In my last post I described how I put the finishing touches to my electric ukulele body. I also mentioned a few nerves about fitting the frets to the neck. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I’ve been avoiding it, but I’ve certainly been waiting for the right time to do it! Okay, so I’ve been avoiding it. ;-P
I luv ukes… but not so much fitting frets…
It took a supportive push from Gavin MacMillan to make me finally take the plunge. He told me to “man up and get the frets on!” Thank you Gavin. I gone and blinkin’ done it… and here’s how I did it…
Time for an update on the Electric Ukulele Build. In my last post I talked about how I started to make the neck. You will remember that I left you on tenterhooks as I revealed that I’d controversially glued the fretboard to the neck prior to fitting the frets. I still haven’t mustered the courage to fit the frets but this doesn’t mean that I haven’t been busy… a lot’s happened since then. In this post I return to the body to apply some much needed finishing touches.
Ukuleles are already very portable, but the bumps and bruises of travel can wreak havoc on acoustic instruments. I’ve already constructed a few travel ukuleles. The first was a prototype (Home Depot Travel Ukulele). The second ukulele improved upon the first (DIY Travel Ukulele). Both of these solutions only required basic tools along with common parts and wood.
After slowly acquiring more tools and expertise, I wanted to make another travel ukulele. I took the things that I learned from the other builds and implemented them in this travel ukulele.
I started out by sketching out the design on paper. The scale length was 15 inches (concert scale). There were two tuners on each side using a slotted, classical style.
At a specialty hardwood store, I picked up a beautiful 1.5 in X 5 in (3.8 cm X 12.7cm) piece of hard maple.
The outline and interior were cut with a scroll saw. The overall length of the wood is a little over 20 inches. The widest point is 2.5 inches, and it is 1.5 inches thick.
I slotted the frets, rounded over all of the edges except for the fretboard, drilled all of the holes, and spokeshaved the neck until it was comfortable. The entire assembly was then given a few coats of nitrocellulose lacquer. The lacquer finish really brought out the natural beauty of the wood.
After the strings go over the bridge, they need to be directed back towards the tuners. I used a handful of nylon spacers and washers along with some “Chicago bolts” (I also saw them referred to as “barrel nuts”) to direct the strings.
The bridge is a small aluminium tube that was attached to the body with two metal cable clamps.
A rod piezo was inserted into the rod. The wires from the piezo were fed through a small hole drilled into the jack cavity.
This pickup is very responsive. The combination of the lightweight, but rigid, aluminium and the rod piezo work well together.
The piezo wires were soldered directly to a 1/4 inch mono jack.
It’s ready for strings. I decided to use some of D’Addario’s new T2 Titanium acoustic ukulele strings. They are “bright” sounding strings that are working great for this application. In addition, they are transparent with a pleasant purplish tint which add a bit of razzle-dazzle to the end product.
The travel ukulele is complete. With all of the hardware, it is 20.5 inches long, 3 inches wide, and 2 inches thick. I’m very pleased with how it turned out. I set out to make a sturdy and portable ukulele, and I met my goal. Not only is it a legitimate instrument, it could also fend off zombies, or serve as a cricket bat in a pinch.
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Piezo pickups are a great and inexpensive way to “electrify” an instrument, but they don’t have a lot of output. A preamp is normally used to boost the signal to a more usable level.
Instead of installing a preamp on every instrument that I make, I decided to make a pedal.
I used a piezo preamp system that would normally be installed on an acoustic guitar. I also used a heavy duty triple pole double throw(3PDT) stomp switch, an LED, a resistor, a metal enclosure, and an extra mono jack.
The piezo preamp is an inexpensive model that I bought online.
I cut out a hole for the preamp and drilled holes for the jacks and switch. The preamp is now smaller because I trimmed off the 9V battery compartment.
This mess is my prototype to make sure that everything is working properly.
By stepping on the switch, you toggle between the two settings which are as follows:
[Setting 1] LED off. Preamp off. Bypass preamp.
[Setting 2] LED on. Preamp on. Through preamp.
I painted the enclosure with some leftover paint from this project.
I assembled and bench tested it.
It is now the first pedal in my pedal chain.
I wired it so that it would run off of the same 9V daisy chain that my other pedals use. (I try to avoid using batteries whenever I can.)
The preamp pedal is now a worthy, albeit somewhat bulky, addition to my pedal board.
From wood to wood in 167 simple steps – King Uke shows you how!
I haven’t finished it, but I’ve done enough to give you a run down of what I’ve been up to. Tighten your seatbelts, this might just get a little hairy!
Oh yeah… my build has been christened “the Kingcaster”. I kind of like the sound of that!
First you can start by designing your own ukulele using sketchup , for demonstration purposes I used this design instead of a ukulele ( I am using google sketchup pro 8 )
(Some info on the pictures can be helpfull , click them to see them better)
Once you got your ukulele you, look at the top of your screen and try to find “camera” and click it , once you have done that you will see a V next to “perspective” you would have to change that to “parallel mode”
Once you have done that, return to “camera” and click ”standard views” and choose the view you would like to have printed ( top view, side view, bottom view….)
Next go to ”file” also on the top of the screen and click print .. this should appear.
Now look for the section “printing format” and you will see that “made to fit page” is on, and turn that off and on the right you see a “scales” section and you want to set “in sketchup” and “in print” both on 1 this way you will get a 1:1 scale
Then all there is left for is to hit ok and you will end up with something looking like this …… with this method you can get pretty accurate ukulele body and neck templates .
The body is made of ash. The neck was made with three pieces of maple. The headstock was scarf jointed to the neck and the fretboard was glued to the top. I got the specialized tuners and nut from https://www.largesound.com/buy/. They provide replacement parts for Ashbory Basses. The bridge is a knockoff “Hipshot A Style” bridge. This type of bridge allows for the mounting of the thick “Road Toad” strings.
I sealed and primed the body. I drilled a larger hole by the the bridge to allow a rod piezo pickup to be mounted by the back of the bridge.
With a drill and a chisel, I hollowed out a cavity for a 9V battery holder. This bass ukulele will have an active pre-amp to boost the low output of the piezo rod.
The neck was given a nitrocellulose lacquer finish after side markers were installed.
Next, the body will be given a beautiful orange finish. Once the color and clear coats have cured, it’ll get a good buffing and polish. Finally, my favorite steps will arrive. That is assembling and playing the instrument. There is something almost magical about the first tune on a brand new instrument.
After waiting for the clear coat to cure, the time came to wet sand, apply the polishing compound, and polish the body. I used 1000 grit sandpaper to wet sand the body. I then used a rag to apply “fine” and then “swirl remover” polishing compound to the finish. “Meguiar’s Mirror Glaze #7” is what I used to give the body a final polish. It’s a car glaze, but I’ve seen it mentioned on a lot of guitar forums as a guitar polish. It’s worked well so far.
I tweaked a few things to adjust for the higher frequencies of a electric ukulele. 250K ohm potentiometers were used instead of the 500K ones. A 0.020 microfarad capacitor was used instead of the .047 microfarad one. In addition, a 0.001 microfarad capactor was added between the center and right lugs. (Okay, so I “tweaked” everything.)
Now, the Telecaster Ukulele is ready to assemble and then play! In this video, I give a demonstration of the uke in action, and show it being assembled in real time (I work fast).
It’s been fun making this ukulele and sharing the details. It was a lot of work, but now I have a custom instrument that plays beautifully and looks great.
I’m building an Electric Ukulele and I promised to keep you up-to-date with progress. Today’s post covers the work I’ve done to create a pattern for my build.
