Sunday 29 September 2013

Secret Ukulele Project

Over the past couple of weeks I have been making a Ukulele for my youngest son Ethan.  I finally finished it today and gave it to him as a surprise. The shape is something similar to a Gibson Flying V.


The construction is nothing special, the neck is pine and the fingerboard is oak.  There is no truss rod as the nylon strings shouldn't cause any neck warp.  The body is plywood front and back and thin mdf sides.


I applied a light stain just to even everything up then sprayed a couple of coats of vintage cherry nitrocellulose stain followed by several coats of gloss nitro lacquer.  I then left it to hang for a few days and just polished the whole thing with a light abrasive compound before buffing.


It is not the loudest instrument in the world but I never expected it to be.  It sounds nice though and will suit my 7 year old down to the ground.


The machine heads are from an Epiphone Les Paul I recently refinished and replaced.  He seemed quite pleased with it and managed 'Mary Had A Little Lamb' after a few minutes.



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