I spent the day working on the tenor ukulele mostly. Yesterday I glued in the ribs for the back using masking tape to position and secure the ribs with clamps as the glue dried, one at a time. That done, today I’m ready to glue the front, so I did, clamped to the flat board with a matching scrap size to hold the neck level and everything lined up to the center line. It’s good, a couple hours dry time.
I worked on the rib layout as the top dried clamped down. I taped out the positions square to the center seam. Once the top was dry I glued in the top ribs to the taped pattern and clamped them in, one at a time with a half hour plus clamped dry time each.
During the dry time I carefully installed wide frets into the bass fret board. Cut square, filed, sanded, gently tapped in straight with the mallet. Then pressed into place with the small arbor press. Snip the excess off with the cutter. Re snip it smooth, file, sand and do it again. I had taped off two frets to remind me not to install them so I can drill alignment pins to keep the fret board from sliding during glue up, a hard lesson learned last build.
I also worked on the bass bridge, marking out the piezo pick up on the bone saddle, then cutting it out using my jewelers saw. I drilled the rosewood bridge with the hand drill to except the piezo jack in place. This will all work fine.
I squared the bass back ribs to the center line and masking taped their positions. I’m not ready to glue them yet as I need to finish fitting the back to the sides with flat sanding. Once it fits I’ll proceed.
With the tenor ribs installed, I fitted the bridge backing plate, cut to fit with the razor saw and sanded to final fit. Masked to position, I glued it in and weighted it in place to dry.
I marked my rune into the back under the sound hole and signed it in pencil, then wrote “With love from Nancy” and dated as requested. The real date is on the top near the neck, hidden needing a mirror. I should have written it backwards, next time. Or I could still erase it and do that before the back gets glued.
Much done, a good day.
8shotoflove8 