Woodcraft

I thought I'd share how I arrived at today's Challenge image, a segmented rosette for a small guitar. First I take a block of scrap wood, and use 3M spray adhesive to bond a piece of paper to it. I find the center, then draw two circles for the inner and outer perimeters of the ring. Then I start gluing wedges of various hardwoods around the circle with Titebond wood glue. Shape doesn't matter, as long as the edges match tightly and the circle is covered. Purfling strips made up of black fiber mated between thin Maple strips are used as separators. The only hardwood piece that has to be an exact fit is the last piece of the circle.

I let the glue cure overnight, then I lightly feed the block of wood through my drum sander from different directions to get an even thickness. Then I use a small rotary tool to cut the inner and outer diameters. After that, I gently pry the ring from the block with a putty knife and glue it to a 1/64" (0.4mm) plywood backing. After trimming the ply to the circumference, I glue it back down to another paper-covered block to glue on the outer and inner purling rings. The outer ring will bend OK if I go slowly and glue it a bit at a time, pinning it tightly at each step. The inner circumference is too tight, and the purfling will crack if I force it, so it has to be heat bent before attempting that step.

At that point, I just let the glue set again overnight, then pull all the pins and carefully sand the purfling rings flush with the wood segments. Pry the rosette from the wood block, gently sand the back to remove the paper, and glue the rosette in the channel cut in the guitar top, using a generous amount of Titebond and a lot of clamping weight to ensure a good bond. At this point, the rosette is still a fair bit thicker than the guitar top, and I'm about to go sand it flush with the soundboard.

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During the April Singles challenge, I shared several images of a trapezoidal-shaped tenor ukulele I was building. The structure has been finished for a couple of weeks, but I wanted to allow the finish to sufficiently cure. This morning I installed the tuners and strings. I'm pleased with how it sounds, although it will take at least a week for the strings to settle and hold their tune. My first impression is that it has a better tone than any of my previous ukuleles.

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I just happened to stumble on this thread, Tony. You have tremendous talent and artistry. These are beautifully crafted instruments. I’ll bet the sound is even better. Right now I’m having I’m sitting on my lanai picking and strumming my Ceniza. This thread inspired me to start playing this morning. Thanks.
 
I thought I'd share how I arrived at today's Challenge image, a segmented rosette for a small guitar. First I take a block of scrap wood, and use 3M spray adhesive to bond a piece of paper to it. I find the center, then draw two circles for the inner and outer perimeters of the ring. Then I start gluing wedges of various hardwoods around the circle with Titebond wood glue. Shape doesn't matter, as long as the edges match tightly and the circle is covered. Purfling strips made up of black fiber mated between thin Maple strips are used as separators. The only hardwood piece that has to be an exact fit is the last piece of the circle.

I let the glue cure overnight, then I lightly feed the block of wood through my drum sander from different directions to get an even thickness. Then I use a small rotary tool to cut the inner and outer diameters. After that, I gently pry the ring from the block with a putty knife and glue it to a 1/64" (0.4mm) plywood backing. After trimming the ply to the circumference, I glue it back down to another paper-covered block to glue on the outer and inner purling rings. The outer ring will bend OK if I go slowly and glue it a bit at a time, pinning it tightly at each step. The inner circumference is too tight, and the purfling will crack if I force it, so it has to be heat bent before attempting that step.

At that point, I just let the glue set again overnight, then pull all the pins and carefully sand the purfling rings flush with the wood segments. Pry the rosette from the wood block, gently sand the back to remove the paper, and glue the rosette in the channel cut in the guitar top, using a generous amount of Titebond and a lot of clamping weight to ensure a good bond. At this point, the rosette is still a fair bit thicker than the guitar top, and I'm about to go sand it flush with the soundboard.

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This is a beautiful rosette.
 
I just happened to stumble on this thread, Tony. You have tremendous talent and artistry. These are beautifully crafted instruments. I’ll bet the sound is even better. Right now I’m having I’m sitting on my lanai picking and strumming my Ceniza. This thread inspired me to start playing this morning. Thanks.
I appreciate the kind words, Greg. I was just playing the trapezoidal tenor uke from my post above. I'm not the greatest player around, but I think this one has the best tone of the four tenor ukuleles I've built so far.
 
Excellent progress today. I was able to carve and sand the neck to about 90% completion. It's ready for final sanding and finishing. Weather was so nice I took my stuff upstairs and opened the garage to the fresh air as I worked on the really messy stuff.

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The completed baritone ukulele. You can see from the last image the parentage of the ukulele neck. I used the off-cut I saved from making the guitar neck a long time ago, well over 10 years. The difference in tone between the two necks is due to the orange shellac I used on the ukulele.

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Love the headstock, really cool.
Thanks Harry. It is rather unusual, but I can't take credit for the original idea. A luthier in Hawaii originally came up with idea decades ago, and I saw it and liked it, so decided to use it for myself. It's actually pretty easy to implement, but tuning forces one to think a little bit. Might be why very few others have used it.
 
Today is the one year anniversary of completing this tenor guitar. It's the first instrument I built that had no prefabricated wood parts in the structure. My current project is using the same body molds, but is a 6-string. To celebrate the occasion, I stepped waaaaaay out of my comfort zone and recorded a sound clip for you folks:
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A good while ago I purchased a cheap-ish hobby CNC machine. Despite my best machinations, I was never able to get it working properly, despite the many videos I watched. I just set it on a table in my shop and let it gather dust for a year or more, as I recall.

Today, I decided I'd get it working come what may. What else is a guy with a broken foot gonna do? :D I downloaded and reinstalled all of the software, reconfigured the machine . . . and it worked. No burps, no fuss. Huh. I have no idea what I did wrong on the previous attempts, but I spent a few hours this afternoon toying with scrap wood, testing various settings. Here it is cutting a design into a piece of scrap Mahogany.

My original plan had been to use it to make certain small parts for stringed instruments. That is still my goal, once I've climbed the considerable learning curve. Right now I'm just cutting test pieces using a cheap hobby grade cutting bit, which leaves a great deal to be desired on the finished design.

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