Life in the Village and beyond, based around the interests of my life.

Life in the Village and beyond, based around the interests of my life. Sunset at Telegraph Point.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Building a Ukulele - Part 7 - Body Assembly

The various parts are sloooooowly coming together - a right shoulder injury is hampering my activities mightily at the moment.  It is taaaking .... sooo ...... looong to get the smallest tasks completed.

Serendipitously, it gives me an even greater appreciation of the courage and abilities of the competing para-olympians.  I really admire those athletes! Two weeks to go - bring it on!

OK, here are the bits.
Let's have a go at putting things together.


The body has had an embellishment added to the toe - in the form of the same burl veneer as the headboard.  Two reasons for this - to tart it up a bit, and provide a little balance in the design - and the second reason is to cover a badly matched join where the two sides met.


By making it wedge shaped, the filler piece can be cut oversize, slid into place and glued - then the top and bottom trimmed off.  Looks OK I think.

I'll be fitting the back first, so the back linings are attached.

Linings for the back are glued in place - hooray for clothes pegs!


Here are the back linings after drying.
I'll have to attach the neck before the top goes on, to give me room to clamp the neck tenon in place.

I'll fit and glue the back next, as the design of my neck means it has to be attached from the top, and the fretboard over the top of the soundboard.  Do these later.

I hoped to have more done than this, but ...... life intervenes .............
.... the shoulder, doc - the shoulder ...................owwwch!

Until next time ................

Love life and live ..........

2 comments:

  1. To many beers, walking home Tom a stumble was it??

    I suppose its going to sit there all laid out till
    such time as motivation and enthusiasm brought on by the parra-olympians makes you forget the pain. Terrible aren't I.

    Hope the shoulder heals quick and your back to it ASAP.

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  2. Ha ha Ray - you crack me up.
    It is a torn tendon in the rotator cuff. I don't know how it happened - woke up sore, and it got worse as the day went on. Maybe I was chicken winged in my sleep - ha ha!
    Been having physiotherapy, and have another session this afternoon. It helps.
    The biggest pain is the amount of time it takes me to get simple things done - like getting dressed.

    Now, as to the glacial pace of the ukulele build, well I have spent all morning in the shed and managed to get the back glued in place and clamped. I used two part epoxy, and it has a long workup time so was lucky there. I normally get a little anxious at any project glue-up ... more so this time. It was a tricky glue-up, as the back is double convex and curves in both directions. I'll leave it to dry for a couple of days.
    Thanks for your kind words Ray -
    All the best

    Tom

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