Thread: Pallet UKE

As promised some observations from the recent competition build. The pallet came from underneath our new dishwasher,

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I was concerned that there wasnt that much timber and any big mistakes would put an end to the folly. But it was Swedish, there was pine for the top and Spruce for the runners so with dreams of serenading Agnetha with "Fernando" I proceeded anyway.

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The spruce was heading towards quartersawn, kinda..., cool, the neck.

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Now the resawing, and resawing, and resawing....

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The knots looked promising so I thought a couple of dimples would be fun, actually it was all going really well. Except for the soundhole carving, after it chipped out for the third time I relented and rilled out a circle. Besides the splintering this stuff was easy to work. I made kerfed linings and bindings as well (I am never paying for linings again ). I dyed the bindings black.

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Than came the first major "learning experience" - bending the sides. A bit like some of the nordic folk I know this stuff did not want to be shaped. It took three goes at it. The stuff had the most amazing springback, it was really tough. I glued one set in and came back in the morning to find the bottom at the right shape and the sides flaring out at least 1 cm. Sorry, I thought I had photos but I cant find any. Suffice to say that the sides are not even as I had to cobble together two non matching pieces. Material was getting short, time was getting short. I was going to pull the pin in frustration but my sweetie talked me into continuing. I made some frets out of toothpicks and nuts out of the dwindling scrap pile.

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A few coats of Feast and Watson Jarrah and walnut stains, some clear satin and it was done. The tuners were $5.87 off Ebay, (couldnt believe that bit).

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The other major disaster cam when I first strung it up. I used Flourocarbon leaders for strings as per recommendations from a Classical Guitar forum. I came back in the morning to find the bridge had popped off and ended up in the cat scratching post. OK, too much tension, should have used Nylguts but damn it I had come too far to admit defeat. Beefed up "Mother of All Bridges" with a half a litre of epoxy and it was finally attached. No problems. It played OK although the intonation was a bit out. I have since replaced the fretboard and it is mostly in tune. I need to mess with the string gauges to get it going really well. I could also just move on

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All in all a fun build. There were a whole lot of firsts for me in this one, first Uke, first neck dovetail, first fishing line strings, first ebay tuners etc. It gave me the confidence to make linings and bindings and reinforced the usefulness of molds. I have so far never built with a mold, maybe next build, maybe. I dont think they would have worked for this Pine but it would be worth another look, maybe.

Thanks to Christos for putting the challenge together, the forum heavies for getting behind it and for everyone else who participated. Lets do it again sometime.