So today was the first day of building the ukulele and it was exciting. For today, I used a drill, sandpaper, a sanding block, a metal ruler, some scissors, and some clamps. To start off with building your ukulele, it is a good idea to have some kind of blueprint of template for your ukulele. You need a template for the back outline ans the inside outline. Once you have had them printed out, cut out the outline of the template to be used throughout this project. The cut needs to be as accurate and as clean as possible in order for the a better quality ukulele.
Next, find a nice piece of wood that is flat and cut the thickness in half to have to identical boards. Then, place them side by side so that the grains reflect each other, preferably with the stiffer close-grain lines on the inside where the most stress will be. To join the plates, take one side of your matched pair and sand the edge you will be putting glue on. Only sand forward three or four times and do the same with the other piece. There shouldn't be a gap when you press the boards together. After the glue has dried and the boards have been sanded, you can draw the outlines to your ukulele from your templates. When the boards are drying (for about an hour), put some kind of weight that if flat and heavy onto the board to keep it from moving. Don't forget to put wax paper under your boards so they don't stick to you work bench or table.
Carefully remove the weights after an hour and check out your boards. Now, you need to make sure that the joint sides are flat. Always sand from the high side to low side until you get an even surface (It doesn't need to be perfect right now, just flat). To check, run your fingernail down the center line for any problems. After you have the sand boards, you can draw your templates on them. After you trace the templates freehand and outline of about 1/4" from the actual outline on the outsides for both plates. After you have you outlines, you will need to mark up brace locations using either your template of the Internet if yours doesn't have any shown.
Now, you will need to create eight tone bars in total, three for the back and five for the soundboard. Be sure to cut the brace bars half and inch too big in order to leave room for sanding down. It is best to try and sand down the bars into triangular shapes to keep the strength while reducing the weight of your ukulele. Use your template to see where the bars go and what lengths they need to be.
Finally moving away from the boards, we will now start to work on the neck of the ukulele. To start building the neck, the scarf joint needs to be cut at 15 degrees. The neck is composed of wood lengths of approximately 3/4" x 2" x 17 to 18 inches for the neck. There are also two blocks that are 3/4" x 1/2" x 5" which will be for the ears. The last block is 2" x 3/4" x 2 3/4". We will cut about 5" from the front end to make the headstock angle. A neck scarf jig or a band saw are fine for making this cut. Now, the blocks come into to play. The first thing that you need to do is glue the first block to the second block (these are the two with the same measurements). Then, clamp them to a table to prevent them from moving. Lastly, clamp the third block to the other two. It helps if the first two are already dried and be sure to put wax paper under to catch any excess glue.
Next, clamp a stop block or piece of scrap wood to the heel end of the neck to keep the two pieces from sliding. Another stop block should be put at the head end of the neck as well. Make sure you put a piece of newspaper under the joint before gluing. Glue both of the parts and put them back in their place. Before gluing on the heel blocks, makes sure that if the neck is put on its side, it is flat and doesn't rock. The same goes for the heel blocks (sand if needed). From where the neck break angle is, measure 3/16" toward the heel end. Then square a line which will be parallel with the neck break. In between the two is where the nut will go. From the line you just made, measure 9 and 7/16" down to the heel. Square that and draw a line across the neck and down the edges of the neck.
Now from one end of your heel blocks, measure 1 and 1/4". Square this line around the entire block. The longer half of the block will go in the interior of the ukulele as support for the body. Once you have your heel blocks aligned with the 14th or 12th fret, glue both surfaces and attach the blocks to the neck. Don't forget wax paper and clamp them together.
I know that was a lot for one day, but that was the biggest part from the whole project so don't worry. I will keep you posted!
(Word of the day: Hoaloha/Friend)
Mahalo!
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