided to give it an even more pronounced V profile than the first. On such a small neck I like the 'presence' in the hand, especially combined with the volute. Then it was time to tidy up the heel and give it some definition and make it look right, much needed as this one was done totally freehand, no templates, not even a centre line. And it is definitely, if only slightly, asymmetrical !! But it feels nice in the hand which is all that matters, and I like it already.

So, with both necks at their final shape, it was time to get a finer grit sandpaper and get them nice and smooth. There's a little more work to do on the heel cap areas, and to final finish the headstocks, but that can wait.

I wiped them both down with a cloth and White Spirits to lift the dust and let me get a feel for them.







Next stages for the necks include the headstock veneers, binding, and radiusing the fretboards. Inlays are being considered too. Both bodies need the backs binding still, and I want to do all of the remaining binding in one hit. Then it's time to build some bridges

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Simply amazing Andy!!!!



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Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

Wow!

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It wasn't me!
(Well, actually, it probably was)

Thanks guys, times like this when things are moving ahead are always the most rewarding.

Now I can put the necks and bodies together and they actually look like ukuleles, and you finally get a clear idea of how they will look when finished. No matter how clearly you have the design in your head there are always doubts along the way, but I've reached the stage now where I can see how well those designs have moved from my head and paper to real instruments. So far, so good.

And a lot of this afternoon was spent with finer grade sandpaper, small sanding blocks of assorted shapes, tidying up both necks. Removing the heavier sanding marks, taking out scratches and dinks that accumulated along the way. Generally tidying up.



All the headstock edges are looking better now, and looking forward to getting their veneers and bindings. I've got the radiused sanding block ready to dress the fretboards too.

But before that, I needed to fix that nasty chip in Ruth's fretboard.



Here it is. I've cut and sanded between the fret slots on either side, and just below you can see the piece I cut from an off cut from the same pice of ebony.



And to stick it in place I need this. Epoxy mixed with black stain and a hint of brown, matched the ebony nicely.



And here it is glued. I did try clamping it using a loop of string and some cork pads, but the pressure was making things skew wiff. So gravity is doing a fine job of keeping things in place over night

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Greetings fellow Ukelelians...

When we talked last I had glued a chunk of ebony to a fretboard. And this afternoon the glue had set solid and it was time to get out the sharp chisels and trim it back neatly.



And here we are working along the edge of the fretboard.



And here we are trimming the surface flush.



And here it is all trimmed and finished. Near invisible, and once the fretboard is radiused it will be even more invisible. OK, It's easy to spot the join now, the fret slots are the big give-away, but once it's radiused and the slots are re-cut, it will be a struggle to spot anything untoward.

And now that's done, there was no excuse. Time to glue the headstock veneers. And as one of my personal motto's is 'if a thing is worth doing, it's worth overdoing' I had to do both together.





Tomorrow I'll trim them back and start getting ready to cut the binding channels ready for binding

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Wondrous to see how far these ukes have come along just in the last week. As a guitarist with no pretensions to luthiery, every time I see a new installment of this project I find myself taking a sneaky look at my own instruments to look more closely at the detail of how they are made and appreciate them all the more.

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Strictly project and just for fun

Today started well, removed the clamps and here we are, two glued veneers.



All nice and just how they should be. A few minutes with a new scalpel blade trimmed the bulk of the excess away, and then the sanding drum on the Dremel flex-shaft did the rest. Didn't have to be perfect because I'll be routing a binding channel around the edges of the headstocks.



The flash on the camera really brings out the colour of the bloodwood

But before I could get on to anything else, Mark was working on a sash window and I ended up helping him with that. Stripped decades of paint, removed all the putty, broke a pane of glass in the process, and finally removed the pins and wedges from the bottom rail and replaced them so it was good and sound again

Move luthiery tomorrow, I hope.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Quote zenguitar:

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I did try clamping it using a loop of string and some cork pads, but the pressure was making things skew wiff.

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Is that a technical term Andy?


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Andy, they're looking AMAZING!!!! I'm well impressed!

Dan

Quote Martin Walker:

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Quote zenguitar:

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I did try clamping it using a loop of string and some cork pads, but the pressure was making things skew wiff.

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Is that a technical term Andy?


Martin

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Well according to Webster's it is a recognised non-English expression.

The language of origin appears to be Geordie

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It wasn't me!
(Well, actually, it probably was)

Quote Folderol:

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Quote Martin Walker:

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Quote zenguitar:

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I did try clamping it using a loop of string and some cork pads, but the pressure was making things skew wiff.

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Is that a technical term Andy?


Martin

---

Well according to Webster's it is a recognised non-English expression.

The language of origin appears to be Geordie

---

I wish I'd read this before I went to the pub tonight. Geordie was in tonight, and pissed enough to admit to anything!!

Got to admit I was tempted to be lazy and not post tonight. Had a long day, and I'm knackered. But seeing as I've started, I've uploaded this afternoon's pics now, so here we go.

First job was to pick the right cutter guide for the Dremel to cut the channel for the headstock binding. And after that it was just a matter of making some sawdust.



Here's the headstock after the Dremel had done it's dirty work. After that I used chisel and scalpel to extend the rout to the fretboard and some riffler files to generally tidy up the cut. To be honest, I could do with a new cutter. This one is beginning to get rounded so the channel isn't as good as it could be.

And then it was time to get the bending iron and a bowl of cold water.



And finally I could get out the glue and sellotape. I'm doing this headstock in three steps because of the very tight corners.



We'll see how it turned out on Monday. Oh, and in case anyone is interested, Mark got his sash window glazed, painted, and refitted OK.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Thanks for the update...
but...
you keep some very strange hours!

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It wasn't me!
(Well, actually, it probably was)

Quote Folderol:

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you keep some very strange hours!

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Nonsense, I'm a night owl. I'm up at the crack of lunchtime every day!!

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

So you beat me to the dawn then Andy! I've always regarded mornings as fractal things. And I like to think of time as fractal, especially where music is concerned. Normal hours become something of an oxymoron, if you make it your business to live outside 9 to 5

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Strictly project and just for fun

Well, I must admit I'd prefer to keep more civilised hours, but my means of sustenance requires me to be at the workshop by 8:30. As that is a 35 minute journey I have to be out of the house before 7:55 - it is a cruel and unnatural existence I have to suffer

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It wasn't me!
(Well, actually, it probably was)

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with mornings. In fact, I quite like them. But I just find them best placed at the end of the day

And starting work today I removed the sellotape from the bindings. Not perfect, but should be OK. Then trimmed them flush with a chisel and the maple ran with the grain



You can't really see it here, but it was time to cut my losses and remove the offending bindings.



Then it was time to do a little more work with a scalpel. I mentioned in a previous post that I wasn't happy with the cutter. It still cuts fine, but the corner has become a little rounded, which means that the channel isn't square. So it was time for a fresh number 15 scalpel blade and 15 minutes carefully cleaning up the binding channel, working into the corner to make sure that the bindings and purflings sat neat and true.

Then cut a new set of bindings, and trim down the height of the outer maple strip closer to that of the purflings. A few minutes with the bending iron. And the reaplcements glued in place very neatly.



Clearly a LOT better now. I'm much happier with this.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

All looking good today.

I decided to keep most of the sellotape in place, just to protect the binding while I was glueing the other side.





And here it is, all done. I learned the lesson from the first side and spent some time with the scalpel before getting out the binding iron and glue.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Greetings Ukulelenauts,

time to meet the missing link, and fill the gap between the two halves of the headstock binding. The approach is that the purflings are going to be mitred and the maple binding is a butt joint. So first of all I have to look at the purflings I've already glued and trim them back to a nice mitre in the corners. Then it's time to cut the purflings and binding for the end of the headstock, slightly over sized initially, and patiently trim them neatly until they all fit neatly together.

Like this





So, the first headstock is all bound and taped, ready to tidy up and make good. That means it's time to start on the second headstock.



And there you can see the options side by side. The original design was a black binding with black/bloodwood/black purflings, but looking at it now I see two problems. The first is that the binding is the same colour as the purfling it will sit next to. The second is that the black binding is only half the thickness of the maple I used on Ruth's Uke. Ideally, the binding should contrast the purfling and should be thicker. I do have some bloodwood veneer left over that I could use to make a binding, but it's the same thickness as the black so won't work. I also have some offcuts of the same bloodwood binding I used on the front, but they are too thick. And on top of that I would need to bend it to a very tight radius, you can all remember the problems I had with that before (and face again soon to finish the back).

If only I could take some of the bloodwood binding offcuts and make them thinner but keep them square. Not easy to do. What I need is something like this fancy jig from StewMac. But that's not an option right now.

So I decided to knock up something similar from assorted odds and sods I had lying around. Here's the progress so far...



I've made a little baseboard with a hole for the sanding drum to sit in and routed a radiused slot so I can have an adjustable gap between the back board and sanding drum. A couple more holes to drill and some long bolts should get it all together

Fingers crossed.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Never mind fingers, I've got everything crossed for you here Andy! These are obviously not going to be 'studio' models...

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Strictly project and just for fun

No need for crossing appendages,

Jig building is progressing nicely. Here's a couple of pics of the test assembly.





All looking good there, so time to sort out the fixings underneath.



And finally, time to drill the base to fix it to the pillar drill.



All I need to do now is find some suitable bolts to attach it !! Then you can see it in action.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

No new news tonight.

Spent the afternoon teaching Mark how to sharpen chisels until they aren't just sharp but scary sharp

Need to get some bolts for the jig and sharpen my chisels ready to attack the bindings

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

they're not scary sharp until there's a slight ultraviolet glow at the cutting edge... from a field of sharpness extending a few microns out in front of the blade, splitting passing molecules in the air....


Properly sharp has to be kept in a vacuum, or it starts splitting passing atoms....

I asked a friend who also lives in Devon and uses very sharp tools what the best way to sharpen them was. He replied "often". But he never did tell me how... so Andy, if not a chisel but say a kitchen knife? What is the best sharpener? A wet stone? One of the expensive diamond products? I'm sure patience plays an enormous part but I'd love to know what the next most important thing is!

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Strictly project and just for fun

Quote Off duty BBQ lighter AKA Idris:

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they're not scary sharp until there's a slight ultraviolet glow at the cutting edge... from a field of sharpness extending a few microns out in front of the blade, splitting passing molecules in the air....


Properly sharp has to be kept in a vacuum, or it starts splitting passing atoms....

---

Indeed, but not all of us can have a horse called Binky.

And as for sharpening Frisonic, it's less to do with the specific stone you use and more about the technique. You can get great results with all the different types of stones (I remember my Grandfather sharpening knives and garden tools on the back doorstep), so that choice usually comes down to personal preference.

One thing I have noticed is that people who are good at sharpening things were taught by someone who knew what they were doing, and why. In my case it was Norman Reed, and a fellow student (Eggert Mar Marinosson) taught me how to sharpen a cabinet scraper (he was already a trained antiques restorer).

So, I would say that the most important thing is to find someone to teach you in person. And once you've had the skill passed on to you, you can read a lot more about the theory and different approaches and find which refinements let you get the sharpest edges.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

So back to work again this afternoon. And first job was to attach the sanding jig to the pillar drill. No suitable bolts, so a couple of screws and washers and a piece of scrap did a good job. Then straight on to sanding a test piece.



All looking fine, you can compare the sanded piece to a full thickness sample. Don't you love that red sawdust too

And now it was a matter of patiently sanding a couple of strips down to almost half thickness. The sanding drum eventually got worn out so I had to switch to a smaller drum to finish off. But well worth it, the strips are very flexible now and should bend to a tight radius with the bending iron.





You can see the sanding drums, and a jar full of bloodwood sandings that might come in useful another time

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Love that bloodwood sawdust. Reminds me of the Quantocks (did I spell that right?)!

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Strictly project and just for fun

I know what you mean, it's the same colour as the red clay soil that tells you that you're approaching Exeter by train from London.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

First of all, this thread has now achieved 50,000 views.

So thank you to everyone who has taken the time to visit and follow the progress of Project Ukulele, whether you are watching with baited breath or look in from time to time to see how things are progressing. Your continued interest is just as rewarding as the work itself.

Thank you, everyone

And, as hinted in the title, just as I was getting ready to celebrate I was brought back to earth with a bump. Entirely self inflicted, of course









Yep, not a pretty sight. I routed around the headstock like before and settled down with a freshly sharpened chisel to extend the binding channel beyond the reach of the Dremel tool. The first side went fine, but when I started on the second side things quickly got out of hand. A little too much pressure and a very sharp blade was sent right through the edge of the neck. Even then, things could have worked out fine. But was well as cutting the wood away, it chipped out too much material. So just glueing it back together wasn't an option.

My initial reaction was to throw my toys out of the pram and resign myself to making a completely new neck. However, a deep breath and a couple of cigarettes later I came up with a Plan B. No gaurantees it will work, but worth a try.

So, time for that sharp chisel to redeem itself and remove some more wood so I could cut in a repair piece.



You can see how far back I had to cut, and it took some careful work with a razor saw and chisel to back a clean angle fit in the new wood. You can see the donor piece in the background. But after several test fittings and fine tuning it seemed a pretty good fit. So here goes...





As far as I can see, all is going well. But I won't know whether it's good enough until I trim it back tomorrow. Fingers crossed. If the worst comes to the worst I'll just have to remove the fretboard and make another neck

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

"Close shave" seems inappropriate, yet appropriate. Fingers crossed as ever.

50,000 views. Wow! Thing is Andy so many people are learning so much from this thread, myself very much included. I picked up my new acoustic from the guitar shop today, my Lonestar Special having now sold. I remembered the enticing scent of the fresh wood when I demoed it. I couldn't resist another snort today. As a result of this thread I realised it was actually glue I was sniffing. Mind you, there was a little mahogany in the back notes, plus a few others I forgot to ask about...

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Strictly project and just for fun

Quote zenguitar:

---

First of all, this thread has now achieved 50,000 views.

So thank you to everyone who has taken the time to visit and follow the progress of Project Ukulele, whether you are watching with baited breath or look in from time to time to see how things are progressing. Your continued interest is just as rewarding as the work itself.

---

firmly in the 'watching with baited breath camp', with a little bit of awe thrown in and a sprinkling of envy.

Got fingers crossed for this neck. keep up the great work.

Wow! You sure have had some bad luck with this project. Well done for sticking with it and recovering the situation!

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It wasn't me!
(Well, actually, it probably was)

as the scar on my thumb will attest, it's all too easy to do the old "whoops a bit too far" routine on this wood.... treacherous stuff , behaves beautifully , right up to the moment it suddenly gives more than anticipated, and even fast reactions won;t save you a lot of hassle , time and possibly a trip to A&E ....


chin up mate..... you'll get there in the end.....