The second day was great and I made good progress on my ukulele. I used Go-Bar Deck, Go-Bar, a drill, a laminate trimmer, 1/8" straight bit, lever clamps, a circle cutting jig, a scraper, and a circle cutting work board. The first thing I did was glue the braces to the backboard. Now I used weights and just put them on, but Go-Bars work great when you are gluing the braces on. Since you have already pre-cut the tone bars out, this process shouldn't take long accept for the drying of course. The next part is adding the 3 grafts which serve as reinforcement for the braces. They are about 3/8" by 4 or 5 inches long. Be careful with the grafts because they can break easily. Before gluing them on, take some sandpaper and bevel the sides of a all three grafts.
The grafts go in between bars one and two and between two and three. The last graft will go between the third bar and about 3/4" from the bottom of your backboard to leave room for the tail block. The grafts go down the center line and if needed, try drawing a line down the center of the backboard to ensure you place them correctly. Next, we have to scallop the braces to reduce the mass a little more. Start by marking a distance of 1 and 1/2" from the outline of the ukulele towards the center of the bars. On the lower bout bar, it is 2". Then chisel down the ends of the braces but do not reduce the length. They are intentionally left long to help assemble the uke later. After that is done, you can add a label for your uke in between brace 1 and 2 on the center line. The sound hole lies right above it on the soundboard and you will be able to see the label once the uke is finished.
Now taking the soundboard, you need to drill a hole at the center of where the sound hole will go. Make sure you do this correctly and use your blueprints to check. Place the soundboard on an index pin fixed to a work board. Cut a 3 inch diameter using a band saw. Start from the top of the channel and work clockwise. Then, clean up the rosette channel with sandpaper. Using a strip of about 10" long, carefully bend and install the strip into the channel. It's okay if the top portion has nothing because the fretboard will cover up about an inch of the top. Use a 4 x 4 piece of plywood and place it over the rosette design. Then, clamp it up until dry.
Take your soundboard with the template side up. For this part, you'll need two upper bars and waist horizontal bars, your sound hole patch, and your bridge patch. Place the upper and waist bars on their proper locations according to the template. Now, take your sound hole patch and find its center line. The piece should be 4" x 2 and 3/4" inches. Draw a center line at the 2" mark and square it. The patch should go in between the upper and waist bars to use as a spacer. Glue all of the bars and put weights or use a Go-Bar until they dry. The sound hole patch isn't glued yet. Take the bridge patch (4" x 1") and draw a horizontal line 1/4" below the top edge and parallel. Align the path along the center line of the soundboard.
Next, make a gluing caul for the soundboard and bridge patch, just a little smaller than the actual pieces. Glue the patch in place and put on weights. After that has dried, take your three tone bars and notch them to fit accordingly with the patches. Then glue them down and put weights or use the Go-Bars. They should dry for about an hour. After that, you will need to scallop the tone bars just like before. They should be scalloped to about 1/16".
(Word of the day: Pali/Cliff or steep hill)
Mahalo!
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