Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Cigar Box Ukulele






I got a cigar box from my Grandfather that came out of his attic.



It is a "Havana Seconds" cigar box made of solid cedar. It is sometime before WWII, I imagine. I thinned the original top, braced it, inlayed a simple walnut rosette and built a maple/walnut neck, bridge and fingerboard.




It took me four tries to glue the neck on! It turns it the cedar panel I was gluing it to was too soft and flexible to take the butt joint. Instead I replaced the pannel with a piece of cherry with a nice big mahogany heel block. I then sunk two bolts through it into the neck and its solid as a rock!


I put a fret wire saddle, bone nut, gotoh friction tuners and aquila strings. I tuned it up to D tuning and it sounds great. Decent tone and volume for a small box.


Also, I built it with a scale that is one fret short of normal soprano scale and 13 frets. It will be for sale at the Denver Uke Fest and then on Ebay if needed.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Fingerstyle Ukulele Instructional Vid

I made a clawhammer ukulele instructional video a few years ago and the success of it has been a shock to me. I finally got around to doing a fingerstyle instructional video. Enjoy!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

xmas presents for nicole and aaron



Nicole and I both got some great presents for xmas. Nicole got a new tattoo on her foot from Dawn Grace at the Tattoo Factory in Chicago. http://www.dawngrace.com/

I got a new myrtle reso uke from Myamoe ukuleles. www.myamoe.com/ Wot wot!!!