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I was about to close a ukulele but was having issues with sides not tight to the mould (that's for another thread . . . ). Gluing the back was okay, using the spreaders in the mould. But that wouldn't work for the top. I needed the sides pushed out a little at the top of the lower bout. The solution is a little odd but it worked. I cut two small vertical cauls to go against the sides, and wedged a horizontal strut of the right length against them to coax the sides out. But the strut wanted to slide back into the lower bout. So I cut a shorter strut and put it between the end block and the horizontal strut, tightly enough that it bowed the strut and kept it in place, and the sides pushed out. Then I tied a piece of cord to the strut and out the soundhole, with a piece of wood on the end to keep it from falling back in while I was messing with clamps. When I removed the clamps next day, I pulled on the cord, bowing the horizontal strut enough for the short strut to fall way, and the long one to slide back and fall away too, and then removed the pieces from inside. It's a little silly, but in this case it worked like a charm, and might help someone out of the same predicament sometime. I should have photographed it while the uke was open, but maybe you can follow it in this photo.

Through this escapade I tried to locate hardware that I think someone mentioned here for making collapsible or removable spreaders or struts. I thought Lee Valley was mentioned but no luck there or anywhere else - anyone know of such a thing? Bruce W.

I think it was John Hall that mentioned in a video in doing something similar to what you have but he cut the dowel almost all the way through in the middle so it would break when you pull the string and retrieve it through the sound hole.

I built a kit that used, instead of a dowel, a square spreader with two cuts on opposite sides about an inch apart that allowed an eighth-inch or so of continuous material. Idea was to reach in the soundhole and pull, breaking the bridge between the cuts. Worked great.

I was wishing I was working on a guitar, where I could get into the soundhole, but a ukulele is a different story. I suppose you could use a string to break the strut. If the strut needs to be above or below the widest point in the bout (it did in my case), it's hard to keep it from slipping.