Back glued on Argapa 100

After fitting the back braces to the sides I grind away at the body with my radius dish. It looks rather threatening compared to the tiny uke shell, but its weight really helps. 

Then, with a suitable insert undee the neck at the nut end, I get screws and cauls out. 

Then clamping the back down with the screws and wingnuts. Now would be a great time to link to the posts with the radius dish and the screw system, and I'll try to do that on the computer later. 

Since my solera is by the wall I check for an even squeeze out with a mirror. It looked perfect. 

Backs are on

Glueing the backs is easy. I just pare the heel down so it's flush with the body on two of the resos, then use them as clamping cauls for each other. I had a layer of fleece fabric as padding between the backs, and sent a thought of thanks to the me who wrote "B, INSIDE" on the backs so I knew which went where. 

A monster not with two backs, but two faces. A Janus uke, anyone? 

And then the excess trimmed off on the small bandsaw, carefully so I didn't saw the neck off. 

Hhe batch is still moving in unison as we close in on the fretboards. 

Binding Argapa 100

Stopped attaching the neck at the last minute when I remembered I promised you binding on this one. I went with a plain black single ply binding strip, to match the plain black rosette I made. I started by scoring the width and the depth with a marking gauge and my home made gramil. 

As always when using the gramil I consider doing the whole job with just that but I caved and went with the router. 

After nipping out to the cottage, as I'm sure you see by the background and the daylight. 

I set the router for a wee bit deeper than the binding width and planned to scrape the sides down to the strip. That way I can get a consistent width all way round, which is really important for thin binding. 

Then I cleaned the rabbet best I could with a chisel, and then glued in the binding strip. 

Then scraping the binding down to the top, and then the sides down to the binding. I don't have pics of the last step. As you may see the oven was getting warm, dinner was had and the final steps were taken at the dinner table after dessert. 

Attaching necks

After the joyful experience with the disc sander last weekend (a sentence never before written, I'm sure) I was well prepared for drilling and attaching. 

It might be my experience piling up, but no doubt the clean and exactly made skeletons of this batch help - it was so much easier than it was last time. And since I attach the neck before glueing the back I have relatively easy access to the screw. 

So far four reso necks, and that spare neck did come in handy. One of the necks had a heel that was too delicate and the drill went through when I drilled for the barrel bolt. I smacked on a faceplate and the spare will be good to go. 

And I went ahead with Argapa 100 too, but stopped just when I reached for the glue. Did I say I was gonna put binding on this one? Well now's the time, it's harder if the neck is in place. Avoided future senior moment by storing barrel bolt and screw in the neck. 

Technical relapse

Earlier this week, after glueing all the faceplates on, I started looking at the heels. The face of the heels. At the end of the necks. This anatomical vocabulary is quite fun innit. 

But here's a pic of the faceplates. Or headstock veneers, I don't know. 

Anyway the heels. This is a process I've done loads of times, I make a shallow recess with a sharp gouge, then I sand the heel on a slab of metal with sandpaper glued on until the angles are right. It takes me about half an hour to do. 

But the gouge was dull. 

And during my work with the faceplates I discovered I have carved seven alder necks, not six for the resos. I still think a spare neck might come in handy so I'll keep it in the production line for a bit. But the idea of fixing seven necks, plus the eighth for Argapa 100, with a dull guage took the fun out of the workshop. 

So I brought the whole load to the cottage where the larger workshop is. In the background you can see dad's boat. 

I set the disc sander at 89 degrees (which came naturally when aiming for 90) and went at it. 

I hollowed the face of the heels a bit on the end roller on the belt sander so it wouldn't rock. 

And checked the angles on the granite plate. 

And after thirty minutes flat all eight were done! Now on towards mounting them. 

Glueing tops

As I promised in the last post, my ramblings about scrap blocks and that will become clear in this one. 

In the pic below you can see snapped off pieces of kerfed lining strips glued around the edges. Since the large hole for the soundwell was exact in diameter I just aligned it with the skeleton and checked that the soundholes were in position. Then a few clamps and the blocks were glued with superglue. 

Of course I made all at the same time. 

Then glueing. I picked out two of them, spread glue on one of them and pressed them together to get just enough on each skeleton. Then I used my rubber roller to even it all out. 

Then put the tops on, chuck a mouse mat in between and place both in the vise. 

When all six were done and the glue dry I sawed off the excess. They are starting to look a bit like the ukes they will become!

And I finished carving the necks, finally. Had a spot of trouble with the cedar neck so all will have alder necks. Saves me te trouble of choosing which would get the cedar one.