Almost two years ago, a friend of mine wanted help building a top bar bee hive with these instructions http://www.buzzaboutbees.net/support-files/how_to_build_a_tbh.pdf, so I thought I would build one with her. Who knew it would take two full years to get it set up in a garden… Here are some photos of how my build came along, but that PDF is certainly a more complete reference for if you want to build your own.

almost finished bee hive

Like many projects, it started with a pile of scrap wood. I had some pretty nice, unpainted pieces of wood to use as the sides, but they were a little bowed.

slightly bowed

So I screwed in some cross pieces on the end so that they would be straight. The straightness isn’t actually critical to the function of the hive, it just makes it easier to predict how the pieces will fit together.

with stiffeners screwed in to minimize the bowing

Here are the side pieces assembled to the end pieces, forming a trough shape.

end pieces form trough shape

For the legs I wanted to use something that would weather better, in case the feet got wet. Conveniently, a friend had bestowed upon me pieces of her former deck, which I ripped into shape.

former backyard deck

rip #1

rip #2

Here it is with legs. I also added two rails on either long edge of the trough – not really necessary in hindsight, but they make for convenient handles when moving the whole assembly around.

trough with legs

The bottom of the trough is covered by some fine mesh to provide ventilation for the bees and help keep things that bees don’t like out of their hive. Because I added the cross pieces to straighten the side boards, I needed a little filler block to help give me a more continuous bottom surface to staple the mesh to. If the side boards were straight, none of this would be necessary.

filler block to prepare for adding mesh

Next I made the bars that give the top bar bee hive its name. Lots of folks on the internet suggest that giving the bees some kind of ridge to build off of is helpful for them to build orderly comb. I started by ripping a groove on the top bars, and then gluing in a sliver of wood to form the ridge.

ripping a groove for the top bar

lots of ripping

Here is the process of gluing them together.

the hive makes a convenient gluing station

Next, I worked on the lid, which is composed of all the 3/8″ plywood I had left in my possession at the time. Clearly what I don’t have in plywood I can make up with screws.

piece together

trimming the excess

I wanted the roof to have some kind of angle so that it would better shed water. And I wanted to create some kind of enclosed hollow space with the roof, to provide better insulation. An “A” shaped roof seemed like twice the work of a ramp shaped roof, so I went with the ramp.

slopped roof frame

To cut the wedges that form the frame, I used a nifty taper jig shown below. A board with a straight edge is used to reference the fence, while the toggle clamps let you clamp the work piece however you want.

taper jig

roof frame from another angle

I also added hinges and a chain so that the roof is easier to lift off, and there is no tricky alignment to put the roof back on.

ready for paint

Some changes I am considering before I actually get bees:

1. drill a hive entrance on the end board, instead of using the one on the side so that I can stand on the long edge of the hive and not block bees who are flying in and out.

2. adding an observation window so that I can still see them build stuff on the inside, but disturb them less.

I’m still pretty nervous about actually getting bees and getting stung, but at least the hive is mostly done.

My orange ripstop wallet has served me well for two years. However, the elastic was getting too worn out. So I decided it was time to try a new design, this time using velcro instead of elastic. I guess time will tell how this new one holds up

as the elastic wore and stretched out, I tried shortening it by making the tab you can see in the upper right, but even that wasn’t enough after a while. It still worked fine as a wallet, I just didn’t want it to be so loose.

The new wallet started out almost identically to the orange one, except I left some extra material on one end to form a velcro tab. I also made the panels a little wider so the finished wallet would be taller. My previous wallet exposed the tops of my cards a little too much.

left: forms the middle layer
right: forms the outermost and innermost layer

fold over and sew what will become the top edges of all the layers

middle layer sewn to the inner and outer layer

When the wallet is finished, the stitches that connects the middle layer to the inner/outer layer actually sits on the inside of the wallet. In the orange one, they were on the outside, which made them more vulnerable to wear. Hopefully these stitches here stay stronger longer.

two sets of stitches divide up the fabric to form the card pockets

The tiny bar tack stitch at the top of the pocket divisions isn’t really necessary (the old one did fine without them). But I think they look like a cleaner way to end the stitch then with a few back and forth straight stitches. (if people have other suggestions for clean ways to end stitches, do share!)

with the wallet flipped inside out, I sewed one end shut (the one without the velcro tab) and trimmed the excess. I also ran a lighter over the fabric edge to minimize fraying.

with the wallet still inside out I sewed the triangular shape of the velcro tab and trimmed the excess

I ended up needing to fold over a random edge to try and hide the cut edge. I used some orange tape to temporarily hold it in place. Probably if I were better at planning sewing projects, I would have a better way of resolving this edge.

I stuffed the wallet and traced the tab to see where I should place the mating velcro patch

!

the finished product, maybe two years later I’ll have to do another post talking about a replacement for this. then again, maybe not.

This (more) travel-sized ukulele project has been tremendously satisfying! The woodworking part filled me with unbounded joy, and hopefully the music part will be fun, too. The main ‘feature’ of this ukulele is that the tuning pegs (I chose geared ones since they are easier to tune, and I will need all the help I can get) are mounted in the body. This way, the head isn’t needed, making the uke a bit shorter. However, it does make the body unconventional, and probably messes with the acoustics (which I don’t really understand anyway). This is going to be a long blog post – get ready!

As some of you know, I procured a chainsaw a few weeks ago. Its electric, so its not quite as powerful as a gas saw, but still way more going on than me behind a hand saw. Around that time, the walnut tree growing in the front yard was trimmed, special attention to the dead looking branches that overhung the roof. Naturally I was attracted to the stuff that was cut off, and I proceeded to saw some of it up to see if I could help it dry faster and more evenly. I know you can paint stuff on the end to really help control how wood cures and prevent cracking. I didn’t do that. Laziness.

darker wood on the left has been dead for a while, lighter stuff in the foreground is very green

The pieces that had been dead for a while looked almost ready to work. So after waiting a few weeks (and after sharpening my jointer knives) I ran the first piece over the jointer and was not disappointed.

jointers are magic. Also trees.

The first thing I wanted to cut was the book matched pieces for the front sound board. I think the spindle on the table saw wobbles slightly and not everything is square, so the cuts didn’t come out that smooth. Also, the saw kerf is pretty wide and the log diameter is pretty small, so the book match pattern isn’t perfect – pretty satisfactory for my first stab at a book match though!

book match blanks

clamping the book matched pieces, this made me keenly aware that I could use some bar clamps

Next I turned my attention to the neck. I ripped and thickness sanded a wide strip of maple to be sandwiched between two thicker pieces of walnut.

neck sandwich

The result is a bright white line, that I think provides an attractive contrast to the walnut.

worst oreo ratio ever

Since the wood had been dead for a while, some of it had some insect damage. I was really careful with how I arranged my neck sandwich with the hope that the insect hole areas would eventually be cut away.

can you spot the insect tunnels?

While the glue for the neck was drying, I cut the pieces for the body. Because I wanted to mount the tuning pegs on the body, I knew the body sides would have to be quite thick.

body pieces

just enough vises to get the job done

my alignment of parts during gluing was far from perfect, but that’s okay since I’ll just trim everything with the table saw

trimming the bottom of the body, the sacrificial plywood behind the part helps limit tear out.

Now back to the neck. I forgot to take photos of the tenon being cut with my tenoning jig, but that happened (you can see part of it on the end of the neck facing away from the camera in the photo below).

roughing out the neck profile on the bandsaw

more rough shaping on the table saw

With the profile of the neck roughly shaped, I glued on a thin piece of cocobolo which will later serve as a visual accent for the end of the neck, and also provide a small thickness increase at the very end of the neck, which I find to be a pleasant thumb detent.

gluing on a thin piece of cocobolo to the very top of the neck where the head stock usually attaches

Finally we commence some truly satisfying woodworking when the whittling begins. Some of you may recognize this knife from a previous build.

carving stuff

After getting the rough shape with a knife, I smoothed things out a bit with a fine rasp.

shaping the neck

To compliment the cocobolo accent at the top of the neck, I added one on the heel. I roughly cut it to shape before gluing it on.

glueing on a cocobolo heel cap

more carving to shape the heel cap

neck in-progress

While the heel cap glue drying, I glued some blocks into the body to form the slot that the neck tenon will glue into. I’m assuming the glue will be enough to hold the string tension on this particular uke. The piece of plywood in the middle is cut and shimmed to be the same width as the tenon.

gluing in blocks to form the slot that the neck tenon will glue to

And because I was pretty sloppy with gluing in those blocks, I trimmed the body again with the table saw.

trimming the body

The tenon cut wasn’t perfect, so I very patiently sanded the shoulders a little, using the uke body as a guide.

sanding to fit

About this time I made a little test block to see how the tuning pegs would fit into the sides. I think the pegs I picked were too short… To compensate, I thinned the sides of the body (shown below is after thinning, the block I am holding is the original thickness).

after thinning the sides

In order to have tuning pegs in the body, the strings have to wrap around the end of the body and route into the body. To reduce friction, I made a smooth mandrel for the strings to wrap around. I started by rounding over a piece of cocobolo on the router.

rounding a piece of cocobolo as a string mandrel

Next I put some scallops on the end for decoration using my roommate’s mill. I guess I could have carved this, but the mill was right there…

scalloping the ends on a mill

Around this time, the test fits got really exciting!! You can see the more or less finished mandrel on the right. Next to it is a ready-made rosewood fretboard that I bought off eBay. They don’t have the greatest fit and finish (some of the edges on this one are too heavily chamfered), but for the most part, they are okay. $7 seems like a good tradeoff to avoid lots of tedious measuring and sawing (at least for my first stab at this luthier thing).

test fit!

Next I laid out and drilled the holes for the tuning pegs. I was careful to back the hole with some sacrificial material during drilling to minimize tear out.

drilling holes for tuning pegs

To provide clearance for the tuning pegs to turn, I needed to scoop out some material on the sides. I knew I’d end up hand carving part of it, but I removed a lot of material with a forstner bit first.

drilling the scoops for the tuning peg paddles

laying out the rest of the scoop shape

carving the rest of the scoop, sharp tools sure are nice for this step!

Shortly after sanding the tuning peg scoops, I cut the sound board to size (a little big actually), and glued it to the rest of the body assembly.

gluing the sound board to the rest of the body

While that dried, I again turned my attention to the neck assembly. Turns out the walnut wasn’t totally dry. After a few days, there was a slight bit of unevenness in the fretboard gluing surface, so I sanded it down. Fingers crossed that the extra moisture is pretty minimal and doesn’t cause any problems in the long run…

sanding the fretboard gluing surface flat

About this time I realized that I had forgotten to cut the nut slot while the sides of the neck were still square. Oops. So I set the miter jig on the table saw using the neck itself as a guide.

setting the angle for cutting the nut slot

A test piece showed this actually works out pretty well, so here goes the real thing!

no turning back

slot for nut

gluing in the nut, probably could have used way less glue, or maybe none at all…

Next I glued the neck to the fretboard so that I will be able to sand the edges of the fretboard perfectly flush with the edges of the neck.

gluing fretboard to neck

Again as the neck dried, I turned my attention back to the body and trimmed the edges flush.

trimming the edges of the sound board

While planing the edges, I got a little sloppy and took out a pretty big chunk.

sloppy planing

To fill the unsightly nick, I found an appropriately sized wood chip and used a generous amount of glue. The resulting fix is surprisingly good. I think most people won’t find it unless they are looking for it.

filling the nick with a wood shaving

After sanding the edges of the neck flush to the fretboard, the width of the neck had naturally decreased – so much so that the neck now felt too thick, so I shaved away some more material and sanded smooth again.

adjusting the back curve shape of the neck

drilling holes for the strings to pass through

quick sanding mandrel to touch up the insides of the holes

gluing the cocobolo mandrel in place

finally! neck and body joined!!

chamfers on the neck slot were key to a tight fit

test fitting the tuning pegs, looks pretty good

Part way through the project, I decided I wanted a removable back cover. This would allow me to still access the tuning pegs when I needed to, but hide them for the most part. I think it might also make it a bit louder?? I don’t know, I honestly can’t tell.

cutting rails for the back cover

Its crazy how many clamps are needed to glue something so small. I intentionally made the frame larger so that I could carefully sand down and ensure a tight fit with the ukulele body.

gluing the frame for the back cover

I used what was left of my book match from the soundboard to do the back as well.

drilling a finger hole for removing the back cover

drilling the sound hole – a momentous moment!!

Finally, I started filing notches for the strings and tuning the height of the bridge so that the string would the the right distance from the frets. It took quite a bit of iteration and time, but I knew it would be bad to overshoot it.

filing notches in the nut for the strings

Finally, after lots and lots of sanding, I was ready for finish. I opted for several layers of Tru-oil (similar to Tung Oil) for its simplicity in application and the naturalness of the feel.

applying Tru-oil (its cool that it balances like this)

the scoops came out great!

the finished product!!!

backside

heel and neck

top of the neck

with tuning pegs installed

view of the inside, for now the back cover is just friction fit

It’ll take me forever to learn how to play this, but at some point a video will be posted. Stay tuned…

In the past few months, I have been trying to learn how to skateboard by borrowing a friend’s skateboard. Recently he gave me a beautiful set of trucks, so I thought I better make a skateboard then.

My roommate had previously ordered a bunch of veneer for a project she never got around to, so she was nice enough to donate it to my cause. Because it had spent it’s last few years in a variety of humidities and temperatures, the surface was quite rough due to the expansion and contraction cycles of the fibers. So I started off by sanding all the sheets.

sanding the veneer

Next I ripped the sheets (a trickier operation than I expected on the table saw…) to slightly larger than my desired final width. Here you can see I have enough for 5 layers where the grain runs the length of the board, and two that run cross. The layering order is: length-length-cross-length-cross-length-length, for a total of 7 layers.

layers ready for gluing

I decided to get kinda fancy with the bottom layer by making pin stripes using a different color of wood, mahogany in this case.

pin strips for the bottom layer

One of my biggest regrets on this project is how I went about the glueing process. But of course I also didn’t take very many photos (fingers covered in glue and all), so you’ll have to wade through all this laborious text just to extract my few valuable insights.

The first miscalculation was on how much the veneers would warp when I added glue, especially since I did one side at a time. I’m not sure if would have been much better if I had used veneers that hadn’t been sitting in a dry garage for so long. Either way, next time, I’ll start by wiping or spraying down both sides with water, something I can do faster than spreading glue evenly.

The second big mistake was using an old bottle of glue that had dried out a little, and then not using enough. The result was dry spots before I could even get the layers clamped down. The obvious fix here is to use generous amounts of regularly hydrated glue, but I think the pre-wetting would have helped here, too.

Finally, I could have put some better thought into my clamping fixture. Part of me really wanted this thrown-together vacuum bag setup to work (see taped down plastic film connected to shop vac in the photo below…), but the film was too thin. In the end, regular ole’ clamps and gravity (I read a bunch of emails while sitting on the white plastic) worked just fine.

Oh yea, and don’t forget to line the glue fixture with some old plastic bags to prevent your work from sticking to it.

clamped in the gluing form

After the top 6 layers were dried, I glued on the bottom pin stripe layer separately, then clamped it in the same form.

gluing on the pin strip layer

fresh out of the gluing mold

I made up a shape for the board, traced my half-pattern it onto paper, cut the paper out, and traced the pattern on both sides of the board.

imagine an outline

cutting out the outline, leaving some extra material along the edge to be sanded off later

After cutting out the outline, evidence of my poor gluing practice was self-evident. I spent the next morning carefully prying the dry spots apart with a razor blade and shoving in as much glue as I could into the crack using another razor blade, then clamping the edge closed. I’m sure there are dry spots that I can’t fix in the center of the board, but I figure getting a well-glued edge solves most of the problem.

evidence of bad gluing (see text above)

sanding to the final outline

With the outline squarely sanded, next I wanted to put a crown on the edge. To make the crown uniform, I wanted to mark a line about 2 mm from the edge of the board. I don’t have a marking gauge, but with a pencil (where I whittled some flat spots), a scrap of plastic, and a clamp, I don’t need one.

really quick marking gauge

In the photo below, especially by the tail, you can see how the edge is crowned.

ready for finish

lots of polyurethane later

Now for the grip tape. Since I am a packrat who never throws potential project materials (I can usually stretch this definition to include everything) away, I had a fairly large piece of grip tape to use for this project. Unfortunately, it was not big enough to cover the whole board. In fact, the last time I used a piece of this grip tape, I was working on a hang board. Had I known I would make a skateboard in the future, I might have been smarter about how I cut the tape…

So instead I thought to create a clever pattern for the grip tape, and hoped to tile the shapes intelligently to make use of my weird scrap of grip tape. I love mountains a lot a lot a lot, so, there ya go. I drew the pattern on a piece of paper, cut the pieces out, and then tried various ways of arranging them.

a nice grip tape pattern

it all fits!

rubbing down the edges to prepare for trimming

In hindsight I wish I had done a better job covering the rear bolt holes. Aspirations for next time…

grip tape all trimmed, deck is ready for trucks

Make sure to turn the nut, not the bolt, when fastening the trucks. This will allow you to simply pull the bolts into the grip tape, rather than allowing the screws to turn the tape and potentially tear it around the screw head.

finished skateboard!

a view from the nose

don’t you want to give it a belly rub

In hindsight I think I made the tail too long, but I can learn to live with that. Now I just have to learn how to ride it!

If you thought my other ukulele blog post was long, take a deep breath before reading through this one. Also, this one is super delayed. I finished this project early March of 2016…

Around Thanksgiving (the one in 2015…) a friend of mine gave me a gourd as a gag gift.

this is a gourd dressed as a llama, obviously.

Of course, everyone thought I threw it away after the party (but I know better than to throw anything away, ever). So a few days (maybe weeks…) later, I cut it open, scooped out the slightly rotting innards and let the shell dry. This probably isn’t the best way to dry a gourd, but because we drilled the leg holes, I didn’t have much choice.

After it was dry, the lip of the shell wasn’t flat anymore and I had to avoid an old llama leg hole (as you can see in the image below), so I used tape to lay out the edge of the new lip.

I used tape to determine where to saw

Then I sanded to get the lip flat.

Next I started on the neck. I wanted to try making a traditional headstock with a scarf joint, so I started by cutting a pretty steep angle on a piece of scrap. Then I tilted the angle jig back 15 degrees (the angle of the scarf joint), double-stick taped the neck material, and cut the scarf joint.

cutting a steep angle maximizes the surface area that the neck material can rest against as it is being cut.

Next begins a crazy Frankenstein process of building out the neck. Basically, all the scrap wood I had was just barely too small. And I miscalculated and made the head stock too short. My preferred solution was just to glue on another block of wood.

scarf joint was glued previously. Here extra blocks are added to increase width

The neck piece is extra long so that it extends the full end of the instrument, from the head through the entire gourd. The gourd itself doesn’t feel all that structural, so I am expecting this neck piece to take the tension of the strings.

here a block is added where the neck will transition into the gourd

while everything is still square, I cut the slot for the nut with a table saw sled

after some very coarse roughing, the neck starts to fit the gourd

At some point I forgot that the surface of the neck that the fret board glues to actually has to be taller than the edge of the gourd by the thickness of the sound board. So in the picture below I use a fine saw to make a step down in the neck where it goes under the soundboard. The resulting thickness of the brace is less than I had planned, but I think it will still be enough.

sawing a step for the part of the neck that goes under the soundboard

After some work, mostly with a block plane, chisel, and knife, the neck piece that extends into the body starts to take shape. Most of it is carved to curve away from the sound board so that it doesn’t prevent the sound board from vibrating.

neck taking shape

neck piece curves away from soundboard

Before shaping the transition from the neck to the gourd, I glue the neck to the gourd with epoxy.

tape forms a dam so I can build a small epoxy puddle to join the neck and gourd

Very slowly, mostly with a chisel and knife, I slim the neck down to match the gourd. This neck will be quite thin all the way through, which should make it quite comfortable to play.

slowly shaping the neck to match the gourd

Around this time I also start shaping the volute.

shaping the volute

It soon becomes apparent that I made the head too short and the tuning pegs won’t fit.

not enough room for tuning pegs

I amend this situation by gluing on yet another block and sand flush.

a collection of wood chunks glued together

Next I turn my attention to the sound board. This time I actually got a piece of spruce, which is a very popular sound board material. This ukulele only required 1/4 of a guitar front.

drilling holes for the sound hole

I chose an organically shaped off-center hole so that the neck piece that runs down the inside of the body won’t be easily visible.

sound board with sound hole

Next I cut strips of kerfed lining to give the soundboard more surface area to glue to the gourd body.

a table saw sled is really useful for kerfing

clothes pins hold the lining as the glue dries

because the gourd walls are not perpendicular, the top of the lining will take some trimming (mostly by Dremel) for the sound board to sit flush

slather on the glue

wrapped in an assortment of string and webbing while the glue dries

rough sanding the edges of the sound board flush to the gourd

a final bit of sanding on the top of the sound board ensure it is flush with the neck so that the fretboard bonds to a continuous surface. I guess sometimes you don’t want the fretboard to be fixed to the soundboard since that will dampen it, but I don’t think that will make much of a difference in this case.

Right before gluing on the fretboard I also glued a small piece of maple veneer to the front face of the head, just to hide the surplus of glue joints…

gluing on the fretboard

I worked out the tuner spacing on a scrap piece of wood.

tuner spacing

And then used the same scrap piece as a drill guide when drilling the actual holes.

drilling out the tuner holes

Next I made the nut and saddle using a lamb bone that came from my roommate’s dinner a few months earlier. I had boiled it for a half hour or so after receiving it just to get it as clean as possible. Then it sat around drying for quite some time.

cutting bone for nut and saddle.

a nut is born

bridge and saddle in-progress

I didn’t know exactly how high to make the bridge, so I started with one that was extra high. Then I slowly sanded it down until I felt it was right. Shown below, I used a straight piece of wood rested on the nut and saddle to help me visualize where the string would be. If the string is too high, you have to push it down really far to get it to touch the fret, and this can be tiring and slow (assuming I ever learn to play any faster). If the strings are too close to the fretboard, it can touch the fretboard even when you don’t want it to, and this may cause buzzing.

checking the string action

I used maple again to make a piece that the strings will eventually tie to .

the bridge  and the thing the strings tie to in their roughly final positions

Since the piece on the right is holding all the string tension, I wanted to make sure it was well secured to the part of the neck that runs the entire length of the instrument. To match the black fret markers on the fret board, I decided to use ebony to make a black dowel pin.

making an ebony dowel

rounding the ebony dowel on a lathe (drill)

To commemorate the origins of the gourd, I decided to try my hand at inlay. I started by sketching and then cutting out a small llama shape in a thin piece of walnut. Then I double-stick taped it to the head and traced around it with a razor blade. Finally, I used a combination of little chisels to remove all the extra material. The fact that I had faced the head with a maple veneer earlier meant I had a really convenient depth gauge to make sure the inlay pocket depth was even.

llama inlay

flood the inlay pocket with glue

generous clamping pressure

sanded flat. All the edges came out great except for the circular arc around the legs. I’ll have to work on cutting the grain more crisply on edges like that.

finally, the finishing process begins! I used Tru-oil again.

After a couple coats, I used tape to mark out where the bridge pieces would go and used a small sharp chisel to scrape away the finish in those areas.

scraped away the Tru-oil where the bridge will glue down

I left the tape on during gluing to help clean up overflow and also to help align the parts, since the glue can create a bit of a bearing surface that causes the parts to slide around.  Below you can see how I used that ebony pin to pin the tail piece through the soundboard into the neck brace below.

bridge glued and pinned

After a bit more Tru-oil, assembly can finally begin!

marking screw holes for the tuners

Here are some shots of the finished product.

the finished product

back

inlay close-up

volute and back of head close-up

gourd transition close up. A bit of a gap, but okay for first try.

bridge close-up. I went with a low-G string on this one

As someone with little credibility in this field, I highly recommend gourd ukuleles. This one sounds fantastic and its a lot less work to make since the gourd only leaves one face unfinished.

This is a long overdue (as usual) update to the travel ukulele I made a year and a half ago.

I was finding that the mandrel that the strings wrapped around before heading to the tuners was creating way too much friction to actually let the strings tune properly. I was having to turn the tuner, then wiggle the string to get it to stretch past the mandrel. I’d been thinking for a while of using ball bearings instead. So step 1 was to cut off the old mandrel.

bye-bye old mandrel with too much friction

I designed a little aluminum block to hold all the bearings at the right spacing and started to machine it out.

machining the bearing slots

bearing slots all done

facing off the bottom flange

cutting a big chamfer on the bottom edge to make it look cooler

Below is the final assembly. The radii are all sanded by hand on a little belt sander. People always ask if its CNC, but I think people forget how effective sanders and files used to be (and still are). The grooved bearings are really great for centering the strings. Also, they are widely available for just a few bucks for a set of 10x on sites like eBay thanks to the DIY 3D printer craze we are in. The set screw on the center knuckle holds the axle pin in place.

finished bearing assembly

While I was in the upgrading spirit, I decided to make a real bridge, too. I still had some leftover lamb bone from a friend’s dinner (it has provided nuts and bridges for 3 ukes already).

soon to be bridge

Below is the final shape. Again, there’s basically no need for compensation, in fact its probably detrimental on such a sort scale length. I can’t really justify why I did it. It does make for a cool shape I guess.

final bridge

Here’s the shot with all the changes in place. It is phenomenally easier to tune. I’ve seen some folks use metal tubes or rollers for the strings to wrap around, and both those are probably a lot better than the wooden mandrel I originally made. But bearings seems like the best option overall and isn’t a huge step up in complexity to make.

post face-lift

I’d also been carrying this thing around in a cardboard box with some foam for a while. It worked well, but was bulky, so I decided to make a smaller hard case for it, too. I didn’t really document the process because it was so quick and dirty. Blocks are just sort of glued in where they are needed. I made both the body and lid as one piece and then cut them apart on the table saw. I use two velcro tabs to keep it closed.

small travel coffin

I wanted a plug cutter to cut wooden plugs for fret markers for a guitar I am working on. I with an old bolt.

chopped up a 1/2″ stainless bolt

turned the threads down to 3/8″ shank so it would fit in a collet

made the other side shiny, bored the plug hole and tapered the cutting end

clamped it sideways in the mill to cut the side chip clearance

To form the ‘flute’ of the cutter where the chips clear out, I made an angled clamp block. I just eyeballed the angle I wanted and drilled a hole in a block of aluminum. Then I band sawed through the hole so it would allow clamping. The position of the end mill was also eyeballed. Position seems pretty forgiving.

fixture for holding the plug cutter at the right angle for cutting the ‘flute’

on-end view of the flute being cut

Below is the confirmation that it works! I drilled a whole bunch of plugs close together. Then I used a piece of tape to hold them all together while I band sawed them off.

future fret markers!

My first homemade guitar had three main objectives: learn how to make a fretboard, learn how to install a truss rod, finish as soon as possible. So this post is about that first goal.

I found a scrap of cocobolo at my local wood store just thick enough to be the fretboard and long enough to also be the front face of the guitar head. I did a bunch of sanding to get it to an even thickness (forgot to take pictures of all of this). I decided I wanted to have a radiused fretboard instead of flat, so I started by making a radius sanding block.

I actually tried 3D printing, but it was really really slow. So I gave up long before my block was a useful length. Instead I turned to a much faster process, laser cutting. The two holes are for dowels used to align all the pieces in gluing.

laser cut pieces for radius sanding block with holes for alignment dowels

After gluing the stack together, the radius surface was still quite uneven due to the slight draft on each layer. I did some sanding to take off the really high peaks, but decided it was faster and easier to smooth things out by just gluing a thin sheet of metal over all of it.

sheet metal to smooth out all the laser cut layers

foam applies more even pressure on the sheet metal as the epoxy cures

finished 12in radius sanding block

Next I drilled some shallow holes to accept maple fret markers that I made using my homemade plug cutter.

The photo below also shows the ‘jig’ that helped me cut the slots for the frets. I used the water jet to cut the aluminum plate that the fretboard is double-sided-taped to. The plate has holes that are spaced the way the frets are spaced. So with a pin on my miter box, I can easily get accurate spacing for all the slots. I forgot to take pictures of all that, too…

slots cut for fret wire and holes drilled for markers

markers glued

After the glue dried, I flush cut all the markers and began the long process of sanding. Started with 80 grit and worked down to about 220. I used double sided tape to adhere the sand paper to the radius sanding block.

sanding jig with rails that keep the radius block aligned. lots of sanding

done sanding, finally

so satisfying

With the slots cut (and the fact that my blank was quite thin to begin with) the fretboard is quite delicate. I used a heat gun on the aluminum plate side to weaken the double sided tape, and then used a card to shim them apart.

removing the fretboard from the fixture plate

Then I marked out the taper shape and roughed it into shape on a belt sander.

drawing out the taper shape of the fretboard on the backside

rough shaping of the taper on a belt sander

After this I glued it to the neck and then hammered in the fret wire – hopefully all detailed in a post coming soon!

The body of this guitar body is fairly unconventional because I was too lazy to make all the jigs for bending the sides this time around. This effort was pretty focused on just learning about truss rods and fretboards. I started this stage the same way I start a lot of projects these days – plane a bunch of scrap wood to size (this time maple) and glue them together, usually using far too few clamps. I keep meaning to fix that…

gluing up the neck blank

I used a taper jig on the table saw to cut the scarf joint for the head.

cutting the scarf joint

After gluing the head on, I planed the fretboard surface and prepared to cut the slot for the truss rod with a router.

preparing the route the slot for the truss rod

Now let’s take a brief detour from neck construction to figure out what’s going on with the body. I didn’t want to do something too simple, like a rectangular box. So I went as complicated as an octagon.

the mitered pieces for the sides

assembling the sides

Tape on the edges of the mitered pieces like this acted like hinges that made for a magical glue up experience as shown here:

With so little glue area on the mitered joints though, I knew I wanted some kind of reinforcement. So I decided on something that would add a little style, too.

table saw setup for cutting slots in the body

gluing in walnet biscuits to reinforce all the joints

really pleased with how the biscuits look all sanded down

You’ll notice that the left-most mitered piece in the photo above is still taped in. That’s because its just a placeholder for the neck. In the photo below, you can see angled slots cut into the neck for where the body will connect. This also shows the main thing I would change about this build if I did it all again. I cut the scarf joint for the head too far up, and would have loved to have more margin for the heel. Those angled slots get awfully close to breaking through.

trimming the neck to length

roughing the shape of the neck on the bandsaw

then roughing the shape on a belt sander

and also some shaping with hand tools

and finally, some milling to create some clearance for how the soundboard will eventually attach

Shortly after, I glued the body to the neck. This was another frantic moment of not thinking out the gluing process and the clamping strategy before hand, so no photos were taken in the panic. Because I didn’t actually make the neck and body the same thickness, I needed to add an additional trim piece to make it work. The photo below shows how I made room for that trim piece, and also shows more clearly how I definitely could have given myself more room with a meatier heel. Its so thin that the process of inserting the body into the slots cracked the heel on the left.

making some clearance for a trim piece

Next I prepped the material for the back. I happened to have a piece of maple just a hair wider than half the body, so I book match cut, glued, and thickness sanded.

book match cut for the back

fancy clamp setup for gluing the back halves together

gluing the back on

Below you can see the back trimmed to the sides, and the heel trim piece (cocobolo). It looks surprisingly deliberate, which I assure you it was not.

heel trim piece

a banjo-like guitar body!

Around this time I started to feel insecure about the strength of the attachment between the neck and the body. In hindsight, I think it was fine. But to give me plenty of safety factor, I did three things. First was to cut a little block to fill in the gap shown above between the inside face of the back and the heel. Second was to glue in a reinforcement bar along the entire back. This should take a lot of the compressive load from the strings.

gluing in a reinforcement for the body

Third thing was to make fillets between the neck and sides with epoxy. I clamped the assembly vertically, made a little dam with tape, and just poured some in. This photo also shows the reinforcement bar and the filler block nicely.

epoxy fillet

Next up: soundboard and final assembly!

Previous posts were about making the fretboard and making the body. Next I worked on the soundboard, which used leftover material from the spruce soundboard I originally bought for my gourd ukulele. The X-brace is made from what I’m pretty sure is mahogany and the sound hole brace, probably unnecessary but gives it a nice finish, is made from maple.

preparing to brace the soundboard

I removed most of the material on the drill press and finished it with a whittling knife and Dremel tool.

drilling the sound hole

In the photo below you can see that I added a chamfer on the back edge of the sound hole brace so that it doesn’t look so thick from the outside. I also shaped the X-brace before gluing.

gluing on the cross bracing

soundboard ready to be glued on

gluing on the soundboard

trimming the edges of the soundboard

Next I’ll go back a few steps to talk about how the ‘veneer’ for the head was shaped. Veneer in quotes because its a very unnecessary 4mm thick. On my next guitar, I would make that thinner. I started by mitering the right face of the veneer so that it will eventually sit flush against the nut (this edge is hidden under the post-it in the photo below). After that, I used a post-it to trace the already-slotted head (top part of the photo below) and then used that to roughly bandsaw away most of the material.

tracing out the truss rod cutout for the head ‘veneer’

Before anymore shaping, I glued the two pieces together, using two cut-off staples to keep them from sliding around with the glue. The trick is to press the two parts together in the correct placement without glue, creating little indentations in the other part, which align the parts even when there is glue.

two trimmed staples prevent the head ‘veneer’ from sliding around while it’s glued

With the two parts glued together, I mostly manually sanded the facing of cocobolo to match the slot in the maple.

the cutout in the head ‘veneer’ is sanded to match the slot, crisp

Next finally came the momentous step of gluing on the fretboard. I again used cut-off staples to prevent sliding during the glue up. And this time I made sure to gather the necessary clamps ahead of time. I avoided spreading glue directly onto the truss rod, but I’m sure some squeezed on anyway. The whole thing came in a blue shrink tube plastic though, so I’m not that worried about the glue messing with its function. Seems to be working out so far.

gluing on the fretboard, clamps poised for action

a significant showing of the clamps in the neighborhood

clampclampclamp

With the fretboard glued in place, I felt like it was time to pound in the fret wire. I avoided doing this earlier because the fretboard blank really is quite thin and I was quite certain that hammering fret wire into it would at the very least cause it to arch. Operations occurred on the ground so I would have a stiff hammering surface.

installing fret wire

ready to trim fret wire

trimmed

The edges of the wire were beveled with a file clamped in a wooden block with an angled slot that fits the file. The wooden face runs along the tops of the fret wire to keep the angle consistent.

beveling the edges of fret wire

bevelled

There was quite a bit of fine sanding and polishing of the ends to get them smooth to the touch, but I forgot to take pictures. Also, further in the assembly process, my understanding is that fancy guitars get their necks tensioned in a fixture as they would be tensioned with strings, and then the tops of the frets are sanded level and polished back to a round shape. Yea, I skipped all that.

Bridges and nuts were made from one of those bones you give to a dog. They come dried and clean and you can get tons of parts out of a $7 bone.

tons of bridges and nuts in this one

For cutting grooves on the nut I marked out the positions and started all of them with a triangle file. For the larger strings I even used a set of special files that come in lots of diameters. They are basically wires with grooves on them, so you can’t use them to remove tons of material, and you don’t need to. I hear you can use actual guitar strings, too.

cutting grooves on the nut

shaping the bridge

more shaping of the bridge, also I cut the edges so the slot is now angled for compensation

figuring out the height of the bridge

trimming the bridge to an offset of the guitar body edges

final shape

I don’t actually know anything about compensation. I just copied the shape of my friend’s Martin guitar.

drilling for tuners

All along my idea was to attach the strings via a tail piece instead of anchored in the bridge. I guess I’m still not too confident in my soundboard construction. And this just seems like a more robust construction. Also, in the case of this guitar, where the center of gravity is horribly shifted up the neck, the tail piece represents somewhat of an opportunity to shift it down a bit. Ideally, the whole thing would have been a giant slug of stainless steel, but I couldn’t find a scrap that big, so I settled for part stainless, part aluminum. Below is the machining of the aluminum part.

machining a tail piece

Skipping over a lot, below shows the finished tail piece. The screw for the strap button is a 10-32 that goes at least half an inch into the body and reinforcement beam, and is the only thing that attaches the tail piece to the guitar. The other 3 screws are just to attach the two piece of the tail piece.

assembled tail piece

the beginning of the finish

After like 6 or 7 coats of Tru-Oil I got bored and called it done. The key to a good finish is definitely unwavering patience that I can’t always muster. Maybe on the next one…

I’m pretty happy with how the neck came out though.

glossy

removing the finish where the bridge goes

preparing all the pieces for gluing

The pieces on the bottom of the photo above are for better spreading the clamping pressure around the X-brace on the back of the soundboard. I should have used way way less tape on the triangles though, the big triangle is a mostly permanent part of the assembly now…doh.

clamps in position

I let the glue set up a big and then peeled the tape off, which left a surprisingly clean joint. A damp cloth took care of the rest.

removing tape also removes most of the glue squeeze out

I thought I’d have to make some custom clamps, but everything seemed to fit

modified a hand-woven camera strap that I got on my recent trek on the Annapurna Circuit

Here’s a time-lapse of the final assembly and stringing:

completed!

head detail

back view

butt detail

In general I am very pleased with the sound. It doesn’t have a ton of base as expected, but I quite like the tone. I also really like that its on the quiet side. It saves those around me from having to hear me stumbling through the stages of a beginner guitar player. I’ll have to post a video when I can actually play stuff.

Because of the balance, the strap is pretty necessary to hold it properly. I think I’ll have to  modify it to make it adjustable. I also bought a banjo gig bag for it and it fit perfectly. Overall I expect this to be a really fun guitar to learn on and travel with.