Sharkfin Uke Build – Jiggery-Pokery

Here’s a very quick update on my adventures in making my Sharkfin Ukulele. I’ve been experimenting with a technique for cutting the blank for the body. Today’s post is all about width…

Movember is here again! This year I shall be attempting a “Motorhead”
as chosen by my colleagues at work. Please support Movember and
if you do nothing else this month… go for your yearly checkup!
If you do it, then I promise I will…

Sharkfin Uke Build – Pattern

It’s been a while since I posted any progress on my Sharkfin Ukulele build. That’s because I haven’t done a great deal with it. I’ve been waiting for parts and busying myself in other ways. Now it’s starting to get cold, I’m going to find it increasingly hard to motivate myself. Will this be a mad rush to beat the snow?

Danger! Electric Uke!

When I last posted, I’d knocked together a Mark 1 of the pattern and speculated that the tuning pegs would be key to getting everything sweet. How right I was!

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Sharkfin Uke Build – And we’re off

The second hardest part of any project is starting.

(In case you’re wondering… The hardest part is finishing.)

King Uke’s Sharkfin Ukulele

I’m happy to say that I have now officially started my Sharkfin Ukulele build. Today it was all about wood. I started with a big bit and ended up with two small bits. Here’s how I did it…

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Kingcaster uke build : part 13 – How to finish an electric ukulele build

Hell Yeah!!!

Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m building an electric ukulele… It’s taken a long, long time. All along the way I’ve posted progress updates and shared with you the highs and the lows. Well, I’m coming to the end of my wonderful journey. This won’t be my last post on the subject, but it will probably be the last on the actual build itself. My last series of updates revolved around some frustrations I was having with the paint job and of course I’d forgotten to fit the fret markers! I bet you’re wondering how it all turned out. Read on…

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Kingcaster uke build : part 12 – How to fit fret markers

So I’m building an electric ukulele… and I’m making all sorts of mistakes along the way.

This might have been an interesting fret marker

In my last post I revealed that I had “forgotten” to fit the fret markers – the little dots that are strategically inlayed into the fretboard. I should have done this before I hammered home the fret wire so that I could have sanded and smoothed to perfection without risk of damaging the frets. I didn’t and that’s just the way it is unfortunately. Here’s how I recovered…

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Kingcaster uke build : part 11 – How to paint an electric ukulele – Part 2

It’s going to get worse before it gets better…

I’m not sure that I have the patience to be an expert painter. I’m not sure that I have a gentle enough touch to be an expert painter. In my last post I talked about some of the challenges I’ve been having painting the body of my electric ukulele. I’d had a bit of a nightmare with the undercoat, but things seemed to be looking up. I closed off having applied the red finish and having left the body to hang for 24 hours. Have you been wondering what happened next? Read on…

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Kingcaster uke build : part 10 – How to wire it up (properly)

Earlier this week I heeded Daniel Hulbert’s sage advice and decided to test out the wiring on my electric ukulele build. You will remember that I was being a right smart-arse refusing to test until I’d painted the body. Perhaps it was the paint fumes talking? What would you say if I was to tell you that having tested the bloody thing, that it wasn’t working? Yeah, I know… what are the odds of that!

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Kingcaster uke build : part 09 – How to paint the body – part 1

I’m back with another installment in my story about what it takes to build an electric ukulele. Pretty much all the fiddly stuff is done. In my last update I talked about wiring up the electrics. Daniel Hulbert has suggested that I check that it works before I go too much further. Thanks Daniel… I will do that soon… I promise! Not before I’ve painted the body though! Ha ha! Catch me if you can!

In search of inspiration…

 

I wasn’t looking forwards to the wiring, and I haven’t been looking forwards to the painting. I’ve done a bit of this before and the results were poor. Granted some of this was simply down to a lack of patience but I knew this time that I needed help. I hit Google+ hard and before I knew it the advice was flowing in thick and fast. Many thanks specifically to Gavin Scully and Jonathan Martin for your words of wisdom. I couldn’t have done this without you guys! But before we start high-fiving let me reveal that this hasn’t all gone according to plan. Let me explain…

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