Yesterday I drove to the Pacific Rim Tonewood plant way up the Skagit River. I needed some of their excellent binding. I arrived just as Bob Taylor and an entourage from Taylor Guitars drove in. Not wanting to interfere, I went directly to the binder shop to see my friend Artie who makes them. I missed the opportunity of meeting the famous owner of Taylor Guitars. Taylor and Pacific Rim are partners in several outreach programs involving Koa and other woods. Leaders in the field.
Artie had been saving a bunch of rejects for me and I took them all. He makes them 33 inches long. If the flaw is at one end of the binding I am able to use them for ukes as a tenor binding only requires 19 inches in length.
Most of these are lovely curly koa that fade into whitish heart wood at one end. Usually I want the darker wood so I just cut off 19 inches and toss the white end. A bargain price for me, and Pacific Rim gets a bit of income from what might have gone into the scrap pile. A Win-Win.
Back in the workshop, I got the side sound ports installed and glued in with good old super glue. The sanding smooth will come a bit later.
I also dropped into our local wood store, and to my surprise found a nice piece of Spanish Cedar, famous for instrument necks. It is stable, strong and light, all characteristics of good necks, It is pretty too. Here I am glueing the three pieces which will form the head stock. I will do the tails tomorrow.
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I will get four nice tenor necks out of one piece of the wood. they wiill end up looking like this Honduran Mahogany one I had made some time ago. Maybe I had better go back to the store and get some more, the price was right.
today was Boxing day. I got both ukes boxed up, that is I got the backs glued on.
Tonight, after the glue had dried I went back to the shop to trim the edges top and bottom. The blue tape keeps the trimmer just a tiny bit away from the side. I will finish up the trim with a little sanding.
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This trimmer bit in the router does a nice job; The wheel rides on the blue tape.
'so here they are-All boxed up. The next job, installing the bindings.
