THIS THIRD TENOR is going to be a really dark one. I will use some fine grained Redwood for the top, East Indian Rosewood for sides and back and Honduran Mahogony for the neck. The fretboard might as well be ebony to complete the dark look. Here are the woods laid out.
The dark wood is the East Indian Rosewood. I was able to get all of the wood for the uke from these two pieces. The light wood on the left is the template for the sides which will be cut from the outer edge of each piece. The back will be the wood under the plastic template. I will glue the two sides together to make the back. The redwood soundboard or top is shown in two pieces across the top of the picture. Redwood darkens considerably when finished. The Honduran mahogany blank is shown on the right ready for its date with the bandsaw.
REDWOOD AND ROSEWOOD- A NICE COMBINATION
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NOW WE MUST glue the two pieces together. first I lay a piece of sticky backed 120 grit sandpaper on the flat surface of my table saw, then I slide the rip fence over it to give me a vertical reference guide
With the workpiece held carefully to the rip fence to keep it at a perfect right angleyou firmly stroke over the sandpaper in only one direction, lifting the wood from the paper to return to the position to make another stroke. If you sand in both directions you will never achieve a perfect joint. When the two pieces are held up to the light and no light can be seen between them-you are ready to glue them together.
Here is what you need for a perfect glue joint.
- a flat plywood board with a stop piece screwed and glued across it
- two Jorgensen clamps
- a straight block of wood to use as a movable clamp caul, & another wood batten to sit over the glue joint
- two pieces of clear plastic wrap top and bottom of the glue joint to prevent gluing workpiece to base or batten
- heavy weights to sit on the batten and prevent the work piece from rising up when clamp pressure is applied. I use two bags of bird shot but anything heavy will do.
- glue- I use LMI luthier's glue. tite bond or hide glue will do also.
- clamp to keep the caul block from rising when tightened. see picture below
I have three backs and two tops to glue together, Only the Englemann Spruce top is wide enough as a single piece.
