Itās been a hot minute since Iāve done anything substantial on these instruments.
Today I FINALLY made it to the community woodshop to use the lathe and I was able to drill out the 4 knobs I need. I have a 5th partially drilled out, but the lathe at the woodshop is too big for me to go any farther. So now I can get to work getting those ready for the resin & turquoise tops.
Iām also dropping off both necks with the pyrographer on Wednesday for her to dress them up pretty. Iām really excited to see how those turn out. Iām hoping for spectacular.
I will be out of town this weekend so I probably wonāt get a whole lot more done on the knobs until next week. Iām getting closer and closer to wood finishing time. I probably ought to drill out the body for the wire channels and the jacks before I do much more sanding. That way if I scratch them, there wonāt be too much additional sanding to get those scratches out.
Still rattling around ideas about how Iām going to ground all 4 individual bridge pieces on the uke WITHOUT it looking like garbage. I have some ideas and so far the only one that keeps things visually clean involves being really precise with a long drill bit to get ground wires from the pickup cavity to the screw holes for each bridge piece. I just donāt fancy my chances at being that precise.
Iāve been spending a lot of time doing fiddly work trying to get the wooden bits of the knobs down as perfect as I can possibly get them. So Today was the day I finally did my resin pours for the knob tops.
Of course they donāt look like much right now. All the turquoise chips settled so thereās just this hazy-looking bluish-colored resin on top (the stone chips were a bit dusty). Iāll be taking most of that plain resin off when I sand them down to a consistent size/shape.
Would be a good project to turn the resin down on a lathe, but the woodshop explicitly prohibits resin work on their tools. And Iām sure theyād lay down the law even harder when I told them thereās rock embedded in mine. Iāll see if I can put them in my drill with a bolt or something so I can spin & sand them down. Now I just get to wait while that resin cures nice and solid.
Of course, I had more resin/turquoise mixture than I needed for the knobs owing to my mix/measure cups not having measurements less than 50mL. So I poured some into pieces of wood with cavities so I can maybe play with it later, and some I poured into tiny cavities in other things. The one relevant to this project is that I had a couple long bug holes on my guitar body I wanted to try filling.
Total experiment here. I have no idea how to expect this to turn out. My hope is that itās surprisingly stunning once I get it sanded down.
Worth noting here is the peek at the wood grain that pops in the spot where the resin spilled and flowed because it was a bit thin. Since Iāll be doing a flood coat later on, Iām hoping that takes care of any voids between the stone chips (I can see some in there).
Not as many bubbles amongst the stones as I thought there might be. I need to round the top edges, which presents its own series of challenges I need to figure out. I think I have a rough idea how Iām going to do it.
I just canāt keep them from being wobbly! I absolutely canāt achieve the sort of precision I need. I have to bail on these knobs, get better tools, and do lots of learning before I can revisit this idea. For now, I am just going to buy some knobs so I can finish these instruments and get them playable.
Instead of buying knobs, Iām having my dad turn ALL aspects of them this time on the same lathe, instead of only having him do a tiny part of the job and then trying to line things up perfectly on a different tool (pretty sure thatās the source of my problems). I was reading up on doing the turning myself and thereās more I need to learn before I dive that deep. The turning I did earlier was just spinning the piece onto a drill bit, and thatās significantly easier than knowing which chisel to use when, and how. The knobs are complex enough and Iāve had enough trouble with them that I just donāt want to mess with that part anymore. My dad also bought himself a small CNC recently, so maybe heāll use that, too.
I sent him some drawings with dimensions.
This way, I can still do the resin and turquoise top on the knobs. I have a little piece of 1/4" rod I can use to put them in the drill to shape the turquoise tops.
And I can get back to work on the body. I only had pilot holes drilled for the various controls, so I drilled those out to diameter. I need to thin out the body some still, as the top is too thick to fasten any of the controls. I was planning to just use large Forstner bits on the inside of the control cavities to slowly thin them where I need them.
As for other drilling that needs to be done - the wiring channels and the cavities for the jacks, I think Iām going to use the community woodshop so I can use their drill press. Iāll double check that the table can tilt, and if it does, Iāll clamp the bodies in place and use the press to drill them exactly how I need.
Iām using a football jack plate on the uke and drilling that one is less trouble. On the guitar, Iām using a strat-style jack plate, but Iām positioning it sorta Ibanez-style. I was planning to point it similarly to a strat, but playing around with positioning, I sorta like it pointed the way Ibanez does theirs. Iāve got both sketched out where I want them.
Visited the community woodshop to use the drill press and get the drilling done for the jacks and for the rest of the wiring channels. Doing the strat-style one on the guitar was harder than I expected because my Forstner bits are short. Ended up needing to switch to a spade bit to get deep enough for everything to fit in the cavity. At least the rough stuff from the spade bit is inside the cavity.
Also took care of a couple smaller wood-removal jobs I was waiting to do. Got a bunch of little things done today and I marched closer to being able to start finishing work.
The artist sent me her preliminary drawings for the headstock designs. I love her ideas. Sheās wrapping the designs around to the sides of the headstocks, too. Iām not going to share pics until sheās done, but Iām excited for how itās going to look. Sheās going to add details like shading and such, so I expect there to be a lot of extra depth when theyāre complete.
Iām pretty excited for that. Iāve moved forward with sanding on the bodies. Iām at 600 grit now. Trying to make sure Iāve gotten all of the scratches and dings but also trying not to overdo it and try to sand out natural elements of the wood I want to remain. Since the grain has so much going on, itās hard to tell sometimes. Getting the surface super smooth like you get with the finer grits helps to find some of that stuff and sometimes I have to go back to coarser grits. Iām going to work at 600 grit for a little bit before I move on.
Next week Iāll be out of town but hopefully after I come back I can get the sanding all the way to 1500 grit. I hope that by the time Iām done with all of that, I have the necks back and my dad also has the knobs done. I want to get all of the epoxy flood coating done all at once.
Annoyingly the smallest mix & measure cups I could find locally are 1qt. Ended up needing to find smaller ones online, where it was super easy to find little 8oz cups. Of course none of it would be delivered by the time I got home, so I have to wait to place the order.
My nephew will be a little disappointed, I think. He hoped Iād have them done and could bring them when we visit next week for his high school graduation. I could technically bring the bodies, but theyāre at a point where Iād risk damaging my work if I tried to pack them along with everything else. Heāll have to be satisfied with pictures.
The artist is almost finished. She e-mailed me yesterday so we could schedule a pickup day/time. Going with Wednesday next week. Iām getting super excited about it now.
Should have a few supplies coming today. I had to order small resin mix & measure cups online and that stage is fast approaching now that the neck is on its way. I also ordered a bunch of higher grit foam sanding pads that I need now. The local woodworking shop doesnāt stock anything higher than a 320 grit in the sanding pads. But they work SO WELL on curved pieces that I want to be able to use them on the curves all the way through. Use regular sandpaper on the flat surfaces and the foam in places where it will conform nicely.
Very cool. I canāt wait to see the art as well. I bet it will be totally sick.
I use the sanding pads also. I really like them. Sometimes I also like to use the sanding blocks as well, the ones your wrap sandpaper around. I have both sets. They are for general wood working but they are great for fine sanding and all types of finish work. They are really great. I had these before I started playing guitar and doing luthier work. What I like is I can get really quality sand paper or I can just buy middle of the road stuff if I want. I have had both of these for years.
I have a couple sanding pads/blocks with variable shapes and they have their place. The ones you linked look pretty useful. But the foam sanding pads are SO GOOD at conforming to smooth curves (especially compound curves) that theyāre a joy to use. they donāt do sharp corners well, though (like inside the neck pocket) so I use other sanding blocks for that.
They do fine on flat surfaces, I suppose, but being flexible as they are, they donāt do as good a job of blending bumps or divots into a flat surface and keeping everything flat.
Got the bodies down to 1500 grit today. When I get the necks and Iām sure any sanding they might need is done, Iāll go over everything with a bright light to make sure I donāt need to touch up any more dings. after that, itāll be resin flood coat time. I think these next steps building up to putting on the oil finish will go pretty quick.
I started on the walnut pickup trim rings for the uke today. Got a template drawn up (including tracing bits of binder clips for the āearsā where Iāll screw them to the uke body) and rough cut a couple pieces of walnut and stacked them together. I think Iām going to go to the woodshop tomorrow morning and use a belt sander and a drill press to open up the center. Should make pretty short work of making those trim rings. Only bits that will take a little longer will be some detail work that might require a rat tail file or sandpaper wrapped around a pen or something.
I think right before I put the oil finish on (at which point theyāll have to hang up for several weeks to cure), Iāll do a dry hardware install to get a good look at everything plus some photos. So far Iāve pretty much installed all the bits of hardware individually but itās not all been installed at once.
I have a combination of copper tape and shielding paint Iāll be using and Iām not sure yet if I should at least put the shielding paint on before the oil finish or if it even matters.
Still waiting on my dad for the knobs. Heās been working on range extending gas tanks for his and a friendās motorcycles and he doesnāt want to start my knobs until heās done with that. Iāve been thinking about the knobs a little bit and Iāve decided Iām not going to do exactly the same finishing process on them. Since theyāre a control and will be manipulated with some regularity, Iām NOT going to sand them as smooth and Iām NOT going to put the epoxy resin seal coat on them. Iāll maybe get them to 600 grit on the sandpaper (though Iāll really polish the tops) and apply the oil finish straight to them. I want them to have a little more texture to grip.
I chose not to go to the woodshop today because I was feeling like hot garbage last night and first thing this morning. Still donāt feel totally right. I decided to reserve some tools from the tool library instead. Iāll be picking up a belt/disc sander to work on the trim rings.
I also reserved a bench top drill press so I can clean up some holes that I got sloppy with using a hand drill. This amazing woodburning work is making me extra unhappy with a couple of those sloppy spots.
We went to a show the other night of a local uke band. One of the guys in the band (who happens to play pretty much everything from uke to drums to keytar to slide whistle to mandolin) has a LP-style electric uke (looks like maybe a long-neck soprano) and I was nudging my wife every time he was playing something cool on it that wonāt work so well on an acoustic uke.
Got the epoxy seal coat done today. When this dries, Iāll sand it back to the wood so the only remaining epoxy will be in tiny gaps and microscopic divots (I didnāt put enough on to fill the bug holes, thatās not the point). Once I run through the sandpaper grits again, it should be smooooooooove and will be ready for the oil finish. After the oil cures, assembly time!
This definitely gives a taste of how the turquoise will pop as well as the quilting on the guitar. And of course pictures can never do justice to the chatoyance (the 3d look lots of wood gets with the right kind of finish). Itās even fading a bit because the resin is soaking in and getting duller already.
I gave the epoxy 24hrs to cure (it felt ready to sand when I got up this morning, but I decided to be conservative and give it a full 24hrs) and hit it with 180 grit sandpaper to get the epoxy off the surface. This particular formula was SO THIN that it didnāt completely fill the gaps in the cracks. What it probably amounted to was that I didnāt pour enough in and as it cured, it contracted. Rather than mixing up a bunch more resin for basically 1mL (and maybe less) of volume, I decided to use CA glue on the cracks to top them up and make sure the surface ends up smooth. My goal here is that when Iām sanding, dust doesnāt settle into them anymore. Thatāll tell me theyāre sufficiently filled.
Iām duly impressed with how smooth it is now. After just 180, the wood feels very nearly as smooth as it did at 1500 grit before the epoxy. Wiping it down with naptha to remove all the dust, Iām really seeing this wood pop and the shimmer is so dreamy. How I scored on this slab at such a great price, I will never know. I have to make sure that I use what I have left for something nice.
