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.