Official Luthiers Forum!

I realize, since Chris Verhoven was kind enough to point it out, hat nobody cares about my build or me, but I am still planning to forge ahead despite that fact and despite the fact that nobody will look at this thread, comment, or notice at all. Frankly, I get a kick out of seeing my words online.
To kick things off, I have the extra sides from a $70 koa purchase I made online a few months back. I think it is only going to take two of them to make this thing. I am not sure how to value them since I got 4 full sets of wood from the block I bought, plus three extra sides. I swear I had another set around here, but I can't find it. Anyway, I also have a free piece of mahogany brace wood I was given. The piece of a neck you see is the cut off portion of a cedar neck I am working on. Since this piece was eventually going to be scrap, or maybe kerfed linings, I could consider it free, but I will leave that up to the others in the challenge (even though nobody is going to look at this thread or, if they accidentally find themselves here, they certainly wont care) I intend to keep the wood portion of this as cheap as possible so I can splurge on nicer tuners. I bought a mold well over a year ago with the intention of making this uke, but never got around to it. That is part of the reason I decided to get involved in this challenge. Motivation. Here is a pic (that nobody is going to care about) of the wood I have put together so far:




Costs:
Koa billet=$70. Divided by the 21 slices it yielded comes to $3.33 per slice, times the three slices I intend to use, is $9.99
Free neck blank = $0.00
scrap for bracing = $0.00
I should be able to get the neck and tail blocks out of the neck blank, so $0.00
Free cherry from a former friend for fret board = $0.00
Fret wire: I bought a pound from Stew Mac so lets just use their price for the same wire by the foot, Part #0152 $3.47
Tuners: yet.
Binding, purfling, rosette, to be decided, but I do have a wenge practice side I got for free from a member of another forum that would probably work for all of that except the rosette which will be decided later on.
Finish will be a brushed lacquer. Probably a pint of the Deft I have around already, so 8 pints in a gallon, $60 for the gallon, and I get $7.50 for finishing.
My total so far is : $20.96
It wont stay that low, but it probably wont go too high. This uke is a gift so it has to look good and play well when it is done but I don't want it to cost me too much. Plus, it would be great to win that Damascus chisel! A boy can dream, can't he?

That's all for now. I need to get working on finding some free blueprints to work from. Or pics. That will work too.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Looking forward to seeing it built.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

If you need any tips, review my "why would any one care about that boring thing" uke from the last challenge, yet for some reason I'm in again, and confident that I can do something even less interesting than the last one.
Rob in NJ, (the is almost worth the trip)

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http://shastaguitar.com/
http://www.kalimbakit.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/comfyfootgr ... ature=mhee
http://www.facebook.com/robert.renick.7

I stll have several sets of " Nada " that didnt sell on classifieds , you want a set for that Uke ?

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The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

I meant to click on Filippo's thread and accidentally hit this link, fell asleep and drooled all over my keyboard. I tried to read it but succumbed to the apathy by the second sentence.

Seriously, I look forward to watching this one unfold.

edit: mispelled Filippo's name (sorry Filippo. . .).

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I'm going to be watchign this thread. I appricate the honest classification of your friend's status. I'm sure there is a backstory here that will unroll as the build continues.

If not you can (and I'm sure you will) just make one up.

Mr. Morelli,
You of all people should be aware of the scope of the Costa Guitars operation. The Costa Guitars production facility is so large that within the confines of our city-sized building, there is a China Town section. Just like most other major American cities. This ukulele will be produced in that section of the facility. It has been alleged that in our China town, underage children are being employed to make our low end guitars and ukes. This is totally true. It has been determined that the only way Americans can beat the Chinese, is with more Chinese people! Rest assured though, that I will be making this ukulele myself, and despite the low cost of the materials, I would put it up for sale for $99,999.99. Why not $100,000.00 you ask? Because 8 signifies good fortune in China so I have priced it using 9s which are one better than 8s. Just doing my part to keep America one better than China so we can win.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

The guy would not leggo my eggo so I punched him in his junk. Why a punch and not a kick? Its more humiliating in my opinion. Plus, I was sitting and he was standing. He thought he was in a position of power since he was above me, but as soon as I connected, he was laying on the floor, sans eggo waffle, holding his crotch. I, on the other hand, was enjoying an eggo waffle, comfortably seated in my chair.
The true story is not nearly as exciting. He was one of those people who gets offended by pretty much anything and one day, he got offended by something I did. Since I had no idea what I had done, I could not "apologize" and thus, we no longer speak. No great loss since I only knew him for a short time before the big falling out. It wasn't like a life long friend or anything.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

At Costa Guitars, we charge for that.

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Gonna bend sides!!

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Got my sides bent. I didn't want to make a bending form and I had this mold from a while back, so I got my bending blanking and used the mold as my form. Worked well enough. Here are the pics:


One down, one to go!


Done!!


Next up, finding or making some linings and blocks. But for now, it is off to bed.

Tony

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

I cut a neck and tail block tonight and the glue is drying on the neck block right now.







Might get the tail block in tonight too if I stay up late enough.

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

...


but after reading this - I look forward to seeing you fail to finish this off..... the chisel is mine !!

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

I will finish but I don't know if it will be prize worthy. Nevertheless, I hope you fail too!!

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Got my blocks glued in so I flattened the top and back edges of the rim:



Then I took the remainder of the guitar side I had cut in half to make the uke sides and its bookmatched piece and jointed and glued them together.




That is where I ended tonight. The back plate is going to be the orphaned back from the koa sets I sold a few months back. That means I will have a one piece back. Not sure if that is good or bad, but that is what it will be.

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Yes. It is a very critical piece of equipment. It also serves as a small step stool, a door stop and a paper weight.

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

There's paint in the can? Huh! I never even looked!

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

You are obviously not utilizing that clamp to it's full potential. The amount of paint in the can is how you adjust the clamping force!

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Newbies !! sheesh Tony, in the pic of the block with the glue before gluing it in you have started the glue at the bottom and zigzag'd it and stopped at the bottom ! EVERYONE knows that its supposed to be start at bottom END at top ! Now your gonna have to tear that block out and start over !!

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Tony, A couple of questions:

What size Uke are you building?

What did you think of bending in the mold rather than building a form? This will be my first time bending, so perhaps I should build a bending form.

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Greg Hatcher
North Carolina

I'm building a concert uke.
Bending in the mold was difficult. I used various rounded objects to push the sides in and still had issues. Next time I'll make a bending form or a bending iron if it's a one off project.

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

In the spirit of explaining how we obtained the wood for this challenge build, I will explain the way I obtained the linings I'm gluing in the pic below:


Some of you may remember a post a couple of months ago from a guy who wanted to give away all of his remaining lutherie tools, wood, etc. His name is Michael and he happens to live in Queens, NY about 20 minutes from me and he and I met in an unlikely way a couple of years ago. Here is how:

I was perusing Craigslist for a used drum sander one day. When you search for "drum sander" in my neck of the woods, you will get many hits for floor sanders among other types of sanding machines. A spindle sander ad caught my eye so I clicked on it. I was about to click off of the ad when way off in the back of the picture I saw what I thought was an Ibex bending iron. Well the possibility of another builder in my area was intriguing, so I emailed the seller asking if he built guitars. He did. He also told me he no longer built them and if I was interested in buying some of his stuff, he would send a pic. A few emails later and a phone call or two and I was driving out to his house to pick through his stuff. He would have given me everything he had that day, but I only had a little over $100 bucks on me since I was only going to pick up a couple of things. I don't remember everything I bought from him that day, but here is what I do recall:
two sets of curly maple bindings from LMII
two sapele back and side sets from LMII
one cedar soundboard from LMII
one SafTPlaner
5 feet of fret wire
a bunch of purfling strips(b/w/b, b/w/b/w/b)
8 sticks of kerfed linings
3 in 1 fret file
Stew Mac Fret saw, miter box and two sided Martin fret scale template

All of that for $120.00. So rather than assign a value to the linings based on what I paid versus what I got that day, and I am certain I am forgetting something, I am just going to use the StewMac price for the linings. I will be using two of the sticks for this so that adds $4.58 to my total and puts me at a grand total of $25.54 so far.

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Virgin Nubian princesses.

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

I stayed up a bit later than planned last night and got the soundboard thicknessed, and profiled. Now I need to figure out how to brace it. Anyone have any tips on bracing patterns and dimensions?
Pics for your viewing pleasure:

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

I am going to buy a bridge and fingerboard blank from Hana Lima for this ukulele. I am also going to buy a pearl rosette for it. Might as well jazz it up a bit.
My new total is:
Previous total: $25.54
adding the following:
Rosette: $11
Bridge: $9.00
Fretboard blank: $9.00

New Total: $54.54


I am going with Bubinga for the bridge and fretboard. I hope it looks good with the koa.

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC