THE BRACES ARE DONE

But not without lots of whittling.  This is what the shop floor looked like this morning, but I got it swept up, all of the braces and tone bars sanded and looking good- and then

It was time to sort them out to their proper place

And start gluing them on.  This is the "go-bar" method of clamping braces as the glue sets.

Now all the braces are on the uke backs.  I will thin down the tapered ends with a sharp chisel now that they are attached.  You want that back to vibrate freely and add resonance and sustain to your instrument.
In the upper part of the picture you can see the circular cedar braces that will be glued behind the rosette and then thinned down.  They are to strengthen the area of the tone board thinned by the groove cut for the rosette.