What is it?

March 19, 2011

Rachel returned from China/India Tuesday and she brought me a present.

110319chinainstrument_0

She’s not sure what it’s called, so what’s it called?  I need to restring, and I’m not sure what the bridge orientation should be.

Today I added more lacquer coats to the koa dreadnought (6 of 12) and the uke (9 of 12).  The uke is a disaster.  It became dislodged from the spray booth bracket and fell to the cement causing a reasonable amount of damage, including pebbles throughout the wet lacquer coat, a chip out of the headstock, and a segment of binding with road rash.  Oh well, file it down, keep going.  Thank god this is just a “test uke”.  I’m sure it will sound lovely, but it will look like shit.

I’m also refinishing a headstock on an eBay purchased Fender koa uke.

110319fenderhead

I have some aerosol nitrocellulose that I am using to refinish this headstock.  It’s got 4 coats now, and I’ll probably go as far as 10.

I devised a little jig for drilling holes in my uke bridges.  I’m going to use bridge pins with strings secured inside the body with bone beads.  I’ll get a picture up later of the string beads.

110319bridgejig

Uke Bender In Action

February 18, 2011

The cutaway ram has been installed on the new uke side bender, and I’m ready to test some bending.

110218benderwithram

I have koa sides which I errantly tried to bend in the full sized bender, which cracked and burned and did not accept a full bend which I will run through this new bender to check.

110218firstbend

I will test some new theories, practice the steps, make amends, then check the results before bending some virgin side plates.

110218lastbend

After the initial bending, I will let cool, then reheat again, then let cool before releasing from the mold.

Uke Side Bender

February 13, 2011

Finished the side bender for uke sides.  Awaiting the delivery of the cutaway ram, which will be used to clamp down the waist.

110213ukesidebender

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