Two Ukuleles

[Nicco]

Thanks Mike. 

 

Yeah, jarrah is a funny one. It's the main native forestry timber around this part of the world. Dense and heavy and a lot of old bits being used as furniture and buildings.

From what I've read it sounds as though it doesn't really get that ring to it as a tone wood, which is a shame cause it's the easiest thing for us to get here. 

Obviously most of it isn't birdseye like that piece, but, somewhat scarily, it's used a lot as firewood. I'm still not sure how I feel about using it for firewood, but I still use it cause it's what's available. 

[Bizman62]

2 hours ago, Nicco said:

Obviously most of it isn't birdseye like that piece, but, somewhat scarily, it's used a lot as firewood. I'm still not sure how I feel about using it for firewood, but I still use it cause it's what's available. 

FWIW birch is considered to be the "best" firewood here. Yes, the same stuff Baltic Birch plywood is made of. And it has a few fancy variables as well, flamed, birdseye and "curly birch" which is a mutation where tiny bits of bark get captured within the wood. It burns the hottest of our common woods. Aspen is another popular firewood and they say that it keeps chimneys cleaner than birch, especially the bark of birches creates a lot of soot.

Both birch and alder can be and are used for building electric guitars as well. If the source is sustainable there's nothing wrong in using the wood in all possible ways.

[mistermikev]

2 hours ago, Nicco said:

Thanks Mike. 

 

Yeah, jarrah is a funny one. It's the main native forestry timber around this part of the world. Dense and heavy and a lot of old bits being used as furniture and buildings.

From what I've read it sounds as though it doesn't really get that ring to it as a tone wood, which is a shame cause it's the easiest thing for us to get here. 

Obviously most of it isn't birdseye like that piece, but, somewhat scarily, it's used a lot as firewood. I'm still not sure how I feel about using it for firewood, but I still use it cause it's what's available. 

well, afa tonewood... it would seem to me to meet the starndards: is pretty, is a hardwood, janka hardness of 1860... perhaps a bit heavy/dense but that wouldn't dissuade me.  seems like a fine wood to use.  oh, and it's pretty!

[Nicco]

Biz, it's the sustainability part that's the issue, they don't plantation grow jarrah, so it's forest timber. There's a logging ban kicking in, in a couple of years in our state which will make it much harder to come by. 

And Mike, yeah, good points. Maybe it'll be worth an experiment one day. 

For now I've cut up the parts to make the necks for both. They'll both be the same; sexy figured qld maple for the two outer laminations, with a 5mm tasmanian blackwood centre u strip flanked by an 0.5mm black veneer strip on either side. 

The decision to do the laminated neck was driven by practical considerations as well as aesthetic; if I laminated them I could make both necks from a single guitar neck blank I already had. Ha ha. 

Each layer was located with the two dowel holes, so the cut outs are pretty tight in a couple of spots. 

They've just been glued up, so hopefully I'll get a chance to look at them tomorrow and see how they turned out. 

[Bizman62]

2 hours ago, Nicco said:

it's the sustainability part that's the issue, they don't plantation grow jarrah, so it's forest timber. There's a logging ban kicking in, in a couple of years in our state which will make it much harder to come by. 

Ahh... That changes the situation. That said, our timber is more or less forest timber. That doesn't mean that we don't plant trees, on the contrary. There's nursery gardens although some say that natural seeding works just as fast. But there's often other faster growing species left as a cover against the roughest weather conditions. Alder is often used for that purpose and it seems to grow there naturally, some weeding has to be done a couple of times until the "good" trees have grown tall enough to survive. Funny thing is that the city greenies often seem to want to protect ripe planted forests as primeval! They don't seem to understand that wood grows slower than grass, the normal cycle between planting and end harvesting being about 100 years or even more with some thinning in between.

[JGTay]

I am liking the dowelled neck, keeps everything perfectly lined up.

My daughter plays Ukes, has a collection of different ones, but she still wants me to make her an electric one at some point. 

 

[Akula]

I too like that idea. Nothing like a hardwood dowel to keep everything tightly aligned.

 

Jarrah's a timber I've considered using, as well, due to it's abundance here. How does it go with your tools? I've heard it can be pretty harsh.

 

Really liking the builds so far mate!

[Nicco]

Thanks for the feedback, fellas.

Akula, I see your hardwood dowel and raise you a ground and hardened steel dowel. Ha ha. Rather overkill, but I had them lying around. Ha ha. Just gotta work out how to extract them now. Ha ha. 

Yeah, the jarrah can be pretty tough on router bits, blunts them pretty quickly. I've had a hell of a time trying to plane it, but that was before I knew as much about sharpening. I also blew up my first Ozito bunnings special plunge router in jarrah. Ha ha. 

So I've decked the top of the necks and I'm very, very happy with how they are looking! 

[Nicco]

Bah, that last photo makes my wrist look like it belongs to someone who's 250kg! Ha ha ha 

[Bizman62]

Ha ha! The last photo reminded me once again that this thread is about tiny ukuleles instead of full size acoustic guitars!

[Akula]

28 minutes ago, Nicco said:

Akula, I see your hardwood dowel and raise you a ground and hardened steel dowel.

Now that is something wild! Good idea. As for removing them, maybe use a tapered piece of the same material and hammer it from one side - works great on truss pins at work.

 

I like the accent lines and contrasting timber you're using. What kind of veneer is that?

[Nicco]

On 7/7/2022 at 10:19 PM, Akula said:

I like the accent lines and contrasting timber you're using. What kind of veneer is that?

Thanks mate. The black veneer is a dyed, 0.5mm maple. Aus Luthier Supplies was the only place I found it, a bit expensive for what it is, but it comes up so well

[mistermikev]

On 7/7/2022 at 6:46 AM, Nicco said:

Thanks for the feedback, fellas.

Akula, I see your hardwood dowel and raise you a ground and hardened steel dowel. Ha ha. Rather overkill, but I had them lying around. Ha ha. Just gotta work out how to extract them now. Ha ha. 

Yeah, the jarrah can be pretty tough on router bits, blunts them pretty quickly. I've had a hell of a time trying to plane it, but that was before I knew as much about sharpening. I also blew up my first Ozito bunnings special plunge router in jarrah. Ha ha. 

So I've decked the top of the necks and I'm very, very happy with how they are looking! 

sharp.

[Nicco]

I've made some important progress on the soprano now that I'd been putting off for ages; brought the sound board down to final thickness. 

I've not got either of a thicknesser or a drum sander, so I tackled it with a bunch of pilot holes to about the right depth, electric planer to take the bulk off (man that thing is a butcher's tool) then hand plane to get it all down to between 1.5mm and 2mm all over. 

Scary but I'm glad it's done. When the weather comes good I can get the braces on the top then close the box, which is super exciting

[Nicco]

More progress on the soprano. 

First I got the bracing and bridge plate onto the top and shaped the braces. The bridge plate is a piece of the original mulga fretboard that I accidentally cut too thin, so it was a nice way to reuse the scrap. 

Next I got the tail graft done. The outer pieces are qld maple offcuts from the neck; I'll be using it for the binding as well, so it will all tie together nicely. I'm actually surprised how close in colour it looks compared to the pinkish myrtle, but when it oxidises a bit it'll turn more golden. The centre strip is obviously more mulga to tie together with the fretboard, rosette and bridge. 

Lastly, I got the soundboard glued onto the sides. Looking forward to getting the clamps off it tonight and having a good look at it. 

[Nicco]

[mistermikev]

nice looking top and rosette there.  

[Nicco]

We've been struck down with covid this last week, it finally caught up to us. It has been rather nasty, especially being quarantined at home with a sick 2.5 year old... he's just about broken me! (Still love him though. Ha ha) 

I've barely had enough energy to eat, let alone do shed work. I did make some progress on the soprano though; neck tenon cut, hole drilled through the tail block for the end pin jack, rebate cut for the binding, and bent up some binding. Unfortunately the binding cracked so now I've got am awkward join to make. Job for another day. 

[Nicco]

The mortise is mostly done for the soprano neck now; there's a hair of fiddling left to get the neck to sit flush with the soundboard, but I was in the wrong frame of mind last night got doing that sort of fiddly work. Save it for another day. Ha ha. It's exciting seeing the neck and body together though. 

[Nicco]

It's all been pretty quiet on the shed front lately, between post-covid brain fog, and the toddler not wanting to go to bed at night lately (grr)

I did however get to have a go at doing a new method for get slot cutting. My old, laser cut mitre box was getting a bit flogged out and sloppy, so time for a change. I picked up some 0.5mm end mills and used the base and 3d printed pins from the old mitre box as the base. Lock the x axis on the little mill and just travel y back and forth to cut the slots. Not actually super quick given how steady I had to go to not break the end mills, but significantly easier than cutting by hand!!

[Nicco]

And the box is closed on the soprano. I really need to sort out some spool clamps, I will get away with using normal clamps for this one, but it won't work for the tenor. 

Also snuck a little message inside for mum that she can see through the sound hole. 

[ScottR]

I'm loving this thing!

SR

[Bizman62]

12 hours ago, ScottR said:

I'm loving this thing!

Me too!

It's still hard to remember how tiny the soprano is, seeing a giant hand holding an acoustic guitar body is puzzling,,,

[Nicco]

Ha ha ha, Thanks gents. 

I needed to just hold the neck and fretboard in place (with my giant hands ) and see how it looks. Very keen to get the bottom binding done then get to neck shaping 

[Nicco]

The box is closed!! Whoo! Big milestone there, very happy. 

The bottom binding channel has been cut now, I've got the neck fitting and being aligned to centre line but I'm going to need some creative clamping while I'm gluing it, the joint could be tighter. The fret board has been pinned in place on the neck with a pair of 1mm drill bits so now I can start final shaping of the neck. 

I got the fret board sides and tail end all shaped up last night, and then put in the 6mm MOP dots... taking care to do the ukulele specific dot not on fret 9 but 10; I almost got that rather wrong.

Next up, final sand the fret board top surface then bring the back down to final thickness.