So my daughter is building a ukulele

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mshilarious

mshilarious

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OK, I am helping a lot. I should have a picture in the white by Thursday, it's coming along nicely. This is the Stew-Mac kit which is really nicely done. Although I had more trouble fretting that I would have expected, tiny frets seem to be harder than big ones. I had to glue down all the ends which was not welcome :(

Anyway, now I want to try one with a koa top, and the rosewood fingerboard stained black. I would never bother to stain ebony, I like the natural ebony look. But rosewood on mahogany just doesn't have much contrast. We did some nice upgrades on this one; better friction pegs with black keys, and abalone inlay. I think for #2, my daughter is going to collect shells off the beach for inlay. That should work OK for the fingerboard but I dunno about the soundhole :confused:

I'm thinking I want some kind of finish on the fingerboard, but I'm not sure what :confused: We are using violin varnish for the body, but I didn't think that would be great for the fingerboard. Not really sure, actually. apl would tell me to use tung oil. What do you think :confused:

Today I showed her the colortone pigments at Stew-Mac, so in the near future there may be a surplus in the world supply of purple-stained ukuleles . . . :eek:

I have her convinced she can sell them and use the proceeds to buy a Nintendo DS :o which she wants, not me. I'm fine with my old XBox. But she likes sanding better than yardwork, apparently . . .
 
mshilarious said:
I have her convinced she can sell them and use the proceeds to buy a Nintendo DS :o which she wants, not me. I'm fine with my old XBox. But she likes sanding better than yardwork, apparently . . .
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When she's done, post a price in the Free Ads, but don't spam the boards!!! :eek: ha ha ha :D Who knows, purple ukuleles could become collectables in 20 years.
 
If you can get her to make me a bigger sized 6 string ukulele with the same tone as a Taylor...Id trade a DS for that.:)
 
mshilarious said:
OK, I am helping a lot. I should have a picture in the white by Thursday, it's coming along nicely. This is the Stew-Mac kit which is really nicely done. Although I had more trouble fretting that I would have expected, tiny frets seem to be harder than big ones. I had to glue down all the ends which was not welcome :(

Anyway, now I want to try one with a koa top, and the rosewood fingerboard stained black. I would never bother to stain ebony, I like the natural ebony look. But rosewood on mahogany just doesn't have much contrast. We did some nice upgrades on this one; better friction pegs with black keys, and abalone inlay. I think for #2, my daughter is going to collect shells off the beach for inlay. That should work OK for the fingerboard but I dunno about the soundhole :confused:

I'm thinking I want some kind of finish on the fingerboard, but I'm not sure what :confused: We are using violin varnish for the body, but I didn't think that would be great for the fingerboard. Not really sure, actually. apl would tell me to use tung oil. What do you think :confused:

Today I showed her the colortone pigments at Stew-Mac, so in the near future there may be a surplus in the world supply of purple-stained ukuleles . . . :eek:

I have her convinced she can sell them and use the proceeds to buy a Nintendo DS :o which she wants, not me. I'm fine with my old XBox. But she likes sanding better than yardwork, apparently . . .
Click to expand...

I'm assuming the fretboard is rosewood? If so don't put ant finish on it. Just use mineral oil (lemon oil, baby oil etc) the same as you would on a guitar. Any oil varnish (violin varnish, tru oil etc.) will soon get gunky and messy, any oil finish such as tung oil even more so. If you want to get a good high shine look on rosewood or ebony it's down to mineral oil and burnishing with rosewood shavings and/or fine 4000 grit wet and dry with mineral oil as a carrier. Takes some time but thats the way the violin tailpieces and fingerborads are finished on decent violins. It's also a messy job and stains your fingers black.
 
muttley600 said:
I'm assuming the fretboard is rosewood? If so don't put ant finish on it. Just use mineral oil (lemon oil, baby oil etc) the same as you would on a guitar. Any oil varnish (violin varnish, tru oil etc.) will soon get gunky and messy, any oil finish such as tung oil even more so. If you want to get a good high shine look on rosewood or ebony it's down to mineral oil and burnishing with rosewood shavings and/or fine 4000 grit wet and dry with mineral oil as a carrier. Takes some time but thats the way the violin tailpieces and fingerboards are finished on decent violins. It's also a messy job and stains your fingers black.
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Yeah, rosewood. Well that's what we'll do then. I have decided I really like the way violins are finished vs. your typical acoustic guitar. Not that guitars are bad, but they tend to look their best when new and then go steadily downhill as tiny scratches inevitably accumulate in the mirror-like finish, while violins keep looking better. So I don't think we'll be buffing, just go up to the high grits of sanding. We'll see.

On violins, the varnish is scraped off the neck though, which isn't quite ideal in appearance I don't think. Is that going to get messy too if I leave it on? S-M recommended some spray varnish finish they sell, but I'm going with brushed. My daughter is going through a phobia about POISON, so spray masks would be a bad thing :o I do have a spray booth though . . .

S-M has no instruction for fingerboard finishing at all, other than final 1000 grit sanding of the frets (their fret finish instruction is a bit lacking as well). It is supposed to be a beginner kit . . .
 
ausrock said:
To see what daughters and dads can achieve, have a look at this thread on an Aust., woodworkers forum http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=70739 ..........the young lady is now onto her second "build".
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Yikes. I don't have much of a woodshop (with good reason), just a drill press and a router, which is mainly for speaker building. I can cut a circle with a jig! And my daughter can dance a jig, but that's a different story.

(she's the one over the caption "fun"):

http://www.obxdance.com/
 
mshilarious said:
Yeah, rosewood. Well that's what we'll do then. I have decided I really like the way violins are finished vs. your typical acoustic guitar. Not that guitars are bad, but they tend to look their best when new and then go steadily downhill as tiny scratches inevitably accumulate in the mirror-like finish, while violins keep looking better. So I don't think we'll be buffing, just go up to the high grits of sanding. We'll see.

On violins, the varnish is scraped off the neck though, which isn't quite ideal in appearance I don't think. Is that going to get messy too if I leave it on? S-M recommended some spray varnish finish they sell, but I'm going with brushed. My daughter is going through a phobia about POISON, so spray masks would be a bad thing :o I do have a spray booth though . . .

S-M has no instruction for fingerboard finishing at all, other than final 1000 grit sanding of the frets (their fret finish instruction is a bit lacking as well). It is supposed to be a beginner kit . . .
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Violin necks are done that way to mimic the look and feel of the old worn master instruments. They often have a light clear or amber coat on top to seal the wood in that area. I wouldn't finish a mahogany neck that way. The violin varnish will be fine on the neck. If your after a slightly more durable finish go with Tru Oil it's a modern oil varnish with added polymers to give it some wear resistance and make it a bit harder. It goes on real easy and can be wiped on. I absolutely love the feel of necks done with tru oil. Technically it's closer to a violin varnish than either a lacquer or oil finish.

The frets are best levelled and crowned if needed which you may not need to do on a uke. After that go through the grits with wet and dry starting at around 600 to take out the levelling marks and finish at 2000 or 4000. Work along the fingerboard from nut to bridge not across.You can further polish them off with jewellers rouge if you want a mirror shine. That will soon go after a few hours playing so probably overkill. You can also buff them up with a cloth mop on a dremel or similar if you have one. Failing that Goddards silver cloth works just as well.
 
ausrock said:
To see what daughters and dads can achieve, have a look at this thread on an Aust., woodworkers forum http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=70739 ..........the young lady is now onto her second "build".

Also, there's a fair bit of uke action here http://www.anzlf.com/index.php?sid=095d90e070eabfa8a98569e72cc49a24 ..............you'll find a few US contributors there too.

:cool::cool:
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If she did any work in my shop that hair would either be tied back under a cap or cut off pretty damn quick.:eek:
 
muttley600 said:
The frets are best levelled and crowned if needed which you may not need to do on a uke. After that go through the grits with wet and dry starting at around 600 to take out the levelling marks and finish at 2000 or 4000. Work along the fingerboard from nut to bridge not across.You can further polish them off with jewellers rouge if you want a mirror shine. That will soon go after a few hours playing so probably overkill. You can also buff them up with a cloth mop on a dremel or similar if you have one. Failing that Goddards silver cloth works just as well.
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Definitely the frets will need leveling and I have a fret leveling file. I have a crowning file too, but these frets are so small I don't think it will work too well. S-M said just level the frets and crown with 1000 . . . :eek:
 
muttley600 said:
If she did any work in my shop that hair would either be tied back under a cap or cut off pretty damn quick.:eek:
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Yeah, I know what you mean.

As an aside, I'm just about to embark on my first archtop build :eek:

:cool:
 
mshilarious said:
Definitely the frets will need leveling and I have a fret leveling file. I have a crowning file too, but these frets are so small I don't think it will work too well. S-M said just level the frets and crown with 1000 . . . :eek:
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You shouldn't need to take too much off them to level them. In which case it's entirely possible to crown by running fine grit paper along the board as I suggested. I can do a fret level and crown sometimes without anything but fine grit paper. It all depends on how flat and even the radius is on the f/b and how well seated the frets are. If you have a few frets that have a larger flat after crowning you can selectively round them with a fine needle file to get tyou started. If you need to do a whole lot of crowning a mandolin size fret file is what you need but you should be able to get by without it. Remember that the action on a uke is comparatively high.
 
muttley600 said:
You shouldn't need to take too much off them to level them. In which case it's entirely possible to crown by running fine grit paper along the board as I suggested.
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Yeah, that's exactly how it worked out! I was personally amazed after what I thought was a horrendous job fretting, but it leveled very quickly and crowned right up with sandpaper :)

Neck went on last night--this is really driving me crazy because I think of the wood grain on the soundboard it makes it look like the neck got glued on crooked. But it's centered on the block center mark, centered on the upper bout, about 1mm off center of the soundhole (which makes the soundhole off center to the upper bouts . . . not sure how that happened!) and measures pretty much straight down the fingerboard to the tail, so . . . it's not as easy to tell due to my crap camera work, but hopefully once the strings are on that optical illusion will disappear :o

Daughter did that inlay work around the soundhole, there are some gaps but that abalone does look keen. I drilled out the plastic fingerboard dots and replaced with abalone.

Now she wants to find some seaglass and use that for fingerboard inlay on the koa top model that's up next. Hmmm, seaglass vs. sandpaper, should get interesting . . . we're going to stain that fingerboard black for contrast :cool:
 
I bought that Stew-Mac kit for 32-20 blues a while back. Not sure how far he got with it, but seemed to like the kit very much so he'll probably be able to share his thoughts.
 
mshilarious said:
Yeah, that's exactly how it worked out! I was personally amazed after what I thought was a horrendous job fretting, but it leveled very quickly and crowned right up with sandpaper :)

Neck went on last night--this is really driving me crazy because I think of the wood grain on the soundboard it makes it look like the neck got glued on crooked. But it's centered on the block center mark, centered on the upper bout, about 1mm off center of the soundhole (which makes the soundhole off center to the upper bouts . . . not sure how that happened!) and measures pretty much straight down the fingerboard to the tail, so . . . it's not as easy to tell due to my crap camera work, but hopefully once the strings are on that optical illusion will disappear :o

Daughter did that inlay work around the soundhole, there are some gaps but that abalone does look keen. I drilled out the plastic fingerboard dots and replaced with abalone.

Now she wants to find some seaglass and use that for fingerboard inlay on the koa top model that's up next. Hmmm, seaglass vs. sandpaper, should get interesting . . . we're going to stain that fingerboard black for contrast :cool:
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Looking good. Frankly I wouldn't worry too much about the grain on the top. Without a bookmatch centre seam it is next to impossible get it looking dead right. Remember it is a Uke as well they are not terribly sophisticated instruments by design.

1mm off on the soundhole is also something you won't notice after a period of time and I'd be amazed if anyone even spots it.

If you determined to use sea glass as an inlay material I would flat it first and inlay it flush, you'll not be able to do much with it once it's in the f/b. Frankly there are a lot better materials to use that would give you the same effect.
 
TelePaul said:
I bought that Stew-Mac kit for 32-20 blues a while back. Not sure how far he got with it, but seemed to like the kit very much so he'll probably be able to share his thoughts.
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Tell him to get his self over here soon we miss the old git.;)

By the way I know your a LP guy now but did you catch the pic of a tele I finished recently? I hadn't made a tele style in years and it was fun to make. I thought of you as I handed it over to the guy. He's a Tele fanatic and Irish..
 
muttley600 said:
If you determined to use sea glass as an inlay material I would flat it first and inlay it flush, you'll not be able to do much with it once it's in the f/b. Frankly there are a lot better materials to use that would give you the same effect.
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Oh, I'm not set on it, she is! But first she has to find some, which isn't the easiest task either.

I suggested collecting some purple shells where the sea has already done most of the work--you can find some fingerboard-inlay smoothed shell fragments in almost exactly the right shape and thickness in about five minutes of looking! A couple of minutes with a dremel on the fingerboard & you're done!

Although I need a new dremel, I try to use it for metal cutting and it died a horrible death :o
 
muttley600 said:
Tell him to get his self over here soon we miss the old git.;)

By the way I know your a LP guy now but did you catch the pic of a tele I finished recently? I hadn't made a tele style in years and it was fun to make. I thought of you as I handed it over to the guy. He's a Tele fanatic and Irish..
Click to expand...

I'm not a LP guy now! Tele's my first love. But a Fender will never sound like a Gibson and a Gibson will never sound like a Fender, IMO. Maybe that's why Knopfler plays both!

Didn't see the T-Style, can you PM me pics?


Sorry for hijack MsH-dude lol relacks yo!
 
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