Nice bridge Dave, a wonderful collection of drones and sympathetic strings

And as for the Apprentice, she climbs everywhere so it's often safer to have her in sight on the workbench than creating mayhem out of sight

And as for intonation... in my experience loose truss rods are top of the list, closely followed by unrealistic demands for perfect intonation. One of the great strengths of the guitar is that it's a 'both hands on the strings' instrument; whilst it is notionally an Equal Tempered instrument, in the hands of a skilled/talented player the tuning can be 'sweetened' according to how you play. The harder you press the strings down, the sharper they go. Or, in other words, tuning and intonation depends on the player as much as it does on the construction and set-up of the instrument.

Show me a perfectly intonated guitar and I'll find you a guitarist who would still insist on replacing the nut with an Earvana nut

Meanwhile, time to make a pile of ebony shavings...

First step is to mark a cutting line with a scalpel.



And here's the blank planed down to just under 9mm thick.



Then I marked out the 'wings' on the side, started the cuts with scalpel and razor saw, and worked away with the chisel. Didn't take too long to make an impression, and here it is in place on the uke so you can see how it's looking.



I decided to stop there and leave sanding the bottom of the bridge to match the curve of the top until Monday. But for a comparison, here's the rough shaped blank next to the other bridge blank.



Once the bottom of the bridge is shaped I'll finish shaping the wings, cut the groove to create the tie block, and inlay a bone strip along the back edge.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

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