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Ukulele build


Annoying Twit
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Well, I've always wanted to build something. I've had a Thomann own brand ukulele kit sitting around at home for years. Today I finally got around to glueing it together. I've stuck the neck on, stuck the fingerboard on, attached the nut, and the tuning machines. Tomorrow once the currently glueing bits are thoroughly dry, I'm going to attach the bridge. I'm not doing much in the way of finishing it, I'm just going to give it some coats of danish oil or something like that. The back of the neck isn't smooth, but I think it's a bit small to sand smooth/fill the grain etc. if I finish this, I might consider doing a solid body bass build in the future.

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Strings are on now. The tuners aren't geared, and it is freakishly hard to tune. Just a tiny turn on the tuners and the pitch goes from too low to too high. The action is high, both at the nut and the bridge, and the intonation is not good, sharp on the 12th fret. Since this is an experiment, I'll have a go at filing the nut and filing down the bridge. I'll see if I get anything playable out of it. However, geared tuners might be a must-have.



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I think you're being rather generous with your praise. It's just plain wood stuck together at the moment. The intonation is way off. If I tune the g string to pitch (really difficult with non-geared tuners) then fret the first fret, it's way sharp. I checked the nut height according to a website, and according to that the nut height is correct. The action is way high however. But, surely that wouldn't cause the excessive sharpness at the first fret ???? I'm not even thinking about finishing it at the moment until (if?) I can make it playable.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I thought about these. As it has an acoustic style neck, it would be a matter of sanding it to the correct radius but a different angle. And, the neck is now glued. on. I could probably hack the bridge off, sand the top down, and move the bridge, but that might be problematic. Also, I don't think that the high action is due to the neck angle, I think that filing the bridge and nut might fix it. Also, I don't think that the intonation problems are due to the bridge position, but are more likely to be due to the action itself.

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There ain't many Uke players going past the third fret, never mind the seventh...!!

Seriously, as the strings are not steel, they stretch much more than we are used to on bass or guitar. So if the action is high at the nut, you'll be stretching the string a lot by the time you hit the fretboard. Hence the sharp notes as soon as you go up the dusty end. The first fret will actually stretch the string more than if you are at the seventh fret.

New Ukulele strings are notorious for going out of tune for the first few weeks. After that they settle down. I take mine out the case after a couple of weeks and it's spot on.

If you're using the strings that came with the kit, you may be better off getting another set from Aquila. They will still take time to settle in, but it will save you a week of waiting.

Friction tuners will also make accurate tuning difficult.

But you've the satisfaction of having created something yourself, so don't be put off. I've seen players of very old intruments tuning up after every song. I'm pretty sure some of them purposely don't play songs that last more than 2 minutes...!


On the plus side, you won't need to change them for a few years....

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