Hey everybody!


This week, I screwed my tuning hooks (the first picture) onto my tuning pad. Just to clarify, the tuning pad is the thing at the very top of the ukulele and the tuning hooks are the things you turn to get the string tight enough to sound like an ukulele. I used a standard drill to make the small holes on the tuning pad. I did not make it go all the way through because that could cause the hooks to fall. Once I did that, I put in small plastic drywall anchors (the second picture) so that the hooks can actually turn when they're in the tuning pad. Next week, I plan to get my nylon strings and cut them to the right length and look up a standard soprano ukulele tuning.
Thanks for reading!

Hello! Welcome back!

This week, as I said on the last post, I worked on my frets. I used my saw to make the markings after doing my calculations of how long each of them should be. After that, I glued the toothpicks on each of the markings with standard wood glue, as I am doing in the picture. I obviously had to wait for them to dry, so while that happened, I worked a little bit more on using the sandpaper to fix some flaws and imperfections around the box. That is what I accomplished this week. What I am doing right now is I am measuring exactly where I want the little tuning hooks to be on the tuning pad, and marking it with a pencil so they can be simmetrical and look nice. Obviously, I want it to sound good, but I also really want it to look good, like a lot of effort was put into it. Next week, I plan to screw in my tuning hooks onto the tuning pad.
Thanks for reading!

Hey, everybody!

This week, I worked more on the neck of my ukulele. I tried my best to figure out where the markings for the frets should be. By the way, a fret is each of the spaces on the neck where you put your fingers on to play. There was a little confusion on my last blog regarding that, so I thought I'd clarify it. To figure out the spacing, I used a website (https://woodgears.ca/ukulele/fretboard.html) where this man, who also built a ukulele, walks you through the steps of making the fret board. After I applied his calculations to my measurements, I marked with a pencil where each of the markings should be. Here's what I'm working on right now. I finally bought sandpaper and I am so excited about it. My ukulele still has some imperfections that I can fix more easily with sandpaper. I had this little smoothing rock that I attached to my drill, but it didn't quite do the job. So, right now I am working on getting rid of splinters and other imperfections with my new sandpaper, which is going to make it look a lot nicer. Next week, I plan on adding the toothpicks where the fret marks are, and adding the tuning hooks to the tuning pad. I am really excited about how my project is coming along, and thank you for reading!