I finally finished it!

 The bottom string on the pineapple uke broke and I took the opportunity to redress the frets and fit a new set of strings (this time to baritone tuning). No more buzzing, and I think that it sounds quite nice!

Well not quite.

 I decided to change the 'G' string for a low one, and I had a go with Aquila Red strings. These are doped with a metal which means I should be able to use a unwound string.

I adjusted the bridge and nut grooves, fitted the new string, tuned it up and TWANG; it broke. I blamed a sharp edge on the nut and gave it a further smoothing with 800 grit paper. I tried a new string and TWANG; another breakage.

For my third attempt, I tuned it up, and stretched it very slowly (over a couple of hours),  and kept it warm. It made it to F# before TWANG.

I think that my long scale length (51cm) means that the tension s too much for these strings, so finally I fitted a wound low G (again from Aquila), and this has tuned up fine and sounds very nice.

I now have to do a little work on the 6th fret which is a tad too proud and gives a very slight buzz when fretting at the 5th.

Finished!

 

I haven't been very good at documenting this recently, but the pineapple baritone ukulele is now finished. I fitted nylgut strings  from Strings Direct and it sounds mellow and reasonably loud.

The instrument is for me to play - my hands are large and I have some osteoarthritis in the joints which makes playing some instruments quite painful, even after a few minutes. This 'Pineapple' has quite a long scale length (51cm), widely spaced strings (the neck is 4.2cm at the nut), a compound radiused fretboard (35cm at the nut, flat at the soundhole) and a peghead that lets my hand travel back to the first fret easier (the tuners are set further back). Time will tell whether these help, but first impressions are good.

I will be putting away the luthiery equipment for a little while as I'm making a boat (a Mill Creek 16.5) over the next few months and the garage will be very crowded. I hope to cover these adventures in a separate blog.

Looking the part

 

I've been making a fair amount of progress. The main instrument is now complete with binding fitted, and the fretboard glued in place. I sanded down to 600 grit and then finished everything (except the belly and fretboard) with my Chestnut buffing kit . I think it looks great, but I needed to hold on tight while working on it as it is now very smooth and slippy.

I will finish the belly with Renaissance wax and will probably leave the fretboard unfinished (or maybe some Dunlop Oil).

Now that the fretboard is on, I have been able to take some measurements of where the strings will go -  I am aiming for 2.5mm at the 12th fret, and about 0.75mm at the 1st, Unfortunately, this means my bridge is a little too slim, so I will need to raise it a few mm by gluing some walnut/dyed maple underneath (to match the bindings).

Fretboard

The Fretboard is pretty much finished - it was a bit of a pain fitting the frets! The fretboard is radiused at the nut end (about 35cm radius), and flat at the bridge end (my thought is to make it a bit easier on my arthritic fingers). I started hammering the frets into the slots (I always start at the bridge end in the hope that any early mistakes are well away from the main playing area), but it was a messy method.

I decided to finish off with a press. I need to drill a hole in the end of it to take a caul (Amazon...), and make a threaded hole to lock the caul in place (I still hate tapping holes).

Pressing was SO much easier than hammering.

I finished off by dressing the ends of the frets, but I will leave working on the crowns until the fretboard is glued into place. The board develops a very slight upward bow with the fret tangs driven into the thin board, but this won't cause a problem and will be flat again once it is on the neck..

Here is the DIY fret press.

Bridge

 

I made the bridge out of an offcut of walnut. I found this video from Beau Hannam Guitars and Ukuleles very useful...

Gluing the back on

 The obligatory photo of lots of clamps. Before this went on I stuck on a label and  sprayed a couple of coast of clear shellac on the insides to seal them.

Back

 

A quick update - I have now added the three braces to the back - I went with walnut in the end - I didn't feel it needed the stiffness of spruce. The walnut dots are glued into the fretboard too.

I shaved down the belly braces a bit as part of my attempt at tap tuning. It sounds a bit brighter to me, but who knows!

Slotting the Fretboard

 

For all my previous instruments I have hand cut the fret slots with this little thing, using a fretting saw with a depth guide. I have found this a bit awkward, so I decided to make a slightly more sophisticated jig. It was based loosely on the one that StewMac sell.

The saw rides along the little oak cross beams (height adjusted via four bolts). The first test was disappointing as the saw was binding in the slot but the fix was to give it a sharpen (I found some useful tips in a video by crimson guitars). After this it cut nicely and I made the slots for the fretboard.

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

Belly

 

So, I used my new DIY dremel jig and it all went very smoothly. I took a couple of passes with a 1mm spiral upcut bit and then widened the channel by adjusting the jig. I glued in the rosette with zap-a-gap super glue and scraped it flat. I have found that sandpaper can drive dust (in this case walnut and dyed maple) into the pale belly wood and make it look a bit messy.

Finally, I used the jig again to cut out the soundhole. Next for the belly will be fitting some braces - I am winging it on the placement for these, so we will have to see how it goes...

Saving eighty seven quid

 I have a little Dremel jig I bought from Stewmac ages ago and its great for routing the cavities for inlays. I decided to use it for the rosette inlay and needed an adaptor for cutting circles. The commercial product was a bit too expensive for my tastes, so I made one out of some bits of aluminium I had 'lying around'. 

Not as neat, but hopefully it will work the same...

Making a template for the rosette

 I was thinking about the binding and the rosette that will go around the sound hole, and I decided to use walnut with an extra black stripe. I needed to make a circular channel in some scrap wood to allow the bent rosette wood to 'set', and I wondered about making a router jig (base turning about a fixed point). Then  I remember I had made a CNC router specifically for this sort of thing (doh).

All it took was to draw a circle of the correct size in Inkscape, generate the g-code in ESTLcam and press 'print' in Repetier. I was very happy with the outcome, and I think I will try and do the neck and fretboard shaping this way (a bit more of a challenge than just a circle in a piece of oak!). 

Re-sawing

 It took about 40 minutes to change the blade on the bandsaw, most of it setting up the tension and alignment. Still, I think it was time well spent as I was able to re-saw a nice piece of walnut which will make the back and sides on the 'pineapple'.

I'll thickness these next.

Using my new CNC router on the uke mould.

Last year I made myself a MPCNC router, and it has sat idle ever since. I have now used it 'in anger' for the first time to surface the back of the uke mould. It was a bit terrifying, but it worked as expected and didn't crash! 

My toolchain is to start with a drawing in Inkscape and export as a .svg file. This is imported into ESTLCAM to work out the toolpath (Gcode), and then Repetier Host is used to control the MPCNC on a RAMPs board. 

I hope to use this setup to prepare moulds and templates, and maybe to try and carve backs and fronts.