Scott DelPorte
05-01-2016, 11:21 PM
I have built a few guitars over the years, but just for fun decided to try my hand at a tenor ukulele. Guitars usually have lots of adornments like rosettes, purflings, bindings, and inlays etc. Although some people do the same with ukuleles, its more common to see them less adorned, so I took that route and made it a pretty plain instrument. On fancy guitars, the detail work can take as much or more time as the rest of the build, so doing a simple instrument like this played into my short attention span and desire to quickly see how I would get the sound to come out.
I started with some QS sycamore that I have had hanging around for years, and some QS red cedar that I picked up at a local lumber yard. Since I never made one of these before, I looked around on the web, and found some pictures of bracing patterns from a well known ukulele builder, and blatantly copied as best as I could from the pictures he had. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I hope he takes it in the right light.
The bracing is more or less similar to how I have done some classical guitars before (but tapered quite differently), so I was comfortable with using it as a basis for building.
336753
Once I have the braces roughly shaped the way I want it, I use a signal generator hooked up to a speaker with some glitter to look at the mode shapes or "Chladni patterns" on the top. With the guitars I have built, I record this information and find it useful because I can infer how one top will compare to others I have built, but for this uke build, there wont be any to compare it to after until I build another. The shape of this mode being more or less a closed ring on the lower bout does tell me something about the relative lengthwise and crosswise stiffness. Some of the master builders I have met over the years have built enough instruments and have developed other more tactile methods of determining how they want to graduate plates and carve braces, but I still find this method useful.
336754
Here is the top glued to the sides sitting next to the back. This is the first instrument that I have built using a bolt on neck. Once I had the top glued to the rim, I fit the neck joint (basically a butt joint) to the body, and drilled the holes for the bolts while I still had the back off. I thought it would be a big time saver, but it took me about as long as when I just fit a dovetail. Maybe if I do several necks this way I will get faster at it.
336757
Here are a few pictures of the more or less finished instrument. I used a French polish finish, which is what I also usually do for guitars.
336759 336760 336761
It plays nice, and sounds good, so I started the next one, which will be built mostly out of walnut.
336762
I started with some QS sycamore that I have had hanging around for years, and some QS red cedar that I picked up at a local lumber yard. Since I never made one of these before, I looked around on the web, and found some pictures of bracing patterns from a well known ukulele builder, and blatantly copied as best as I could from the pictures he had. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I hope he takes it in the right light.
The bracing is more or less similar to how I have done some classical guitars before (but tapered quite differently), so I was comfortable with using it as a basis for building.
336753
Once I have the braces roughly shaped the way I want it, I use a signal generator hooked up to a speaker with some glitter to look at the mode shapes or "Chladni patterns" on the top. With the guitars I have built, I record this information and find it useful because I can infer how one top will compare to others I have built, but for this uke build, there wont be any to compare it to after until I build another. The shape of this mode being more or less a closed ring on the lower bout does tell me something about the relative lengthwise and crosswise stiffness. Some of the master builders I have met over the years have built enough instruments and have developed other more tactile methods of determining how they want to graduate plates and carve braces, but I still find this method useful.
336754
Here is the top glued to the sides sitting next to the back. This is the first instrument that I have built using a bolt on neck. Once I had the top glued to the rim, I fit the neck joint (basically a butt joint) to the body, and drilled the holes for the bolts while I still had the back off. I thought it would be a big time saver, but it took me about as long as when I just fit a dovetail. Maybe if I do several necks this way I will get faster at it.
336757
Here are a few pictures of the more or less finished instrument. I used a French polish finish, which is what I also usually do for guitars.
336759 336760 336761
It plays nice, and sounds good, so I started the next one, which will be built mostly out of walnut.
336762