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.
Pretend you can’t see the cavity for the electrics in the picture above. I didn’t do that next. What I did next was to attach the neck to the body. I wanted a square plate, but couldn’t find any made specifically for the purpose that would fit. Instead I repurposed a flat Les Paul jack plate. See the hole in the centre for the jack. I milled the screw holes wider and fitted it with the shortest guitar Strat screws I could find. FYI, other homeuke-builders like Daniel Hulbert are using oval guitar jack sockets to fit smaller scale electric uke necks. |
From day one I had always intended to use a forstner drill bit to help with cutting the cavity for the electrics. My pal Eric Vossbrink at New Wave Ukulele warned me against cutting corners. I explained that the cavity was going to be under the pick guard. Who was going to know? Eric’s wise words were: “That which is hidden will always be made known.” And he’s right, but I still went ahead and did it. Sorry Eric. I have tried to get the cleanest finish I can, but you can see here the tell-tale centre-holes left by the bit. I’ve since filled these. The forstner was used to cut holes at key points and I used a chisel to do the rest. If you look really closely you can see the hole that leads to the end pin. Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together! |
You will remember that I was lucky enough to be given a Strat-style bridge custom made for a ukulele by Julian Davies. In hindsight, this was probably the best thing that could have happened to me in terms of getting this build right. I’ve been using it to help me to get my measurements correct. It’s been a good baseline. One thing that puzzled me for a long time was how I was meant to fit the strings. Thankfully Daniel Hulbert came to the rescue! He revealed to me the existence of ‘ferrules’. Twelve are pictured in the picture – but I’ll only be using four. They will fit into the back of the body and this is where the strings will be threaded through from the back up out of the holes in the bridge and up to the neck. I found getting these holes right really difficult. I marked the holes on the front and drilled through to the back. Even though I used my drill stand, they didn’t go through straight. It’s hard to tell in the photo, but I widened the holes at the back to allow the ferrules to fit and this allowed me a chance to correct some of the alignment problems, but you can see that I didn’t get it 100% right. The holes in the middle of the picture are of the front and the top right shows the back. |
And here’s where I’m up to at the moment. The neck is screwed in place, along with the bridge. You see that the pick guard still fits! Yep, that’s me measuring twice again! |
I’m almost there now with the body. Next I’ll be painting it, but not before I’ve got the neck sorted. I’ve been busy here also, but I’ll save this for my next post. I still haven’t plucked up the courage to fit the frets… I’m getting closer by the day…
You do fine work. It is coming together nicely.
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