Dugz Ink Posted December 22, 2004 Report Share Posted December 22, 2004 (edited) I've had the flu for 5 days now, and I'm going stir crazy, so I've been working on designs for future guitars. I was looking at some dimensions on the Watson Bailey site when I saw "Ukulele Plans" at the bottom of the screen. Hmmm... if a I built a ukulele, I could practice building a neck with a tilt-back head (at minimal cost), plus practice installing frets... and if I made it a solid body electric, I could practice making my own pickups... And what seemed like a silly idea has turned into a serious plan. The thing I like the most (and the thing that I'm curious to try out) is the bar that I designed; if you pull up, a full length cam bends all 4 strings, but if you push down, a different cam bends only the G string. I'm not sure if I would have to make a locking nut to go with this... so I would love some input from players who like to yank and bend their strings. (The arm, among other things, was left out of the side-view for clarity.) EDIT: I moved the cam over to the C string; it's heavier, and should sound better when bending up a half or whole step. Since I really want to build the bass guitar I'm designing, this may sit on the shelf for a bit... but I am serious about building this little monster. If this design will work, I have to make it happen. D~s Edited December 22, 2004 by Dugz Ink Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tirapop Posted December 22, 2004 Report Share Posted December 22, 2004 I've got a cheap baritone uke. It's tuned DGBE, just like standard tuning on the top strings of a guitar. It's easy to pick up and play. With the standard nylon and wound strings, they stick more on the plastic nut than my guitar. I don't know if that's an inherently uke thing or just my cheapo. I'd guess that you'd want a locking/roller nut and really slippery/roller saddles. Standard ukuleles use nylon strings and don't have truss rods. If you go with steel strings, you'll have to fabricate a rod or find one for a mandolin. Specimen Products makes a cool electric uke, they describe as "Les Paul style". You could stick with nylon strings and use a piezo pickup. A guy made his own "silent uke" with his own DIY piezo pickup. If you're interested in ukulele stuff, in general, Ukulelia is a good place to find out about ukes and to see what's new. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dugz Ink Posted December 22, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 22, 2004 and really slippery/roller saddles. I was thinking about fabricating the intonation bar out of chrome-moly; it's smooth and tough... which makes it a little tedious to work on. I wonder if anybody has made/used a chrome-moly nut. I appreciate the idea about using a mandolin truss rod. I'll check those out. D~s Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jay5 Posted December 23, 2004 Report Share Posted December 23, 2004 Thats a WICKED idea man. The "bender" idea is sweet. I cant wait to see what you work out. I have always wanted to make a uke. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wyldbil Posted December 23, 2004 Report Share Posted December 23, 2004 Cool idea. If you're not just hellbent on making your own pickup, you could probably track down an electric mandolin pickup for it. You could bring a whole new dimension to Hawaiian music! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skibum5545 Posted December 23, 2004 Report Share Posted December 23, 2004 Or you could throw in a good jazz pickup at the neck, and a searing humbucker at the bridge for some seriously mean uke work! In all seriousness, though, this is a very cool idea. Why, though, would you want to bend only one string? Besides that aspect, are you going with more of a Bigbsy trem or a Strat trem type design? I really like this idea, but my only concern is that it's getting progressively further from ukehood, and will end up only as a mini guitar in a weird tuning. That's cool if that's what you want, but an all out electric uke should be IMO recognizable by sound, at least, as a uke. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluespresence Posted December 23, 2004 Report Share Posted December 23, 2004 Go here to watch Warren Buffet (the billionaire guy) playing an electric uke: Buffet - Uke Give it a minute to load.....he's in the lower left corner of the page. Pretty cool little clip from a local shop here in Wisconsin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dugz Ink Posted December 23, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 23, 2004 (edited) Why, though, would you want to bend only one string? Standard tuning on a Concert scale uke is A5-E5-C5-G5; bending that low C up a step should sound cool, and may work well in certain chords. (Haven't you ever seen a guitar with a B-bender?) The bar is actually an idea I got from looking at a Gretch; that rig has a round bar with the strings wrapped around it (it relieves the string tension on the forward push)... and I thought I could do better than that. The more I contemplate this, the more I think those cams will have to be a lot smaller, or they'll probably break strings. I may just remove metal from the rods, instead of using a welder to build up the cams. my only concern is that it's getting progressively further from ukehood I just see this as an opportunity to experiment. I'm not a huge fan of ukes; I have never even played one. But this looked like a neat platform to try out several ideas; I can build a killer ukulele out of a piece of wood that's 18 x 8 x 1½... and have have quite a bit of scrap left over. And I can learn a lot from this. An' I can be just like that there Billionaire. D~s Edited December 23, 2004 by Dugz Ink Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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