when Stuart Fuchs asked me to build that uke for him a year or so ago he asked me to inlay a YinYang symbol in the first fret. Now it seems to be a constant request as I get build orders. I kind of like it myself, adds a bit of intrigue to the instrument. Here I am marking the dot locations on a PauFerro fingerboard for #145.note the YinYang requested by the buyer.
After marking the dot positions with the awl I get out the old fashioned hand drill to carefully drill the right depth hole for the Paua Abalone markers. An electric drill is too hard to control.
A hole drilled just the right depth, a bit of glue, and the dots are installed. I love the abalone markers but they are getting hard to find.
Now it is time to sand the radius into the fretboard. I start out with a sanding block with 80 grit because I need to remove quite a bit of wood. Then finish it up with 220, 320 and finer.
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this handy little gadget tells me when the radius is completed .
It also tells me that each fret slot is deep enough to properly seat a fret. If too shallow I would have to make a correcting cut with a fine saw. a simple but ingenious little tool.
First thing this morning I shipped the Cocobolo off to its new owner in Ventura CA. Note the nice tweed hard case that I ship all my ukes in. UPS does a nice job delivering them.
