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 necessary for a concert-sized ukulele as well as preparing some nice koa. Although I’ve made a number of ukes in the past, they’ve all been tenors. This forced me to create a new insert for my bending jig, create a new concert body mold as well as new spreaders to keep the sides nice and tight to the form.

Mark visited us recently from California. He was able to pick a nice piece of koa that I’ll be using to make the front and sides. Here I’m creating a parallel front and back after edge jointing to make re-sawing a touch easier.