Woodcraft

About to attach the center cross-grain reinforcing strips. That Black Cherry is nice looking wood.

cherry center strips.jpg
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Sometimes it seems I spend as much time making jigs and templates as I do working on actual projects. These templates were made by attaching copies of the plans to heavy .71mm poster board, then overlaying them with laminating film.

templates.jpg
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The beginnings of a pair of Sycamore ukuleles. The larger baritone in the rear will be all Sycamore and made 100% from locally harvested woods, while the tenor in front will have a top from salvaged old growth Redwood. Both of the neck blanks were cut from the same piece of 100+ year old American Chestnut. The golden colored wood is Osage Orange, which will eventually oxidize to a rich chocolate brown. I'm bouncing back and forth between the projects to keep them on the same general timeline.

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Not everything is about ukuleles. I spent a fair bit of time this afternoon flattening the back of a Black Walnut bowl blank that had been drying in my garage for 12 years or so. The process involves scribbling cross-hatched pencil marks all over the side that needs flattened, then scrubbing it vigorously across a large flat sanding board until one's arms feel like they are going to fall off, rotating the piece frequently to ensure even sanding and stopping often to check the progress. The leveling happens slowly, and the back is flat when all the pencil marks are gone. The Black Cherry blank gets the same treatment tomorrow. The plastic container contains Walnut sanding dust that I'm keeping for inlay work on other projects.

Walnut blank.jpg
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bowl blanks.jpg
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When we bought this house many years ago, it had some truly hideous rough timber "light fixtures" in one of the rooms. After staring at them for a few years, we pulled them all down and had the room rewired. But being the pack rat I am, I stacked all the old wood on top of a garage cabinet, for "some day" use. Turns out much of it is Yellow Poplar, but last year I discovered one of the pieces was a slab of Black Cherry, and it became a ukulele neck. Today I milled some of the remaining boards to be used in another shop project. The pics show the boards in various stages, from rough painted to fully planed and trimmed.

reclaimed Poplar.jpg
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reclaimed 2.jpg
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My woodwork went in a different direction today. It was so nice outside, I threw open both garage doors and went to town making a huge mess with some lathe tools and a chunk of Black Walnut I've had in my shop for 12 or 13 years. Just a basic bowl, but it was a lot of fun. The second pic shows only part of the mess that had to be cleaned.

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Walnut mess.jpg
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The Tru-Oil finish on the Redwood top has been a real thorn in my side. I considered just stopping mid-way through the process and going with an open-pore look, but the more I thought about it, the more I didn't like that look. The pore fill and oil finish on the Mahogany and Sycamore neck went great; it was much easier than the body. Giving the body time for the Tru-Oil to cure, it will probably be around the end of November before I attach the neck and bridge. I still need to add the Walnut heel cap. I let myself get distracted by other projects, so this has taken longer than I planned.

kiku face.jpg
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Making a top for a small bookcase. A friend who runs a sawmill let me know she had some thornless mesquite available--different from regular mesquite having less voids. This particular mesquite was developed by a biologist at Texas A&M Kingsville. He also built the house I now have and there lots of mesquite throughout, floors and kitchen cabinets, but none of the thornless variety.
Thornless mesquite.jpg
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I took a box of Maple scrap and built a butcher block style portable work surface with breadboard ends. I needed to elevate it from the table in order to get clamps under it for gluing instrument plates and braces, but I didn't want to use plain dado joints, so I took the plunge and attached the Cherry legs with sliding dovetail joints, my first time attempting such a joint. I'm pleased with how they came out. Now I just need to finish sand the Cherry legs, then give them a couple coats of boiled linseed oil, like the top already has.

butcher board.jpg
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The Tru-Oil finish on the Redwood top has been a real thorn in my side. I considered just stopping mid-way through the process and going with an open-pore look, but the more I thought about it, the more I didn't like that look. The pore fill and oil finish on the Mahogany and Sycamore neck went great; it was much easier than the body. Giving the body time for the Tru-Oil to cure, it will probably be around the end of November before I attach the neck and bridge. I still need to add the Walnut heel cap. I let myself get distracted by other projects, so this has taken longer than I planned.

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Beautiful look of the varnish, and what a stunning rosette, Tony. :2thumbs:
 
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