Why this title?

My name is Marian. I've been studying lutherie for 4 years now and decided it was time to put down some of what I'm learning in an organized way. Since I already write a blog why not start a second one dedicated to building ukuleles? So here I am, still a novice but making different mistakes and learning and understanding more each time I build an instrument. I've just started on my fourth instrument, a tenor ukulele. I've built two concerts and one soprano to this point.

Next question, what do I call the new blog. I thought about it for quite some time and then decided on Nuts, Frets, and Fingerboards. Why that? Well, each of those words denotes a part of a ukulele. Sometimes I think I'm nuts for having started down this road. Sometimes I say, 'Nuts' (and a few other choice words) when things go sideways. I do quite a lot of fretting when I'm trying to get the details right. And the fingerboards are just fingerboards.

I study with master luthier Jake Peters and spend one day a week with him at his shop. I have a notebook full of information, some of which makes sense, and some of which is indecipherable to me. I'm hoping this blog will be a bit less confusing.

With that stuff out of the way let's get to the building. To build a ukulele you need to have wood. You can probably build one out of just about anything but some woods are better than others. The traditional Hawaiian wood is koa and my first build had koa back and sides. The top is the most important part of the uke in determining sound characteristics. I like the brightness of spruce, something I learned while studying classical guitar. Another good top wood is cedar which has a more mellow tone than spruce. Hawaiian ukuleles are sometimes made entirely of koa.

There's a story behind the wood I'm using for this current build. Recently we had a massive house renovation done. Our deck out the front and our kitchen countertops are made of batu, sometimes called Philippine mahogany. There was quite a bit left over and I jumped on the chance to keep it.

Jake has gotten me into the habit of holding pieces of wood up to my ear and tapping them to see what kind of a sound they have and how well they ring. The batu sounds amazing. It has a clear tone and it seems to sustain the sound well. So, the experiment is to use batu for the back, sides, and neck of the ukulele and then use spruce for the top. Batu is a very rigid wood so we may have some difficulty bending it.

Usually the back and the top are made from two pieces of wood that are book matched and joined down the middle. We have offcuts from the reno that are wide enough so we can build the back of the instrument from a single piece, no join. That's new for me this round. The top is Englemann spruce that was given to Jake by family of a woodworker who had passed away. Englemann spruce is used in acoustic guitar tops as well.

Jake is teaching me to build in the Spanish style where the sides are slotted into a one-piece neck. Often luthiers join the body to the neck with a dovetail joint or bolt them together. It takes more time and uses bigger pieces of lumber to build a one-piece neck, but it makes a tighter join between the two parts and one of the characteristics I’ve noticed is that I can feel the vibration from a plucked string under my left hand as it rests on the neck. I haven’t felt that before on other instruments.

To prepare for my first tenor build, I copied Jake’s template. Various builders vary the shapes and sizes of the upper and lower bouts. Jake’s favourite ukulele to build is a tenor so I know his pattern works and I’m not about to mess with it. I traced around his template and then transferred all the markings and measurements onto my copy. I labelled all the parts and noted dimensions so that when I come to make the braces, the information will be right there on my template and I won’t have to go scurrying through my notes. I then took a plastic placemat and cut out another template. There are no dimensions on this one but it will be easier to trace around it than using the light cardboard one, and it will be much sturdier. I’ll also use this plastic one to check the curves when it comes to bending the sides.

I’ve put the plates (the two pieces that make up the top or the back) together for the top and now I have to decide which is the outside and which is the inside. Once that’s done I’ll trace around the template leaving about 3/16 of an inch beyond the edge. Then I’ll cut out the top and transfer the marks for the braces and the sound hole.

We build starting with the top, so early on in the process I need to decide how to finish and decorate the sound hole. I’ve chosen an abalone rosette for this one. Luckily I don’t have to start by cutting thick bits of shell into thin bits of shell and then put those pieces together to form a ring. Jake shared with me some abalone pieces he got from a ukulele maker in Hawaii. They couldn’t use them in their operation and were going to toss them. I’ve taken some of these segments and fitted them together into a ring which I stuck to a piece of card stock with epoxy. We use card stock to stiffen the rosette and because it won’t move the way a piece of wood veneer would.

Crucial to our building process is a jig that holds the top and allows us to attach the sides, neck and back. I don’t have a jig that is the right size so that will be one of the next steps in the process.