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Hi everyone,

This is my first post here, and I just finished making my first ukulele, so please forgive me if I don't have my terminology down, or am missing something obvious.

As I tuned my first ukulele, I found that each fret was slightly sharp. Each fret for the most part was sharp by about the same amount, according to my electric tuner. I'm not sure what I did to make it this way. I got my fret measurements from the StewMac website, and remeasured everything after all was said and done, and no fret is off by more than 0.5mm. The StewMac website said that nut and bridge height could cause things to happen, and my bridge may be slightly high. Other than that, I'm at a bit of a loss to explain why I'm off a bit on every fret, but since I'm off by roughly the same amount on each fret, maybe my ukulele is salvageable? I'd hate to have to scrap it!

Also, the thing won't stay in tune to save it's life. I leave it overnight, and all the strings are flat. Is this normal for a new instrument?

Thanks for your help, and please let me know if there's any other information I could provide that can help in my diagnostic.

check your intonation.
use better machine heads.

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bridge is probably too close to the nut

I can't offer too much help, but as far as the strings all being flat in the morning - the strings will continue to stretch for quite awhile. So what you report is not unusual.

Is it a Nylon string uke. Nylon strings take at lease 3 days before you should try to intonate. They take a bit longer before they stay in tune. ... Then you need to change them as they stretched too far and lost their tone.

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Did you build compensation into the scale?

Yes, it takes a few days for the strings to stabilize.

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Pat

You can help the tuning by pulling on the strings to make sure the knots are tight and the wraps around the tuning posts are set. But yeah....it takes a while for uke strings to settle
For the intonation; does it get sharper as you go up the neck? 12th fret is much more sharp than the 1st? That would be a compensation problem at the saddle. You'll probably have to move the bridge.
If its equally sharp everywhere, then you probably got the 1st fret too close to the nut. Or maybe the nut is loose and leaning forward some. You could try making a new nut that has the break point farther back. Or thin the nut and put a shim between the fret board end and the nut, keeping the shim below the strings.

What Quine said.
What is the distance between the fret-top and the string bottom at the twelfth fret?

How much sharp is it?

bob

I was just about to say what Quine said. Check the spacing from the nut to first fret. Also make sure the action at the nut is not really high. If you capo the first fret, do all the other frets play in tune relative to the "open" notes on the first fret? If we can confirm that it is the nut location that is the problem, there a a few things you can do to fix it depending on how far off it is.

If it gets sharper up the neck then look to adding compensation to the saddle location but first get teh nut action and saddle height sorted out.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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