Day #14

Aloha!

     Today, we will be attaching the fretboard to the neck, shaping the headstock, making the tuner holes, and a few other things. If you want to, you can make a little design at the sound hole end of the fretboard to go around the sound hole. Temporarily hold the neck and fretboard together with double stick tape. Then, position the fretboard and center it on the neck. Use two pieces of masking tape and place it on the fretboard edges where it passes over the soundboard. Then, use a hand drill and use a bit that is 1/16" to drill into the fretboard at the 1st and 11th frets. Don't drill through the neck, only the fretboard. Lightly hit brads into two holes.

     Cut notches into a caul to fit around the brads. Glue the neck and fretboard together and place the caul on top of the fretboard before you put the clamps on to not ruin the fretboard. After it has dried, remove the clamps and brads and install the two missing pieces of fret wire. Do not forget to bevel and trim the wire ends.

     To glue the headstock veneer, you need to square the end of the veneer that will butt against the break angle. Sand the end to a 15 degree angle. Apply glue and clamp it around the entire headstock. Be sure to leave a gap of 3/16" between the headstock and the fretboard. The gap is the nut slot. Make sure that the bottom of the headstock is smooth and sand if needed. Then you can create a headstock design to be creative. It is a good idea to rough cut the design and then sand it down. Then, use a file to sand where the headstock and neck join.

     Moving on to the heel of the ukulele, we need to glue the heel cap on. Just make a shape similar and a little bigger than the heel  and glue it and clamp it on. After it dries, sand it down to fit the heel. Now, you will put on the final touches of the neck by sanding it down. It should be smooth and round all throughout the neck and the widest point is where the neck meets the fretboard.

     The first two tuner holes will be 1 and 1/2" from the break angles. The last two will be 3 and 1/4" from the break. All four holes will be 7/16" from the side of the headstock. Mark these holes and drill out the holes with a 1/16" bit. Drill from the top surface to the back to have a cleaner look. Sand off any pencil marks on the headstock.

(Word of the day: Mea 'ai/Food)

Mahalo!