The Disco Uke in action

A slight distraction

This blog set off to record the birth of a cigarbox ukulele - and so it did.
But now the cigarbox ukulele is alive and well, there didnt seem to be much use for this blog...... that is until its sister was born recently - the 'disco ukulele' - Sadly only a couple of pictures exist of its creation, but nevertheless this blog seemed like the proper place to mention such a wonderful instrument

Strings

Aha - Jon suggests that I get rid of the GHS strings and fit some aquilas (I must say aquilas made a world of difference to my old Mahalo - yes - I hold my hand up proudly.... I love my old Mahalo :-)
And he also suggests that I might lower the action a bit by dropping the slots in the nut by a whisper.
Ive changed the strings....... and now im waiting for them to settle before I can play it - but ive already got a sense that its going to sound (and play?) much better.
We shall wait and see. In the meantime make sure you have a look at the aquila website - its a fascinating insight into the world of "strings" - No, REALLY - it is! :-)

What does it sound like?

This is it. I'm ready to give it a go. But wait a minute - the strings appear to have joined the mile-high club - I could drive a double decker bus under those strings - the action is way too high.
A quick fettle of the saddle and they come down to a more reasonable height - though still not ideal ..... But 'good enough'
So this is what it sounds like......

I think I should make it clear that the rough sound is probably more reflective of my playing skills than my uke-building skills. I'll keep practicing :-)

Trimming

At last comes the trimming. The bit that turns turns your newly painted vehicle into that blinged up custom car- its amazing what difference a few shiney bits can make to your labour of love.
Fitting the machine heads were pretty simple, and with a little bit of araldite glue, the eyelets settled into place perfectly - I really like the look of these :-)
And finally came the strings - I could hardly contain my excitement...... this was it, I was going to find out if it sounded as good as it looked.
However, if you've ever put new strings on a new instrument you will know that its not an immediately gratifying experience - it takes a while for the strings and the instrument to settle and stretch, so it was quite a while before I could "give it a go".

Polishing

First up, I should declare that I DO acknowledge that often the measure of success is in the detail.... however if I know anything about myself, its that I start to lose interest when it comes to finishing details, and if I flog myself to focus on the finishing details, I often just keep putting things off and ultimately never actually finish a project.
I have seen some lousy finishes on ukuleles and I've seen some beautiful finishes on ukuleles, and it was my intention right from the start of this project to put some effort in to making sure my finish wasnt one of the lousy ones. Ideally it would be a beautiful finish - but not if it meant weeks of sanding, filling, lacquering and polishing. And so I deliberately limited the time I'd spend on polishing in the hope that I wouldnt lose interest and give up.
I decided to go for a danish oil and beeswax finish - mainly because I had the materials already available from when i did some pine doors a while ago. After maybe a half hour of sanding with increasing grit grades, I applied 3 coats of "Rustins danish oil - low lustre finish" (managed to get all 3 done in one day), then once fully dry (following day) 2 sessions with some 0000 fine wire-wool and clear Briwax polish. A quick buff and all was 'good enough'. In my mind I kept telling myself that I could always do more finishing and polishing in the future if i really wanted to - but lets face it...... I wont :-)
There were a couple of points that I might have done differently if i was to do it again. Firstly, where i had modified the neck by sawing bits off, the exposed wood (below the laquer of the original Ohana finish) stood out like a sore thumb.... in retrospect i should have stained these bits to blend them in a bit prior to oiling and waxing.
And secondly - and this bit irritates me now - I forgot to sand back carefully the wipe of glue that was left on the soundboard from when I glued the bridge on. This meant that the oil didnt get an even penetration there, and consequently there is a bit of a white wittness line around the position of the bridge - I guess I could still sand back and rework, but I wont. I can live with it and put it down to a "good learn"

Bridge

Fitting the bridge I thought would be a tricky job with all the fine alignments and accurate fixing... Turns out it was a bit of a breeze and certainly not worthy of a photograph (you can only have so many pictures of glue drying)
The general rule of thumb is that firstly the bridge should be on the center line with the neck - it would be very irritating to have the strings running off the edge of the neck (not that my playing would really notice it as the most obvious out of alignment would be down the dusty end, and i rarely get down there) So to ensure all is on line its simply a case of running a straight edge down either side of the neck and splitting the difference. I used a bit of masking tape on the sound board so that i didn't have to put pencil marks on the bare wood.
As for the forward and aft positioning of the bridge, this again was simpler than I imagined. The good Mr Colter had written about this positioning in his instructions (the ones we received at the symposium) and explained that the saddle position is made at the same distance from the 12th fret as is the 12th fret to the nut. As simple as that! To account for the degree of stretch (and subsequent increase in pitch) the strings get while playing, John recommends an additional 2-3mm on this position. I added 3 mm, but to be honest I don't think anyone will hear the difference in my playing (though maybe it would noticable if Lyle Ritz was playing)

I glued the bridge down with a dob of wood PVA. Once again I was a bit worried about the strength of the joint and would have normally wanted to include some mechanical fixings too in the form of screws or dowels. Certainly some uke bridges use screws, but many don't, so I put my faith in the power of evostick wood glue and left it at that

Sticking my neck out (on)

Now that the box lid is gled shut, its time at long last to stick the neck onto the body. Ive been a bit anxious about this bit... its got to be strong, straight, flat and clean.

I had made a marking template (from a flattened coke can) and used a multitude of clamps and blocks to ensure my dowel holes were accurately aligned on the neck and body. Then after sanding the varnish off the box in the joint area (for a good glue key) it was simply a case of creating a jig that would hold the whole thing straight while the glue dried.
Nothing particularly clever in doing this bit other than taking a bit of time to make sure everything lines up, and using just enough sheets of writing paper to shim to the correct level the box so I could clamp it down tightly.
Hope not too much glue squeezed out from between the fret board and sound-box because once in the jig I couldn't clean excess glue from that area.

Getting the neck ready

Now that I know where my sound holes are going, it made sense to modify the end of the fret-board to suit. Im not sure what this fret-board is made of. It certainly looks like wood, but it cuts, and smells like a dense plastic (though it appears to have a grain and fibres) I'm guessing that the Ohana that is came from was no more than 30 quid so it could be wood... but then again it could be plastic!
The other delicate bit of work to do was shaping and flattening the neck block to suit the flat sided cigar box - the neck originally came from a figure of eight ukulele and so the neck block had a slight concave shape to it that would have fitted the curved body of the original uke. A bit of jigging and some flat sanding blocks seems to have kept everything square (enough).

And then finally I drilled a couple of holes for the fixing dowls. Some cheap ukes dont bother with these and simply rely on a flat glued joint. I preferred to take the trouble to make a drilling template and drilling jig to ensure square and accurate positioning for the dowls that will give the instrument a lot of strength at this point where the tension of the strings will eventually create a lot of stress.

drilling the sound holes

It didn't take me as long as I thought it would to make my final decision about the sound-holes. Perhaps the recent delay in progress had given me some useful incubation time, and the answer was ready and waiting to pop out.
I did however (out of curiosity) make a couple of calculations as to the relative cumulative sound-hole 'holes' of my various options. I had a range from 678 sqmm to 1,271 sqmm, and my final design turned out to be 1,751 sqmm. I have no idea what this means to accoustics - the proof will be in the eating of the pudding. For reference, a cheap Mahalo ukulele has a sound-hole of 1,661 sqmm.
I masking taped the soundboard as I didnt want to make any unnecessary damage that you take an age to sand out. In an ideal world I would have used a trepanning tool (thanks Tone) to make the holes, but not having one, I followed Johns advice on chain-drilling them out. The pillar drill made easy work of the 100 little holes. A bit of sand paper wrapped around an appropriate bit of dowl made a good finish (not that the finish of the holes will be seen once the eyelets are in place)

To close or not to close

I really wanted my cigarbox uke to be an opening one. I really like the idea of being able undo the catch and look inside. Im not sure why I like that idea - its not like the box is even practical like a lunch-box uke where you put your sandwiches in for the intermission.
So it was my intention to keep it an opening one - and perhaps get a bit inventive with some internal bracing to put some rigidty back into the open sided box. However, it is not to be. The Lid of my box is quite distorted and bowed and so I have decided to glue it shut (as John Colter had recommended at the symposium)
Note. its not the corner-post in my box that is preventing it from closing - that is the correct size. The lid is definitely bowed

With a little help from my friends

I was with some friends last night doing a little uking.
Jon is a way better player than the rest of us but he holds us together as a group and stretches us with new songs. I was grateful for him showing me AGAIN the finger patterns for "12th Street Rag" (I'm a 'show-me-3-times' learner)
However Jon also unwittingly gave me a couple of other valuable insights last night....

We were talking about the cigarbox uke project (he was at the symposium and is also making one) and he started to tease me about trying to pretend that I'd made my neck by disguising any reference to Ohana. I was quite surprised - it hadn't ever crossed my mind that anyone might suppose that that was my intention - it just goes to show that you can't assume that other people think like you.
What I AM trying to do is 'make it my own'. And this lead me to think (again) about ownership of ideas...... If someone comes up with an interesting idea (lets say for example, Ohana's neck style) and I modify it (lets say by removing their label and reshaping some of their features) - is it still an Ohana neck? or is it now a Tim neck? If I go and customise a ford fiesta, is it my design or fords for supplying the donor vehicle?
One of the things I teach in my work is the notion of ADOPT, ADAPT, CREATE. When organisations get a bee in their bonnet about being more innovative, they can sometimes get a little too enthusiastic about invention, and when this happens, when faced with a challenge or an opportunity they feel they have to invent new solutions. This can be very inefficient, especially if a good enough solution already exists somewhere. And so we encourage people to first of all become better 'scouts' for solutions (by looking within or beyond their own industry/culture/country etc), and if a good-enough solution does exist, then ADOPT it. If someone somewhere has already addressed something similar, then maybe you can ADAPT it. And if there really is no solution anywhere, then you have to CREATE one.
I think what I am doing with my Ohana neck is adapting it to suit my needs - which are purely aesthetic - I dont want it to look like everyone elses (which I think is similar to simply customising your bog-standard car) - I'm certainly not trying to pretend that I carved the neck from a lump of wood.

And then there was a major break through for me when Jon mentioned that he had already glued his cigarbox shut. I asked him if he'd put a lable inside as a 'makers mark'. His answer switched a lightbulb on in my head.
I had a plan that I was going to create a logo and lable and put it on the headstock and inside the sound box (as a luthier would do) and I was going to put my headstock logo on with a printable decal paper - which meant ordering some..... and i hadnt got round to that yet..... which meant I couldnt make the lable..... which meant i couldnt finish off the inside of the box..... which meant that the project was pretty well on hold.
When Jon said that he wasn't bothered about a lable and simply just signed the inside of the box before closing it - I suddenly realised that I was being too focused on one idea, and that I couldnt make progress until that idea was implemented - as soon as I let go of that idea/feature, I felt like the barriers were down and I could make progress once again.
Its interesting how we can trap ourselves simply by not looking beyond our noses

position of sound hole(s)

So after my successful search for some lovely looking grommets / eyelets / hole-trims, you'd think it would simply be a case of drilling some holes in the soundboard and inserting said inserts.... well not quite.... Ive got to work out WHERE to drill the holes
I feel like my options are limitless - and in some ways the infinite possibilities make me feel a little suffocated. If i were following a plan or copying a tradition, my options would be minimal and progress would be just as quick as i could measure and mark the hole position. But as it is, I have 3 types of grommet and i can do what-ever pleases me with them..... but what pleases me?

I am conscious of the fact that i dont want to deaden the soundboard by putting too much weight into it with metal eyelets, and i dont want to weaken the soundboard by cutting too many holes close together. Im not sure how important the positioning or circumference of the holes are so I am for now going to ignore this and explore the answer after ive tried my chosen option which will be driven primarily by what I think 'looks right'..... the attached pictures are only some of the options

Thinning the sound board

I could very carefully plane by hand the panel, I could very slowly sand by hand the panel, and I could (and did) visit Lorne to use his electric plane to remove a good 1/16" off the base of my box. I resisted his offer to 'see what happens' by putting it through his thicknesser.
It took moments to remove the excess material, and I shall go even thinner (by hand with sand paper) once i have cut my sound holes in.
So, slowly I make progress.
Hours spent so far on making this? - about 5 which includes making saw jigs and cleaning glue bottles (but not driving to Lornes and Steve-the-grommet man and researching styles on the internet - thats probably another 5 hours)

Why are cigarbox instruments usually upside down?

I hadn't thought about this before (until about a week ago).
Why is it that people often use the underside of the box as the visible side of the instrument - surely it would be nicer to see facing forward the cigar box logo that is imprinted on the lid of the box?
Well there is method in the madness. The bit that faces out front on the instrument is the sound board - the bit that needs to resonate to create a clear loud sound - and to maximise its resonance, it needs to be thin - thinner than the usual 1/8" panel. So easiest thing to do is plane and sand the base of the box to the desired thickness.
But why not just thin the top panel? well you could, but that would mean planing off the decorative outer surface... UNLESS you were prepared to carefully remove the lid panel, thin the underside of the panel and refit the thinned panel back to the lid frame.... A lengthy process that I don't want to get involved with right now. So i shall keep my decorative lid panel..... quite literally 'close to my chest'

Sound holes

Ive mentioned earlier that i rather like the two-sound-hole-up-front stylie of the bluesy type cigarbox instruments (I ought to investigate as to why this style arose) and so with this in mind I went alooking on the internet and in local hardware stores for an appropriate bezel to finish my holes. It was a harder search than I though it might be, and I was grateful for all the suggestions of John, Lorne, Hugh and Dad as to where I might find such a thing.
I did a lot of searching on line - searching for terms like 'bezel', 'eyelet', 'hole lining', 'grommet', 'hole trim'. I looked at all sorts of industries including 'automotive', 'chandlers', 'clock makers', 'plumbers', 'tarpulin makers', 'curtain makers' and 'kitchen manufacturers' (I should point out that this important research is happening while the family watch 'Shameless' - I think my 1 hour is better spent)
Finally, I come across a picture on a google search that looks just what im after, a couple of clicks and i discover they are manufactured in Birmingham - about 5 miles from me. And so today I went and visited them.
Rivfast (Hampton Works) doesnt really have a trade counter as such, but Steve was very welcoming and interested to see how he might help. He had just the thing - actually he had several styles of eyelets that would work for me, so for a contirbution to the 'tea fund' Steve let me take a small selection away. Now all ive got to do is work out a desired layout for my soundholes

personalisation

One of the beauties of building a cigar box uke is that there are few rules in terms of what it should look like. Of course you would like it to sound as good as possible so there are some rules of acoustic physics that are pretty well non-negotiable, but unlike building say a Martin copy you are not limited to what someone else says looks right.
The neck that i will be using for this project is off a Chinese made Ohana ukulele (probably about a £30 one) - Its quite a pretty looking one i think.... but I dont want to build something that is so obviously 'not mine'. So how might i make my mark on it? Well chop off the distinctive shape on the end of course!
The headstock has the Ohana logo on it. I wasnt sure if it was inlaid or printed (if it was printed it would be easy to rub off) Amazingly, it was inlaid (not with mother of pearl i suspect ;-) which meant a fair amount of sanding required to get back to a flat surface (which incidently is a veneer and is now very very thin)
Final result? - I rather like :-)

Internal bracings

Next step is to get the rest of the bracing in, the bridge plate and some spars to help minimise the sound board from distorting when the strings put tension onto the bridge.
All these little bits of wood need a degree of shaping - I suspect more for personal satisfaction than accoustic quality on an instrument like this. And I did indeed enjoy the little bit of carving and sanding that I did. There is some argument that shaping the braces like this reduces weight - and at the end of the day you are trying to create a soundboard with minimal weight, lots of resonance and lots of strength - it all makes good sense.
So that was another 3 hours in the garage while the family watched 'Americas next top model'..... I think my time was better spent.

Lets get started

My first instruction (from Johns sheets) is to pull out the lining of the cigar box - simply 4 strips of soft wood that help the seal when the lid is shut - they pull out easily, and then its onto some sawing and sanding

Firstly shape and fit the block of wood that will become the 'meat' that the neck will fit to. Followed by the corner posts that will provide a bit of rigidity to the relatively flimsy box.
All sounds simple so far. Sad to say that just this bit took me nearly 2 hours! In my defense, i did have to bugger about making a sawing and sanding block and unblocking my glue bottle - but hopefully, now done i wont have to do it again.
On the subject of GLUE. The symposium agreed that straight forward PVA wood adhesive is quite suffice for this job.

Nice demo of a cigarbox ukulele

Whats my style?

As I start to prepare my cigar box I have some time to ponder what i want the finished thing to look like. There are many designs of cigar-box ukuleles, and I have to balance 'aesthetics' with 'playability' with time and money.

However I am drawn to a particular style that im still trying to define. Daddy-mojo seems to know what i mean - admittedly these are guitars, but i like the sound hole positioning and bezels (though i doubt I'll go for the fancy artwork to start with)
Anyone know where I can get some of those bezels?

And then there's the decision to make about whether I keep the box openable or glue it shut. There's an argument that gluing it shut makes the instrument more ridged and give a better sound quality, but on the other hand its quite a novelty to be able to open the bakc of your playable instrument (even better if you still keep a couple of cigars in it)

A bag of bits

Other than the fascinating conversations, tips and insights from the symposium, this is what i took away with me on Saturday.
First up, you will notice that that neck looks pretty well..... complete. Well, yes it is - its been persuaded off a new Ohana - and I'm grateful for it - this is supposed to be a jolly little intermission of a project for me, not a blimin baptism of fire. Making a ukulele neck (and more specifically fret-board) is more than i'm prepared to do right now.
The box itself is a genuine cigar-box. Sadly though its never even had a sniff of a cuban - its a brand new box diverted from its route to the cigar factory.
The rest comprises of some bits of wood for bracing, spars and fixing things to. Then theres the bridge and of course some strings.
3 pages of instructions, and a heap of enthusiasm

A symposium

Last Saturday I attended a "cigar-box ukulele making symposium" - I didn't even know what a symposium was, but the cigar-box bit sounded like fun :-) A "symposium' turns out to be "an occasion at which people who have great knowledge of a particular subject meet in order to discuss a matter of interest" And so I sat for a couple of very enjoyable hours with 8 or 9 other enthusiasts to talk about all things cigar, uke, and wood-working tools.
The event was hosted by Ray of the Severnside Ukulele Strummers Association (SUSA), and the session was run by the fabulous John Colter (a well respected home-luthier with a number of figure of eight ukuleles and several cigarbox ukes under his belt).
We didnt get our hands very dirty, but we did each get a box of bits, a set of instructions and a good-luck pat on the back.

But why a cigar box uke?

So the next obvious step from collecting ukes (and by the way, my 3 ukuleles pale by comparison to some people i know who have dozens, and some people i know who own thousands of pounds worth of ukuleles)..... is to have one hand made for you.
I once had the pleasure of visiting a British luthier and spending a little bit of time in his workshop. Pete Howlett makes a lovely instrument, but its out of my league. His workshop inspired me though.
So if you cant afford to have one made for you, you think about doing one yourself.... NOTE - you are a fool if you expect to create anything like a professional luthiers instrument - that comes with years of experince and dedication - BUT its not impossible to create an instrument of sorts that makes a fair enough sound.
Pete produces a kit that enables you to build a uke without the jigs and specialist tools. And Stewart-Macdonald produce a nice kit too. For a $100 you can build an instrument worth twice that much. And ive seen some fine examples of homebuilt "Stewmacs". So building a quality ukulele yourself isnt impossible, but what i have always been rather curious about are the sort of instruments that a poor man builds. What does a man do for music when he cant even afford shoes for his children - im thinking here of coton picking slaves who despite repression and poverty, still managed to make instruments to make thier music with. Surely the ultimate homemade instrument is the one-string diddley bow - originally it would have been nailed across the doorstep of the porch - but have a look here at a simple one string diddley bow (incidently played here by Seasick Steve - I strongly recommend you look out for more of his perfomances) - notice the sound box on this instrument? Its a cigar box! a perfect size, good wood, nice resonance, and in plentiful supply from your cotton field land-master.
Which leads us nicely to the Cigarbox ukulele

Why the ukulele?

Ive been playing the ukulele for just over a couple of years now - sad to say, I should be a much better player than i actually am - but happy to say, I really love it. I love the sound, I love the ease with which you can pick up a tune, I love the portability of the instrument, and I love the look of the Ukulele.
However as with all new hobbies and specialist interests you soon start to learn that all is not as you assumed and expected. If you are new to the world of ukulele, there might be a chance that youve never even heard of them, and if you have it might be in association with George Formby who certainly played, among other 4 string instruments a ukulele or two. However, as you turn over a few stones you start to realise that the ukulele goes way beyond a cheeky chappy who leans on lamposts. For a history of the ukulele have a look on wiki
And soon the newbie uke player is thinking that he rather fancys something a bit more sophisticated than his £15 Mahalo instrument off ebay (True. you can buy a decent enough brand new uke off ebay for £15. Any colour you want. There really is no excuse not to try one ;-)
A common step for the newbie uke player is to go up to say a £50 instrument - which does make a significant difference to the sound quality - and often that is enough to satisfy the uke player for many years to come. Often though ukulele players get a bit obsessive - and evolve not only as players but collectors too; such is the endearing quality of the uke.
Myself? I still love my 15 quid Mahalo soprano - its my every day strummer. I also have a second-hand Republic resonator concert, and a electric Risa solid (for when im traveling)

Welcome

This is a short diversion from the bigger project that is "Black Spanner" where oil, metal and welding is involved. Trouble is, Black spanner is a relatively big project and relatively big projects come with problems;
1. you cant just pop into the garage to do 5 minutes here and there on a trike project
2. at this time of year everything you touch is flippin freezing
3. long projects run the risk of losing momentum and motivation (and money?)
I am still fully committed to the Black Spanner and look forward to picking up again just as soon as I have a little more spare time and the weather is not so miserably cold.

So what is "Black Chisel"? well this is a little project that involves chisels, sandpaper and wood. Its a small enough project that i can both do it within a few weeks (while we wait for better weather), do some of it indoors on the kitchen table, and do lots of it in 5 minute bursts between work commitments - In essence, its a perfect little project for me right now.
Welcome to the Black Chisel - the making of a cigar-box ukulele.