Mark S. commissioned me to build a Concert Ukulele towards the end of 2014. I decided to incorporate a honu (turtle) which we see all along the Kona coast. Hopefully this will remind him of the beauty of the islands while playing!
The concert uses highly figured Koa for the front, back and sides and includes a white Mother-of-Pearl (“MOP”) rosette. The aforementioned headstock Honu is also made from white MOP with some wood-burning in the background. The neck “racing stripe” and “scoop” is from padauk and yellow heart. A soundport was added to aid the player hear the full range of the ukulele while playing.
Gallery (click picture for full size)
Build Blog
Mark’s New Concert Ukulele
The ukulele is done and will be delivered in mid-July when I visit him to go see the Manchester United vs. Barcelona football match! Here's a few snappies of the uke. My product photo skills are so [...]
Wrapping it up
The ukulele needed to be put to the side as my wife and I traveled to Japan to hike the Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage Trail then we had visitors to our little island. Oh well. I'm [...]
Pore Filling and First Lacquer Coats
Weather has been very wet and humid lately thus delaying the finishing process. Spent considerable time reviewing various pore fill techniques balanced by what's available on the island (not much!). After positioning and taping off [...]
Bridge Design
Sometimes it really pays to have the right tool. But I get ahead of myself. Finally got into the shop after a couple weeks of being "under the weather". I decided to create a new bridge [...]
Nearing the end (but not really)
Did some basic clean-up work, the most important being adding some accent to the hand-cut white mother-of-pearl inlay. Inlay against Koa is "ok" and you can see how it looked in the previous post. I [...]
Anatomy of a screw-up
Mark, aka "the Customer", enjoys figuring out "how-things-work" and solving issues even more than ukulele playing...ergo, this entry. I'll share the process of fixing one of the inevitable screw-ups that occur during the build of an ukulele. [...]
I’m Necking Today
The past couple of days have been spent finishing the neck. Very tedious days making lots of dust. First, glued in the mother-of-pearl honu and, once set, polished it up. I'll be using a spoon [...]
Frets and Such
Finally wrapped up the headstock "art". Quite tricky to get the relief done right and the stew-mac router jig is almost a necessity. It allows some very fine control. Using ebony as headstock veneer is [...]
Headstock Madness
Today was all about headstocks. I'm using peg tuners for the first time (all other uses I've used mini-tuners) and wanted a more elegant headstock design to reflect the smaller Concert and the tuners. Came [...]
Fretboard Fun
First up was dimensioning the fretboard to final dimensions. A bit trickier than I would have thought. I like my fretboard to be about 4mm. The "gully" along the back is about 1.5mm as is [...]
Neck Bolt
While it's probably overkill, I use a furniture bolt and brass threaded insert nut to create a solid neck/body connection. The tenon is about 1/2" wide while the insert needs a 3/8" hole. Nice tight [...]
Neck Joint
The day I've been waiting for has finally arrived. I made a neck mortise and tenon jig awhile back that should, in theory, create a perfectly aligned joint while also compensating for any body front/top errors (e.g., [...]
Binding
No surprise but I had to make another jig today. I use a nice setup from Stew-Mac to route the binding channels along the ukulele body. Because the ukulele is arched, you need to "float" [...]
Final interior cleanup and back glue-up
It's Saturday so it's YAJ (yet another jig) day! My back glue up jigs are too large for this little concert so I quickly made a nice jig. It's funny how many jigs you need [...]
Shaping the neck
After marking up the neck dimensions, it's time to get this neck into shape! First I rough shape the heel curve using a sled and the table saw. I "nibble" away the heel using the [...]
Adding the Top
Scalloping and tapering the soundboard braces is a balance between weight and strength. Take off too much and you may end up with a cracked soundboard over time. Too little and the ukulele might feel heavy in [...]
Hole Day
Today I created holes. By far the most challenging hole was the sound port. After making a number of sound port sizes via powerpoint, I had to decide how to make it. I tried using [...]
Soundboard & Back & Tail Patch Day
Another productive day in the shop. Pulled the soundboard out of the go-bar deck and scalloped the tone bars. It's a balance between strength and sound quality. I like to taper the ends till they [...]
Finishing the Soundboard
Nice full day in the shop!. Focused on finishing the soundboard. First, thickness sanded the top to about 0.070" (1.75mm) and added a registration dowel to make top to body alignment easier. I made a [...]
Ring around the Rosie
Adding the rosette to an instrument marks, to me, the beginning of putting the raw components together to make an ukulele. Top and bottom joined and thicknessed, sides bent with kerfing added, and the neck [...]
Neck Scarf Joint
See the Morning Post The afternoon was cutting and glueing on what will become the headstock. I built YAJ (yet another jig) to precisly cut a 15deg angle off the last 5" of the neck piece. [...]
Kerfing Day (Morning)
See the Afternoon Post Today I added kerfing to the ukulele. Kerfing adds surface area to the side/soundboard and side/bottom glue joints. The kerfing I have is about 3/4" high. Multiple by 2 and I'd [...]
Necking
Today was a day of a lot of work and so little to show for it. 😕 The neck has been on hold while waiting for a new saw blade with a Flat Top Grind (FTG) [...]
Radius-ing the Back and Rosette Play
Finally back in the shop! Between having family over for the Holidays and then immediately getting the flu, it's been a long time. First up, prepping the body for kerfing. Flatting the top is straight [...]
Neck Laminate ready for scarf joint
Just wanted to share how the final neck laminate turned out. Usually a laminate like this is added after the neck scarf joint is cut, flipped over and glued (this will make more sense later). By [...]
Another Glue-up Day (or 2)
A couple of days ago I checked the Lychee/Maple racing stripe I made the day before. Well, that didn't work. Long story short, there was no way to insure a consistent thickness of the layers as I [...]
The Man wants a racing strip!
Another short day in the shop. We decided to add a racing strip along the neck length. Tried Koa but it just wasn't that interesting against the mahogany. However, found a colorful piece of Lychee in the [...]
Neck Prep
Just returned from CA and finally got back into the shop, at least for a few hours. Found a nice piece of Sapele Mahogany to prep the neck blank, ears, and the head & tail [...]
Tops & Bottoms Day
Day was all about prepping the top and bottom. First step was to edge the book matched set for both the top and bottom using a simple jig. Then glue-ups using my plate joining jig. [...]
Out of the Bender – Into the Mold
Wow! The bender works perfectly. No more hot iron pipes for me 🙂 ! On a pipe, I always had a bit of spring-back or I had issues with the two long edges not being [...]
Bending Sides
The first step I do is bend the sides. I just finished building this new jig with plans from Georgia Luthier Supply. This was my very first attempt at side bending with the new jig. [...]
Let’s get started
My good friend Mark has asked me to build a Concert-sized ukulele for his "growing collection". I'll be chronicling my efforts as I go. The first week was spent building a number of new jigs [...]