The Sugar Land Ukulele Manufacturing Company
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Misc. Information on Instrument Building
and some other stuff
Including, but not necessarily limited to: Ukuleles, Mountain Dulcimers, Christmas Carousels, and Other Decorative Items of Such Variety that the Very Mind would Boggle at the Complete Listing of Them.
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A Different Soprano Ukulele
I started the neck of this instrument way back in January of ’06. You’d think that something that took over two years to build would be mighty impressive. You’d be wrong. It looks like this:
Yeah, I know the background makes it look even more wonky than it really is. The main reason it took so long was that the body was lopsided after I closed it up. I thought I’d gotten the sides close enough to one another, but apparently I didn’t. It really shows up in the lower bout. The bridge is in line with the headstock and the soundhole, but the sides aren’t.
Other than the asymmetry, I’m pretty happy with how this one turned out. Very light at only 11.6 oz, a good sound, nice neck profile, and all the detail work came out pretty well. Intonation is not quite perfect up around the 12th fret, but it’s definitely listenable. In fact, it’s become my daily player.
A couple of things to change on the next one: remember to add a back joint reinforcement. I sorta forgot to put one in. And soundhole reinforcement. Here’s a shot of the binding ledge, cut on the router table.
Still trying to figure out what to use for headstock inlay. The material is once again finest mother-of-toilet-seat.
I couldn’t find many construction photos of this one. Here’s gluing on the bridge. I’ve scraped the French polish from the bridge area and built up a little dam of masking tape so it won’t move. Two cam clamps provide very light pressure, so it’s basically a rub joint. Glue is Titebond original. We’ll see how it holds up over time.
No sound clip yet; I’ll get around to it one day. But I kept notes on this one (and a spreadsheet tracking what I’d done and what was remaining.) The notes are at Uke2Log.txt.
Body and neck are mahogany; the neck stripes are maple and something that might be bubinga. The neck uses a bolt-on joint. Fretboard and bridge are rosewood. Binding and rosette are maple. Nut and saddle are bone. Tuners are Grover. I currently have Worth clear CM strings on it.
Last updated 27 April 2008
Even the binding and finish came out pretty good. Okay, there are a copule of spots of tearout, but they’re not too obvious, and the finish has a rough spot or two, but it’s not horrible.
