I’m trying my hand at designing and fabricating a chambered, solid body tenor ukulele. This is a prototype build to continue to develop my skills and to learn from my inevitable mistakes :)
When I looked at the current set of commercially available solid bodies ukuleles from Godin, Pono, KoAloha, Imua, etc., I wasn’t able to find enough details to deduce how theIr chamberings are configured under the top. Searches of across the luthier discussion forums provide a fair amount of info and suggestions covering chambering/hollowing guitar bodies, but all examples I found were for instruments amplified with magnetic pickups vs. the piezoelectric(s) I’ll be using.
Details: 17” scale — Poplar body (1.5” thick) with a 3/16” Indian rosewood top — Mahogany neck with rosewood fretboard (Body image: https://imgur.com/gallery/HPlIdS4)
My current plan:
1. Bore a honeycomb pattern in the body with a forstner bit, keeping the center under the bridge are positioned. I’d start by removing around 30% of the body’s weight of material then and test to see if I need to remove more.
2. Include a larger cavity for my volume control wiring and (potentially) a small pre-amp.
For those of you who have gone down a similar experimental path, did you discover a preferred arrangement for your chambers?
Regarding amplification...I’ve used under-saddle piezo transducers in the past to good effect with my acoustic ukuleles, so unless there are more appropriate ways for a solid body, I’ll likely go down that path. Alternatively, I have a pre-wired triple disk piezo pickup (it looks a bit like a knock-off K&K Trinity Mini)
Thank you in advance for the input!
