Dots

I was thinking about how a make some walnut dots for the fretboard. My first attempt on my lathe was not good enough, so I tried out using a leather punch in my drill press. This worked really well. I punched through almost all the thickness of the walnut and then sanded the back off on my belt sander, ending up with a little pile of dots. The test fitting in a piece of scrap wood looked fine, so these are good to go for the fretboard.

Fretboard

 

I had originally decided to use a piece of macassar ebony for the fretboard (second from the left), but I didn't like the colour against all the walnut. Likewise, I rejected the ebony (left) and cocobolo (third from the left). In the end, I am going for a simple piece of sycamore (right), I hope to jazz it up a bit with some dot markers to be made on the lathe from the same piece of walnut used for the peghead veneer (and planned for the bridge). 

Neck

 

The neck was made from a sandwich of walnut, dyed constructional veneer and a sycamore core. The idea was to generate some stiffness as walnut alone may have been a bit too flexible. Someday I will try out a carbon fibre reinforcing rod instead... For a peghead veneer, I have made a little bookmatched piece from some interesting walnut, thicknessed down to about 3mm.

Ready to glue on the belly

 

Here is the belly 'dry-fitted' into the body. I've added the second sets of kerfed linings and also cut the slot for the neck. I plan to glue the belly on with Titebond Original (my favourite glue) with the sides still in the mould to keep everything square. I have left plenty of material on the braces and I may try to tap-tune the belly by thinning these once the belly and neck are on.

A body

 

The sides (viewed from the top)

I have been making steady progress with the uke. I bent the sides - it's been a few years since I last did this and the cracking noise from the figured walnut was not encouraging. Too aggressive! Still, I pressed on and fixed the crack with some Araldite. This will need some more attention later on. I added an inlay where the sides join at the end, which will match the bindings. I'm reasonably happy with this. Finally, I made and fitted some kerfed linings (from some white pine).  Next up will be fitting the belly to the body.

An ugly crack

End joint inlay