Update

Due to some upcoming projects by the Biological Research and Freaks of Nature department, we expect there will be no updates for a few weeks. (Last time they tried something like this — whatever ‘this’ is — we had Animal Control in here for two months trying to get rid of all the frogs.) So here’s a couple of photos to document current progress.

My neck in a vise. (note: get new caption writer.)

Tenor uke neck, in progress, some rough carving done on one side. Hard to see here, but he neck does taper from the 14th fret down to the nut. (when viewed from above.) Nut width is planned to be about 1-7/16″.

D7 ready for paint

The Polar Lights 1/1000 Romulan Battle Cruiser, which also includes alternate parts and decals for a Klingon D7. This will be a Klingon version. Lots of discussion as to what the ‘correct’ colors are. Plan is to use three tones of grey, unless it looks bad, in which case I’ll do something else. The color coat should cover those white specks on top of the hangar bay with no trouble.

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Not gone, just really slow

Starting a tenor, Spanish cedar neck. The plan is to use the Hana Lima ‘Ia plans (since they worked well last time) with a Spanish heel. I have some Engelman spruce for the soundboard, and East Indian rosewood for everything else. But for now, I just have a mess of glue.

Scarf joint ready for smoothing
Heel stack glueup

I thought I had a photo of the scarf joint glueup, but I can’t seem to find it now. It wasn’t important anyway. Scarf joint was cut on the table saw using an angle jig, and smoothed with a block plane. It still needs to be thinned down a little bit.

Baby Steps

Not a lot of progress, what with holidays, vacation, and other projects. Although many are restricted to their homes and not working, I’m still putting in 40 hours a week. It’s just from my dining table instead of an office.

As noted last time, I forgot to leave a way to get the ground wire from the bridge to the control cavity. So here’s that done:

Chunk of pretty wood with some holes in it.

Bass body with new (and improved?) holes.

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Strings

Strung up in the white. This way I can get a rough setup and look for major problems.

Still needs all the wiry stuff.

What lousy photo composition. It’s not something I’m good at. Should have taken it outside, but I want the wood to acclimate to indoor temperature and humidity. (The neck made a nice hygrometer in the garage.)

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