Headstock

Finally got around to gluing the plate on the headstock. To be trimmed later. Pretty sure it’s padouk. I know it’s left over from a previous uke build.

Need more clamps.

 

It’s stuck on there good.

See the mark on the right corner? That’s from the soft-face plastic spring clamp. The plastic is slowly breaking down. This is why you don’t put soft vinyl plastic items on wood furniture. (Like a leatherette CD carrier on you dining table.) It may be possible to remove it with some kind of degreaser. Or sandpaper. I suspect it’ll cause problems when finishing; nothing will ever really stick to that spot.

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Thought I’d done this

While it’s definitely easier and faster to post photos to Instagram, for some reason it doesn’t automatically generate a complete blog post here simultaneously. Possibly because WordPress is a completely separate entity. So you’ll have to pay attention to two different locations to get a more complete picture of what’s going on. I’m sure you can handle it.

Enough of that. You’ll have seen this first photo already, I suspect.

Bass body in a vise, after rasping most of the edges.

Update time, I guess

Not as much progress over the holidays as I’d like, but that’s what happens around this time of year. All the help migrates south for the winter.

At least the first two photos have already been posted to Instagram and Facebook, so unless you’re interested in reading about the details, you can skip this post. Both of you.

Fancy-schmancy flush-fit control cavity cover.

This bit didn’t come out quite as nicely as I’d have liked.

Still progressing

Haven’t posted anything recently, but I have been working – albeit slowly – on this neck. Clickitinate to embiggenify.

The headstock-to-neck area gave me some problems. Partly caused by not being able to plane the headstock to an even thickness using the Saf-T-Planer; my drill press really isn’t big enough to handle this piece.

Rough shaped neck

Since the nut end was more-or-less the right profile, I worked on the body end.

Inefficient?

There is probably a better way to do this.

I think the real solution is to not use maple for necks. I can tough it out for one custom neck, I guess.

Some small progress

A tiny tiny amount of work on the bass neck. Maple is a lot harder to carve than mahogany. And of course, the real job has forced a temporary relocation of the entire workforce (well, at least all that can be trusted with sharp tools.) So nothing is likely to happen for a while yet.

Harvey don’t uke

That’ll buff right out.

Stuff to Make Stuff

Stuff that gets used to make other stuff is some of the best stuff to make.

If anyone is paying attention, you’ll notice that this is a different location than the previous photos. That’s because we moved the entire Slumco operation to a new facility.

As a result, we haven’t done anything productive at all. Other than this bench, of course. Nothing fancy  – pine two-by-fours, a sheet of MDF, some oak for trim. Held together with pocket screws. A couple of coats of clear polyurethane on the top.

There will be a cabinet unit underneath with drawers, but this is enough to work with for now.

Geometry FTW

I was concerned about blowing out the front of the body while drilling the hole from the control cavity to the neck pickup cavity. Needn’t have worried, because Pythagoras. Below is the destination end.