Griffin Ukuleles - Blog

THESE UKULELES ARE DONE

2/23/2020

These two ukes are ready for their new homes. One in California, one in Seattle. I am very pleased with both of them. The rich warm tone i expect from Water tank Redwood and East Indian Rosewood. Lots of volume, sustain and the intonation on each is spot on.

I have an order from California for another just like these two beauties, but I will not start it until I have finished my book on the life of JJ Donovan. I have been working on this book for four years and simply must get it done. I will get back to building ukes in a month or two. In the meantime I am a writer-not a luthier. It will be hard to stay out of the workshop. Don't give up on the blog, I will be posting frequently.

INSTALLING A MISI PICKUP

2/22/2020

Teri's Ukulele is now done and strung up. It is time to install the MiSi pickup. First the uke is clamped to the work table and the location of the hole is carefully measured and marked.

the hole will be drilled with this Step Drill. I have found that it drills a perfect hole with no damage to the surrounding wood. This will have to go through to its maximum width, 1/2 inch.

And here we go. It is almost through now. Looking good so far.

Here is the pickup. The strap button, nut and washer will be taken off and the rest of the pickup will be placed inside the uke and the threaded barrel brought out through the hole. it is secured by clamping it to the butt plate with the washer and nut. The round thing is a capacitor which stores electric energy like a battery. It is charged by inserting a charger into the barrel end.

The big challenge is bringing the piezo cable up through a hole that you drill in the saddle groove.

Using a thin steel wire inserted into the hole and attached to the piezo cable, I have drawn the cable out of the hole from within. Now I must get the barrel out of the hole from within.

And that is done with a wooden dowel which fits snuggly into the barrel of the pickup. once adjusted the washer and nut are screwed on tight and the pickup is firmly bolted to the butt block.

Now the Piezo cable is simply laid in the groove of the bridge, the saddle placed over it and the job is done. Not simple, but not bad when you have done it a few times. Now lets string it up and enjoy some music.

LEVELING THE FRETS

2/21/2020

It is a bit time consuming, but a necessary task if you want a good playing instrument. First you slide this tool over your fret, it is perfectly level and has sandpaper on the bottom. It quickly locates and lowers any frets that are a tiny bit high.

Then you mask off the fretboard and with 800 grit on a sanding block you smooth out the sandpaper cuts visible in this photo. when the fret is perfectly smooth to the fingernail, you polish it with these three rubber blocks impregnated with abrasive dust.

Here are the tools- first a tiny black rubber block with 800 grit sandpaper affixed. Then three grades of rubber polishers. red first, then green then yellow. Now those frets are smooth.

And the final test is done with this "rocker" device. Each surface is perfectly flat. Place it over three frets and try to rock it. If it rocks, the center fret is high. If it does not rock, all frets are level.

THE BRIDGES ARE ON

2/20/2020

Getting close to the finish line now. Today I glued the bridges on both ukes and started the final fret work.

with the utmost care the perfect place for the bridge is located and the bridge is surrounded with blue tape to prevent it moving when clamped and glued and of course so that the finish can be scraped off with a razor blade so that the glue will stick. Connie's uke is ready for the glue.

The blue tape prevents the bridge changing position when the clamps are applied.

And now it is glued and clamped. A homemade clamping system that works very well.

Another necessary task is leveling the frets. This aluminum bar is perfectly flat on the bottom and is armed with a strip of sandpaper. A few strokes will rapidly inform you of any high frets. It will lower a high fret and true up the fretboard. Then any corrected frets are carefully finished and polished. Kind of tedious but necessary to have a smooth playing instrument.

A RE-SAW DAY

2/17/2020

Spent a couple of hours on the band saw today re-sawing some nice Port Orford Cedar that I bought from GR Plume Co's recent wood sale. Nice quarter sawn fragrant wood now cut into sets enough to make twelve ukuleles in the future.

this set up on the big Grizzley band saw does a nice job of re-sawing these Port Orford Cedar boards into sets of book matched soundboards for ukuleles.

Stacking them up on the table saw as they come off the Band Saw.

Got enough for twelve future instruments. Port Orford Cedar makes great sounding ukuleles.

I think these two ukes have had just about enough French Polish. Before the week is out I am going to string them up.

They are looking nice and shiny. I am eager to hear their song.

TRICKS OF THE TRADE

2/15/2020

Luthiers are pretty ingenious people. Always dreaming up new ways to improve their craft. I recently learned a very neat trick for sanding down tiny areas and repairing scratches. Here is the story.

Somehow I had put a rather deep scratch in this soft redwood top. I carefully filled it with thick super glue and let it dry hard. But how could I sand the superglue perfectly flat without damaging much of the surrounding finish?

Here is the secret weapon. A piece of 1/4 inch thick acrylic with the edges carefully smoothed so as not to scratch-to which a tiny piece of stick-on sand paper is placed. I learned that the sandpaper could be much smaller than even the strip shown in this photo. I chose 400 grit sand paper

Now you can gently sand the super-glue down, seeing exactly where you are sanding. The acrylic plate keeps your approach flat so you don't sand deeper on one side than another. The patch of sandpaper could have been a third as large.

Now I have sanded it down almost flat, but you can see the adjoining finish is now beginning to be scratched. Time for another idea,

By putting strips of scotch tape on either side of the sand paper you limit your sanding to the thickness of the scotch tape.

That got it down most perfectly flat. just a little more sanding and then a coat of dilute shellac.

That scratch is gone

BARITONE GIG BAGS

2/14/2020

HIGH QUALITY BARITONE GIG BAGS - I just got two from my source in Mexico. These are first class canvas bags, heavily padded. The have a zippered pocket for your music, a strong shoulder strap, a handle. you can have one for $60.00 and actual USPS shipping to your location. Also have them in tenor, concert and soprano. You will love them

AFTER SANDING

2/11/2020

This morning I put a drop of dish washing detergent in a saucer of water, cut a piece of 1,000 grit sandpaper to size and lightly sanded the shiny surface of these two ukuleles. The sanding quickly removes the shine, but prepares the instruments to take on an even smoother shinier surface after a few more applications of dilute shellac.

Here they are, for the evening inspection in front of the fireplace. After three applications of French Polish they are beginning to get a nice shine. The water and detergent is to soak the sandpaper in so that the grit does not clog up and stop cutting.

This is Teri's tenor. An unusual figured East Indian Rosewood.

The East Indian on Connie's tenor is more normal but very lovely.

Redwood soundboards always take longer to build up a shiny finish, but we will get there soon.

BEAUTIFUL WOOD

2/8/2020

This tenor for Teri in California is going to be a beauty. A really complex piece of East Indian Rosewood is showing its beauty as the French Polish process continues.

If this ukulele sounds as good as it will look I will be very pleased.

COMMUNITY PLAYERS ARE BUSY

2/7/2020

We practice every Wednesday. We have had a couple of fun gigs recently

Last week we played at the Members Reception celebrating the opening of the new exhibits at the Whatcom Museum. Played for about two hours.

Today we played at The Willows, a very nice retirement home in Bellingham. Nice acoustics in this room. Lots of fun. We have another gig in a couple of weeks playing at an assisted living place.