Hello!

IT'S DONE! I'm so very happy I finished my ukulele and I'm proud of how it turned out. As I said last week, I tried the hooks and they did not work. So, I ordered actual soprano ukulele tuning pegs off of Amazon for a really cheap price. Looking back on my project, I think the most challenging part for me was structuring the body so it is strong enough to support the tension of the strings. The most important thing that this project taught me is that if things don't go your way or your original plan fails, you just have to keep trying until something works and you get the result that you needed. Making this ukulele was very fun for me because I love music and I love crafting things with my hands. I'm very proud of the final result I have. It doesn't look incredible but it doesn't look horrible either. The sound is not horrible either! It doesn't sounds professional,obviously, but for a homemade instrument, I think it's perfect. The next goal for my project is to work on the TED Talk we have to do for each of our projects, and that's what I will be doing for the next few weeks.

Thank you for reading!

Hello!

My product was supposed to be done today, but I had to face some difficulties so I asked my teacher for a one-week extension. Basically, I was talking with my dad and we decided that the simple nylon strings wouldn't work to get the sound we needed. So, we ended up buying real ukulele strings, which is fine because they ended up being the same price as the nylon strings. I still think my neck will not give me the support I need by the nut. The nut is the part between the neck and the head of the ukulele. I did, in fact, get the support necessary between the neck and the box. I screwed the neck onto the box (as you can see in the picture) AND I glued it to make sure it didn't snap. I still haven't put the strings in, but I'm not sure my tuning hooks will be able to tune it right because they aren't tight enough. I will work on that this week, though. If all else fails, there are actual ukulele tuning pegs available on amazon for a very cheap price, but seeing as how the purpose of my project is to do this with things everyone has available in their homes, I really want the hooks to work out. This week is the final week I have available to work on this, but all I need to do is stain it all to preserve the wood and make sure it tunes correctly. Fingers crossed I can make it work! I will update this blog on Thursday with my finished product and whether the hooks worked or not.

Thank you once again for reading!

Hello again!

This week, as I said last week, I cut my nylon strings to the right length. The distance between the both ends where I'll tie the strings is 18 inches. I will need some extra space to tie the knots and the long-term tuning. So, I decided that 25 inches was an appropriate length for me to cut each string. This weekend, I won't have as much time to work on it because I'll be traveling, so I will just do a few finishing touches this weekend, like sanding and making sure the structure is good. This coming week I plan on start staining my ukulele. This will for sure take longer to do than the other parts of my project because we have to acknowledge the drying time so I might not stain it all this week. I will definitely start the process and do as much as I can.

Thanks for reading!