​JulesStuff
How I Made It
This is a brief look at how i made the split body/neck ukulele
This concept is made from a single piece of wood 50mmx50mm, in this case cherry.
It is cut in this way to allow the neck to flow in one piece into the body. The first cuts with a circular bench saw allow for the top (sound board) and back, and then the two 5mm side slats are made by cutting a section out of the middle (again with a circular bench saw). That section is then used for the end piece.
I drew the neck and head shape on the wood and very carefully cut this out with a bandsaw. This is then chiselled, shaved, and sanded with the neck routed round.
Using a jig the side slats are prized open carefully so as not to split the wood. The end block (that was cut out earlier) is glued in. The end block here is shaped first, but it didn't matter as I could have done it later.
the iroko sound board and back are cut and planed a little bigger and thicker so as to allow for shaping later.
You can see the hole for the jack socket in the picture above. This was done before gluing the end piece on. The pickup is glued to the top sound board first before the two are glued to the body. As this was a first trial ukulele a clamping jig was not made.
After 12 hours of letting the Titebond 3 glue set I routed the overlap waste off and shaved the top and back to the correct thickness, in this case with a slight curve. The edge was routered round.
After this, the fret board is glued on and in this case the frets are added later. I used a free online fet calculater to get them in the exact position.
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The whole uki is then sanded and finished with 7 layers of pvc spray varnish. The fretboard was masked and later oiled.
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I made the metal end piece that holds the strings from a piece of metal that is polished then blued over a flame. The nut is from sustainable antler horn and the bridge from she oak. The jack plug is fitted and soldered to the pickup before stringing up
