Do not fear the Router!

Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m currently making an Electric Ukulele. In this post I’m finally talking about shaping the neck. Previously I’ve dreamt, worried, planned, got sidetracked, annoyed, designed and shaped the body. I also took the time to record a Flight of the Conchords song… but that’s something else entirely.

You may recall that this particular part of the build is the bit that was giving me nightmares. And to be honest… it still is! But I am pleased to say that I am making progress and I haven’t made any mistakes so far that have been fatal (that I know of). Let’s begin..

Here’s what I started out with… some dusty old maple blocks.  I had a lot of problems sourcing maple. There was a point where I was going to get some shipped over from the  US, but I persevered and finally came across this bundle. By my reckoning I’ve got enough left over to make about 600 necks!

.

I took my mdf template, traced an outline on the block and cut close, but not up to the line with my jig saw. I did this on purpose knowing full well that the jig saw wouldn’t cut perpendicular. The only thing I discovered here was how hard maple is! I had to fight the jig round and was reminded of how out of shape I am… very out of shape…

The block was way too thick for what I needed so I took a rusty old saw to it to take off as much as I dared. That took a while! Then using a rasp I brought it down to the depth I was looking for. All this was done by hand and whilst hard work, I enjoyed myself doing it. I guess I needed time to steel myself for picking up the router again, but don’t worry, I’ll be talking about that soon.

Here’s a picture of the unfinished neck squeezed into the body. Whilst there is science behind my design regarding the dimensions, I’m finding that I’m measuring twice and double-checking that things are going the way I want them. I’m trying to stick as closely to my original plan as I can, but I remain very wary of the King Uke-factor creeping in…

Check out the jig I’ve set up here to allow me to mill the neck flat on the back and the head flat on the front. I did this using my router and a wide flat-bottomed straight plunge bit. The tricks here were to ensure that the base of the jig was as flat as I could get it and that the jig ‘walls’ were straight and close enough together such that the router didn’t fall off it. Yeah, you guessed it, my router fell off. Everything’s fine here… move along… move along…

I shaped the neck using various rasps and files. The profile dimensions are close those of my Arbor Strat but I have allowed myself to tweak this to try and get a good shape for my hand. I like to use my thumb to fret the top string, so I was keen to make sure that the neck would allow me to do this, but to be fair, it mainly boiled down to simply making sure that I didn’t make the neck too deep.

Here’s an fantastic lesson I learnt. See the scratches in the wood above. I’d got the point where I was wondering if I’d ever get rid of them; Everything I did seemed to introduce more. Luckily for me, Eric at New Wave Ukulele was on hand with some expert guidance. His advice was to “take a piece of cloth backed 60 grit and make a 2 inch wide strip. then sand it as if you were polishing a shoe… if you have ever polished a shoe before. work your way thru 60-80-100-120-150 at 120 start sanding with the grain rather than across… then and only then will you remove the marks from your rasp.” I followed Eric’s advice almost to the T and it works! Thank you Eric!

At the same time as working on the neck I was also worrying about the fretboard. My concerns here weren’t just about shaping it, but more whether  I wanted a fretboard as dark as this. I’ve taken the plunge and committed. We shall see! Using similar techniques to the main neck, I cut this to size and milled flat. The difference here was that I flattened one side by hand first before milling the other. This blank is ebony and I really wasn’t sure how easy it was going to be to shape. Actually, although a hard wood, this was easy to route. I think the problem I’m going to have with this wood is that it is prone to chipping and I’m pretty ham-fisted.

This is slightly out of chronological order, but here you can see the rough cut fretboard placed on top of the neck. I still haven’t worked the surface but I’m expecting to smooth and round ever so slightly before fitting frets. I’m having nightmares about frets at the moment! A problem for another day!

I finish with a bit of controversy. The question is: do you fit the frets before gluing the fretboard to the neck or afterwards? The jury is hung. I can see the pros and cons to both approaches and on balance for this build I’ve elected to glue the fretboard first. The main reason for this is that I’m not confident that I’m skillful enough to shape them independently and for it to come together seamlessly. Also, since I’ve made the neck head the same depth as the heel I figure that it will be no harder to work on the fretboard glued as it would be unglued. One thing’s for sure – I’m going to find out the hard way!

And that’s it for the moment. I should be able to remove the clamps today and figure out my next steps. I have been working on the body some more, but I’m waiting for the pots to arrive from Hong Kong before I commit to cutting the cavity. Expect another post on the body. And of course there is the horror of fitting the frets to come. I am sooooo not looking forward to this bit. Expect a part 2 neck post to cover that. How fun is this!

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!

The first step was to take some standard printer paper and trace the outline of my master pattern. I discovered that the cheapo paper I’ve got is thin enough to see through. As an aside: You will remember that I drew my pattern on a roll of wallpaper backing paper. I’ve found myself referring back to it a lot throughout the build, carrying it around with me rolled up under my arm. At times I’ve felt like Christopher Columbus searching out new lands. It’s great!

My intention all along was to use my new router to cut the body. So here you see me cutting patterns for the neck and body. I’ve been stupid and simply glued the paper (backwards) to the 6mm MDF with Pritt Stick.

Here are the finished templates. I cut them out with my jig saw and only a little touching up needed with a file. The MDF was easy to cut. The hard bits were the indents for the arms.

I picked a block of Poplar for this project. The blank I bought was for a guitar and twice as big as I needed. I asked them to plane it to 4cm thickness. There was no real science behind deciding the depth. I just kept referring back to by guitar and listened to some advice from Daniel Hulbert who’s been through this a few more times than me. My considerations here were to have it thick enough that I could fit guitar electrics inside and I also wanted to have a strong neck join. So far, it is feeling right.

Next I screwed the template in place and began to teach myself how to route. Yes, I know that I should have done some practicing beforehand but I am way too impatient for that! I’ve discovered that I’m rubbish at routing! I knew full well that I didn’t have the right router bits to do the body properly, but I started anyway. I’m not proud of this, but I did a really dirty hack here that I’m not recommending to anyone. My bit was only 2cm long, so could only cut half the body depth. Having routed one side, I flipped the body over, attached the template on the back and did the same again. The hope was that I could get it all to line up, which of course it didn’t! Saying all that, I was very close! As far as routing itself went, I made all the classic mistakes and invented a few of my own!

Here’s the filed body. Check out all the little dinks and burn marks from poor routing. I’ve since filled the holes.

I had planned to do the edge rounding with the router, but to be honest, I was starting to lose faith that I’d get it right. The clincher however, was the realisation that the round-over bit I had was too big; It’s going to be a tight fit for the fingerboard. I ended up hand-filing the round over and I enjoyed this a whole lot more.

Having  rounded the body and finished a 7 hour stint of ‘building’ I collapsed in my chair and posted some pictures up on G+. One of the first questions I got was along the lines of “where are the contours?” I’d always intended to put them in, but in my tired addled state I was beginning to convince myself that I didn’t need them. It took some straight talking from Eric Vossbrink at New Wave Ukulele to snap me out of it. Thank you Eric for keeping me on the straight and narrow! His lesson is simple: pay attention to the details! I’m finding that Eric is a man who’s opinions are worth listening to! And I know that my technique has Eric shaking his head, but I am listening master! Ha ha! rub on… rub off… In this picture you can see the arm contour. The contouring I’m going for here is more of a 50s Strat style.

And here you see the tummy contour. All of the contouring was done by hand starting with a rasp and then finishing with a bastard file. (I just had to get that in somehow).

Next I started thinking about cutting the neck join and a cavity for the electrics. But ever one to divert myself I took a moment to cut a template for the fingerboard. I was keen to check that everything was where it was meant to be… and it is! Looking good!

I hate routers! I made a real hash of cutting the neck ‘hole’. For some reason it’s come out a little wider and longer than I measured it to be. We’re only talking fractions here, but it’s pissing me off! Don’t worry – I can fix. The cavity for the electrics is next on my radar.

And that’s it for now. I’m close to having the body done and ready for sanding. Looking ahead, I’ve got the neck to make. This is really, really scaring me. Right now, I’m not sure how I’m going to get through this. Wish me luck!

(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.

I used this wiring diagram as a base:  One pickup, one volume, one tone.

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.

A first-stab at an electric ukulele pattern

I’ve been around the block enough times to know that planning is everything. This isn’t one of those projects where I can just jump in and things will be okay. I need to measure twice and cut once. Many, many years ago I had a job as a brickie’s labourer. My mentor, a mad Latvian with huge bottle-end glasses, had a favourite saying that he banged into my skull… “first we think!”

Well Master… I’m thinking!

The most important piece of kit for this phase of the project… the metal rule

It became clear pretty early on that the first thing I needed to do was to decide on the scale length for my Ukulele. The scale length measures the distance between the nut and the bridge. Here’s a table giving you a feel for the main Ukulele scale lengths. I decided a long time ago that I wanted to make a Tenor.

Once you know the scale length, the rest is pretty straightforward. I’ve decided in the end to go with a fairly standard strat shape for this project. I’m using one of my favourite guitar’s as the basis (one that I talked about some time back when I restored it and turned it gold). This guitar is simply a dream to play! But more importantly it’s something that I have to hand to help me to figure out measurements.

The base for my electric uke build An 80s Arbor Series Hohner Strat

As a starting point I measured the scale length of the guitar. Then knowing the scale length I was aiming for I was able to figure out the ratio I would need to apply to convert a guitar measurement into a ukulele measurement. That was enough to get me to my first draft pattern. Just out of interest, the Tenor Uke I’m making is approximately 68% of the size of my guitar, so all the measurements of the uke started out as being 68% of the equivalent guitar measurement. Does that make sense?

At this stage of my planning I was very much focused on getting the length dimensions right. It’s important here to get the frets figured out. I let somebody else do the hard work for me. There are tools all over the place for doing this. My favourite is the Electric Ukulele Land one

The Electric Ukulele Land Fret Calculator

I quickly went on to sketch out the body and this really hasn’t changed much as I’ve gone back to refine the pattern. All of this has been drawn out on a length of blank backing wallpaper I had knocking around.

It was here that I started to tackle some of the real estate problems associated with building a smaller instrument. My intention all along has been to use guitar parts in this build. They don’t all fit nicely in a Tenor sized uke. Here are some of the compromises I made to make this work for me:

I decided not to go for the classic strat jack socket. I hunted high and low for smaller versions, but came up a blank. The compromise is a combined end-pin/jack pictured above which I’m intending to feed through the body under the bridge. If I can pull this off then I’m thinking that this is one of my better ideas!

I pondered the pickups for a long time. I really didn’t have room to squeeze in a guitar pickup in the standard position. My eureka moment came when I realised that I typically play my guitar using the back pickup. This is naturally placed at an angle to the strings. I decided to simply fit this pickup as close to the guitar position and angle as possible. The single pickup means I only need one tone knob which helps. I’ve ordered a rail humbucker that is the size of a typical strat pickup. I’m hoping that this will look better with the four strings and potentially give it a bit more punch!

I got lucky with the bridge. A great man by the name of Julian Davies was kind enough to donate me a custom-made uke bridge! Fantastic! Thanks Jules!

This allowed me to do phase two of sketching out my pattern. Where phase one was all about length, phase two was all about width.

I started with the bridge and figured out the offset of the two outside strings in relation to the centre-line. I then figured out the offset I wanted at the nut by referring to some of my ukes. Using this I was able to sketch out the neck shape. This makes the neck slightly thinner than it might have been if I’d simply scaled down the guitar dimensions.

Having figured out where the strings are going to be, I was then able to figure out where I wanted the tuners to be.

And that’s it for now.

You’ll have noticed that I haven’t talked about the depth of the instrument. I have figured this out to allow me to order the wood, but I’ll tell you more about that another time.

ROCK AND ROLL!!!!

For my ukulele, I used an ammo box that I purchased at an army surplus store.  This same kind of thing could be done with any type of sturdy wood, metal, or plastic box.

The neck was made with two pieces of mahogany scarf jointed together. Less expensive and more readily available wood could also be used.  In fact, other types of wood would probably be more congruent with the “DIY spirit”.

In keeping with the ammunition theme, many of the hardware appointments were made with spent bullet shells.  One the most difficult parts of this build was cutting a hole in the thick metal box for the single coil pickup.  I used a hacksaw blade and a file to do this.  A jig saw would have been much easier.

The bridge was made with a 30.06 shell.  A shotgun shell top serves as the volume knob.

The wiring schematic is pretty basic:  One pickup, One volume schematic

Spent .22 shells serve as fret markers.

Here is a demo of it in action!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJwUR12x1Ig

So … this video is a mild parody of what it would be like if google put adverts in ‘google glass’. You will note that ‘Electric ukulele land’ turns up in the google+ search around about the 0:36 mark in this video.

You may also note that 521,062 (at the time of writing) people have watched this video!!

(thanks rebelliouspixels)

Find out more on the Events page