I have taken an approximate two year hiatus from my blog. This wasn't really intentional, it just happened. Before addressing more current happenings, I wanted to finish up some older business. I had left this particular post languishing as a draft and thought it deserved a better fate. I organized it a bit better, made a few adjustments, and here it is.
I collected all of my work in progress photos of my ukulele for those who are interested in more of the details of ukulele construction. Sadly, I didn't take a photo of every step as I was more focused on learning how to make an ukulele than on documentation of the process.
 |
| Gluing on the kerfing in preparation for gluing on the top and bottom |
Kerfing is glued to both the top and bottom of the ukulele's sides. The kerfing functions as a gusset, providing a larger surface for attaching the top and and the bottom of the ukulele to the sides. It's called kerfing because it usually consists of a strip of wood with lots of partial crosscuts such that the wood becomes flexible. The width of a saw cut is termed a "kerf". Instead of actual kerfing, Bill manufactures his own substitute. He steam bends a number of thin wooded strips using the same form he had used to bend the ukulele sides. He then glues those strips together to make his "kerfing". He originally adopted this method because kerfing is actually quite expensive to buy considering what it is. In the following photo the laminations of the kerfing are clearly visible.
 |
A different view of gluing on the kerfing
|
The top and bottom are glued on to the kerfing which provides a reasonable amount of surface area for the glue joint. Without the kerfing an approximately 16th inch thick front or back would be glued to an approximately 16th thick side resulting in a pretty feeble glue joint. The clamps are placed as closely together as is practicable to insure a solid glue joint. The following picture clearly illustrates the old adage that a woodworker can never have too many clamps.
 |
Gluing on the top
|
The top and bottom of the ukulele are made with some fudge factor in mind. Therefore, after gluing on the sides, both the top and bottom need to be trimmed to fit. I did this with my freshly sharpened pocket knife. I was pretty nervous about the trimming process but I really shouldn't have been. After all the trimming, a mini router (dremel tool with a very expensive attachment) is used to cut a place for the perfling and binding. Perfling is the fancy trim around the edge of the face of the ukulele. Binding is the fancy trim going around the sides of the ukulele, adjacent to the perfling. It is obvious to me that spell check knows next to nothing about building instruments. It really doesn't like the word perfling and is absolutely sure that I really mean to say "periling". The process of using the router was further complicated by the fact that neither the top or bottom of the ukulele is flat. An inexpensive factory made ukulele does indeed have a flat top and a flat bottom. However, the top of a nice custom made ukulele has a 25' radius curvature, while the bottom has a 15' radius curvature. Imagine a 25 foot ball formed of a thin shell of wood. My friend Bill has a special jig that allows his little dremel tool turned into a router to follow that curvature. The curvature isn't very noticeable if you don't know to look for it.
 |
The top has to be trimmed after it is glued to the body.
|
The walnut rosette was cut out using yet another specialized jig for Bill's dremel tool turned into a router. The same tool was used to make the sound hole and to cut the channel for the rosette into the top of the ukulele. A brace is glued to the underside of the top to support the rosette and sound hole area. This support piece makes it a little less dicey to router out the area to be occupied by the rosette. The thickness of the top and bottom pieces is only .07 inches thick. Less than an eighth, but a little more than a sixteenth. I failed to take photos of a number of construction steps because at the time I was seriously absorbed into learning how to make an ukulele as opposed to documenting how to make an ukulele.
 |
| The Black Walnut Rosette |
At some point a small crack developed in the back of the ukulele. Fortunately, this was easily repaired with a little bit of super glue. Thin super glue is used so that the glue will readily wick into the crack and the adjacent wood fibers. The finished repair would have been more visible, but for the spalted pattern of the wood which resulted in some needed camouflage.
 |
| A small crack developed on the back |
The addition of the perfling and binding add a great deal to the beauty of the instrument. We used black walnut and maple for both the perfling and the binding so it matched the rosette.
 |
| The addition of periling and binding |
The spalt pattern is caused by a fungus growing in the wood. The dark lines are actually where one fungus colony ran into another fungus colony. The symmetry of the pattern is obtained by book matching two consecutive slices of the board. The boards are stacked in order with the same orientation and then opened like the pages of a book to produce this sort of symmetrical pattern.
 |
| A close up of the spalt pattern |
