Here are the tone bars still needing a bit of sanding, but fitting over the walnut saddle backing plate. The bridge pins will penetrate the bridge, the sound board and this plate. Good solid backing for them.
This heavy piece of iron rail doubles as my shop anvil, and a handy weight as it is used here. It is holding down the just glued sound hole brace seen in the next picture.
This cedar ring is glued down-cross grained, to guard against splits around the sound hole. It gets faired in and sanded smooth on the edges.
Here is what all the pieces look like before glueing, just sitting in their place. The three back braces are shown on the left side.
Here is what they look like at end of day. The neck is glued to the soundboard. All the braces are glued to both soundboard and back. The sides are bent, the fretboard is taperedt and ready for its frets. This ukulele might just make it for Christmas after-all.
Here is the other side.
And now for the Kasha/Schneider, It is only needing a couple more days of French polishing and then the bridge gets glued on and she will show us her song. I will confess to working diligently on this 100th ukulele. It has been different, interesting and lots of fun and I am very eager to play it. I started it on October 1st. People often ask me how long it takes to build a ukulele. I guess I can now say, "one month".
