Ukulele Day 09 Tuning the top

This is the result of glued bracing.
Today, we'll tune the top.

Start by sanding out the bridge.

Chamfer bracing

We use aluminum jig to measure the required height of top bracing. It is 3 mm.

Tap, remove waste, tap, remove waste

We precisely cut the top line because we'll assembly this top with side. (refer from this cut top line)

We clean all glue mark, sand it, make it nice and neat.

 Clamp the top and check the position.

Center?

Center?

We, then, mark the length of bracing with ukulele width at each bracing's position.
Cut it to fit the body.

Also, we use chisel to remove a small part of top lining so that the bracing sits perfectly on top lining.

Finally, we glue the top with side with go bar.

Ukulele Day 08 Bracing

After we finish top, back, we'll attach the top first.
Here we check the top lining and find out that there is defect near heel block.
Thus, we use hand saw+chisel to remove this small piece out and glue a new one.

Then, we'll start bracing part.

Measure the four sticks.

Resurface lining with sphere template (15 degree sphere).

Here is the result of sanding with sphere template

Smooth the center line by sanding , with curved block.

Measure the bracing position on the back, mark that position.
Then, we use cutter to remove some part of center line so that the new bracing sits perfectly on the back.

Then, we outline the curve line on bracing and sand it out.
(outline this line by comparing with sphere template)

Mark the bracing position on sphere template, then we sand this bracing at this particular position.

Test....we expect snug fit.

Continue with top bracing.

Then, we measure the bridge position.

From the specification, this soprano ukulele uses scale 25.5"
Start the fret 1 of ukulele at fret 11th of 25.5" scale.
On the other hand, we can say that the conventional ukulele captures only fret 11-fret23 of guitar.

The position of bridge is the same distance from top line to nut.

Then, we glue bracing with back, top

Ukulele Day07 Sound Hole

Last time, we glued top lining.
Today, we remove small spring clamp and the above photo show the result.

There is some small hole between lining and side. We'll fix it later.

Our top is 3mm thickness (the spec. is 1.5mm)
Our back is 2mm thickness (the spec. is 1.5mm)
Both boards, we'll sand it later.

We've printed out the hibiscus sound hole from internet.
We compare the size of sound hole with our soprano template.

The left photo is good. The right photo is too big.

We use template to draw a top outline, use washer to draw a spared area.

Make a photo copy on the top.

For the back, we prepare to glue the center line.
We use go bar to push the back with sphere template.

With steel ruler, we glue our center line on the back.

Below photo is our hand-made go bar.

Back to our top, we use hand drill to make a hole on each area.

We then use scroll saw.

Compared with original photo.

Look pretty!!

Then, we sand the bottom area of top. This is our sound board.

Sand it out until the thickness is at 1.6-1.9mm

Optionally, we use small block to help us.