No. 3 Charmed... Or Not

They say third times a charm.

And spurred on by success in with “Thunderbird” my first electric ukulele and with always a drive to make it better I started No.3…

What was good about Thunderbird?

• It worked.
• It sounded good.
• Good setup for “action” i.e. the strings are the right height above the frets.
• The mahogany wood was a dream to work with and finished very well.

What could I improve?

• Tight spacing for my fingers. Go from soprano size to concert size.
• The neck is too thick so it is hard to finger the notes.
• Try a different peg head style to see if it could be more simple.
• Try a different wood and paint it.

Did it work?

"No.3 is not quite right yet."

No. 3 - Before Strings

No.3 is getting closer but was kind of a two steps forward and 1 step back. My ukulele building and DIY approach was getting more mature but No.3 is not quite right yet.

The bad:

• The action is too high but I think I can correct this.
• The peg head was more difficult then the one on Thunderbird. Both difficult to cut ut and also more difficult to get perfectly installed friction tuners.
• The poplar wood was easy to work with but difficult to get a good finish and the paint showed every little scratch.

The good:

• The concert scale is a little better, this means a little more room for my fingers.
• Tapered thickness in the neck makes it easier to get my fingers around the neck.
• The friction tuners were easy to use and made the peg head side of the instrument lighter. I had no problems using the friction tuners and worked just fine to hold tuning.
• I like the over all look and also the rocket bridge was very cool.

Here is how my "ideal" DIY ukulele would start to look like:

• Simple shapes to cut out.
• Concert scale for a little extra finger room..
• Passive piezo pick-up (this has worked well on both uke's I have built).
• I still want to try using a different hard wood.
• I have to admit, I have not played No.3 much. It is nice to look at but until I lower the action it is harder to play than my other ukuleles.

If you have been reading this blog you already know I am thinking f the next ukulele that I can build. In fact yesterday I started to look at some pieces of wood. and also read a tip to use dye to add color but still let the grain show. I may experiment with this too. More to come...