TODAY was the day, I got the strings on the Redwood/Rosewood and have been playing it for the last half hour.
Here was the activity.
Here was the activity.
 First you must be very careful to get the saddle set exactly the right distance from the nut. This jig assures that you do that Then you tape the bridge in place with blue tape.  After you glue and clamp it you are apt to get some glue squeeze out. A nice way to remove it is with a plastic straw cut into a point like this. |  Next you carefully scrape away the shellac from the area to be glued and sand it a bit to rough it up and assure a good glue joint  Here are the homemade clamps made especially to fit tenors of this design. They work great. I just apply them finger tight, Don't have to be awfully tight. |
 While the glue is setting on that bridge I will install the Peghed tuners on all three of the ukes. First step is drilling a hole too small for the tuners but large enough to accept the tapered reamer. |  These great planetary geared tuners are threaded into a tapered hole. You need the right tool to install them. They screw in and are held fast with a drop of glue in the threads. I put rubber bands around them to make a better grip when I screw them into the wood |
 Here is the tapered auger that makes a hole with a 3% slope. The bridge pins are carefully fitted, a slot is sawn with a tiny saw at the front of the hole to accept the string- and we are ready to tune up. |  And here are a couple of twins, On the right my favorite tenor, on the left the newbe. The new uke sounds wonderful with it's fine grained redwood top from the NYC water tank- but it does not yet sound as good as the well seasoned Redwood beside it. It holds the promise and I look forward to playing it awhile and listening to it mature. Tomorrow I should get the other two tenors strung up. What fun to hear them sing their lovely songs. |
