Day #10

Aloha!

     So today, I also worked on the neck and soundboard and just about finished up the neck. I used sandpaper, clamps, a hammer, a dremmel, a chisel, a table saw, and a mitre box. The first thing that you have to do is get your side pieces. They should be thin pieces of wood that can be bent easily. Now what I did was I took three pieces of MDF wood which is 3/4" thick wood and I used the backboard as reference and cut out the outline of the backboard. From there, I glue the three pieces of wood on top of each other to form a mold for the sides of my ukulele. I clamped them together and let them dry.

     After that, I took my soundboard and trimmed the braces to accommodate for the sides. Using your template, cut out the tail block which is 2 and 3/4" tall. Then trace a line on the top of it to match the curve of the bottom of the uke using your template and sand down the side of the tail block to make the curve. Next, you need to cut the neck table. You can use a bow saw or a regular saw to make the curve. The recess will be as deep as the thickness of your soundboard. After you measure down, draw the line to be cut out. It should make a shape similar to a half circle but including the recess.

     Now we have to glue the soundboard to the neck. To do this we need to make sure that the soundboard fits tightly with the neck. Cut out the excess part of the top of the soundboard to fit the neck. Sand down the two until they fit together if needed and then glue them together. Use clamps to hold them together and let dry.

     Now you are going to take the mold you made earlier and start to bend the sides. Before you can bend the sides you need to wet the wood. Then place your sides into the mold and start to slowly bend. Keep clamping parts to the mold as you go along and spray with water when needed. After you have the two sides clamped to the mold, let them dry out and when they are dry, you can take them out of the mold and they should be bent to what you need for the ukulele.

(Word of the day: Anuenue/Rainbow)

Mahalo!