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Number 10: Tenor Uke

Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 11:47 am
by mjmeehan
As the quarantine shutdown wore on I began looking for another project. So I began gathering spare parts, odds and ends, and so on to begin a new project. This Tenor uke is the result.

It's mahogany neck, back and sides with a koa wedge flanked with maple. The headplate is koa with a sailor jerry waterslide decal. The interior neck and end blocks are mahogany tongue and groove that I trimmed and radiused. The finish is primarily shellac with a few coats of semi gloss lacquer over it.

The soundhole is oval because my circle router would have made the hole too big. So I drilled two center holes and split the difference.

Thanks for looking!

Re: Number 10: Tenor Uke

Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 11:48 am
by mjmeehan
Here are a few more. Don't mind the glue, I still have some clean up to do. Oops!

Re: Number 10: Tenor Uke

Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2020 6:25 am
by ruby@magpage.com
Very sweet little instrument. What are the woods? How does it sound?

Ed

Re: Number 10: Tenor Uke

Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2020 11:11 am
by Stray Feathers
Elegant solutions all round! Making the three-piece back carry over to the end graft is a great idea.

Re: Number 10: Tenor Uke

Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2020 4:27 pm
by mjmeehan
Thanks guys!
The neck, sides, top and back are mahogany. The wedges and headplate are all koa from the same falloff, so they matched as much as possible. I scrounged enough maple binding to flank the koa pieces then scraped it flush after gluing.

It sounds pretty good to me. It's still opening up and sounding fuller every day. Those strings sure take a while to settle in too. Part of me regrets not cutting in a soundport but maybe next time.

I actually undercut the end wedge a little expecting that I'd need to file it larger in order to true up the edges, turns out I did it right the first time... go figure!

Oh, and a shout out to John Hall for bending the sides for me. I just don't have the space for a bender. I'm pretty sure I also bought the stack of mahogany from him as well at an ASIA conference many years ago.