I had a good weekend, much done. Cooking took a back burner as I have so much. I did make egg salad as I have a dozen, one munched, five salad, good stuff, lunch and breakfast with more. I tried a small loaf of bread, just water, yeast, salt and flour. It turned out OK but the crust was really hard, need to work on that, more moisture while baking or something, research.
I worked a bit on the ukulele, fastened all the kerfing to the sides mounted in the mold with clothespins. The mold is a perfect fit for the kerfing by luck, both sides fit flush as long as the first side was tapped flush with a light mallet.
I had a few areas not stuck in the lower bouts, but it will work. Removing the second side I split it a little, damn. This morning I checked it in better light. An easy fix with a light glue and clamping in the parallel wood clamp fixed it, lightly sanded when dry.
My coworker Bob asked for a short spar resembling a yard arm on a long ship so he could practice the knots needed to secure the rigging above. Yesterday I used a piece of cedar given in the boat yard, appropriate. Cut square 18″ long, eyeballed 45 degree cuts made it fairly even octagonal. I used the lapidary to grind 16 faces, then trimmed it with a spoke shave to mostly round. Lap the ends then hand sanded to smooth. Today I made the iron rod that holds the sail using my oxy-acetylene torch, the vice, hammer and a pair of pliers.
I cooked up to boiling all the really good stuff I made last week to keep it fresh, bean with bacon soup and chicken bone veggie soup. Greg gave us a big container of pea soup his wife made nobody ate. I tried it, oh my God, this stuff is great, loaded with ham, potatoes and carrots, two helpings. I re cooked it up too and put it in a smaller container, washed hers.
I have to install the gate next weekend at Mira’s. I bought new carriage bolts, nuts and washers. I sanded the top of the gate with the belt sander, evening it out and beveling the edges. It’s ready to install with the hinge plates. I laid out the hinge plates, bolts, nuts and washers on newspaper and spray painted them black. They looked good before the rain hit. They dried well enough, be fine.
Laundry done. It’s raining hard, postpone taking in the basket until it lets up.
I tried laying out the uke on the jig, but I’m having trouble getting the base plate to line up. Finally I decided to just glue the base first, then attach the neck. I filed the edges more square and glued it up. Cleaned the glue up with a damp paper towel. It’s coming along nicely.
I’ll need to sand the sides even and flat as one side is a bit wider, and glue the formed sides to the neck. Next up front with bridge backing and ribs. Then the ribbed back. The fret board will need to be modified to fit and a back heel added to cover the neck. Then some. But it’s coming together nicely.
8shotoflove8 