I've just been wrapping up my first couple of ukes and thought that I would share my experiences a bit. First, a few pics:
This one has a red spruce top, koa back and sides, EIRW binding & fingerboard, and a mother of pearl palm tree. The rosette is 3 pieces of koa with a b-w-b border. I got a whole pile of red spruce uke tops when I worked at PRS - they were too small for guitars, and fortunately for me, Paul had not been bitten by the uke bug
! The neck is honduran mahogany (scarfed construction). I've got another one right behind this one that is pretty much a twin, with the exception that I'm using mesquite for the fingerboard & bridge. I pore filled using LMI's microspheres (super easy application), sealed it up with a couple coats of shellac, and did about 20 coats of EM6000 for the finish. EM6000 lays on pretty thin - 20 coats is about .008 to .010" thick before leveling and sanding (after buffing, I believe I'm down around .004). I started sanding with 600 and went to 2000 before buffing (I use a Caldwell buffer). The plan is one that I drew. I initially intended it to be a tenor uke, but I've apparently made the body more of a concert size (although it is a tenor scale). I found some info that said that tenor bodies were typically 8.25" wide and it turns out that is a bit smaller than normal. This one fit best in a concert uke case (lanikai makes some decent cases). Best practice for new body shapes seems to be to buy a case first, and then to design the instrument to fit a standard case...(duh)!
I'm a big proponent of voicing guitars, but on a body this small, I can't really say that I feel the builder has much latitude to really tune the top. I think this would have been another advantage of building to a wider/longer body shape - increased "voiceability".
The necks were set pretty similarly to how I would set a guitar neck, with approximately 1/16" to 1/8" of clearance between a straight edge on the frets and the top of the bridge.
It sounds nice and is a ton of fun to play! Guitars feel huge after playing these little things so much...!
Thanks,
Trev
