Jupiter Ukulele – Jonathan Dale
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Jonathan Dale hand builds ukuleles primarily with 'local' wood from Eastern Pennsylvania. Great sounding instruments, that are also beautiful objects.
Jupiter Ukulele – Jonathan Dale
1d ago
I have found a very useful little tool for carving neck heels. In the past I have used various things for this operation, including rasps, chisels, drawknives, and knives. I wanted something that would easily carve around the curve of the heel, and to which you could apply enough controlled force to cut through the end-grain. A drawknife worked somewhat as two handles allowed the use of some force with control. However the drawknife I have is big enough that it did not ‘turn the corner’ well.
I found this little drawknife that is thin, narrow, and slightly flexible. The narrow blade allows it ..read more
Jupiter Ukulele – Jonathan Dale
2M ago
To glue the two halves of the top or back together the edges must be perfectly straight and flat. This is called ‘jointing’ the edge. I have been using a system using a router and a straight edge, with final truing with sandpaper stuck to a machined flat metal bar. Works OK, but takes a little while. The traditional way of doing this was to use a ‘jointer’ plane, which is a long flat plane used to get the edge straight and flat. Doing thin top and back wood one would lay the plane on it side on the bench, with the wood also lying flat supported on what is called a ‘shooting board’. Then the ve ..read more
Jupiter Ukulele – Jonathan Dale
3M ago
When you saw brace wood out of a board the wood fibers can (often) not run parallel to the faces of the brace. This is called ‘runout’. Under stress a brace with runout will tend to crack along the wood fiber lines, which are across the brace. If one looks at guitar repair videos where braces are being fixed, the crack is almost always across the brace, due to runout.
I have some nice sitka spruce boards which are nicely quartersawn which means that the growth rings are up and down in the board, ‘vertical grained’ which is what one wants for a brace. However, a little experiment demonstrated ..read more
Jupiter Ukulele – Jonathan Dale
7M ago
A little while back I wanted to so something different (see previous entry)., Being a fan of Celtic music, I decided to build an octave mandolin. An octave mandolin is like a regular mandolin, 4 pairs of strings, only it is tuned a full octave lower. The Irish Bouzouki is an octave mandolin. I built what is called a ‘flat top’ mandolin (as opposed to a carved top like a violin) though the top and back are not flat. Both the top and the back have a 15 foot radius. I have 15′ radius dishes from building ukuleles (the backs) so I was familiar with the radius of the plates.
I merged a couple of di ..read more
Jupiter Ukulele – Jonathan Dale
7M ago
A little while back I built an octave mandolin. I built what is called a ‘flat top’ mandolin (as opposed to a carved top like a violin) though the top and back are not flat. Both the top and the back have a 15 foot radius. I have 15′ radius dishes from building ukuleles (the backs) so I was familiar with the radius of the plates. I merged a couple of different plans, and settled on an X braced top. (I build ukuleles with X braced tops.) The plans also had an X braced back, so I did an X brace on the back as well. On the next set of ukulele builds (tenors) I decided to try an X braced back with ..read more
Jupiter Ukulele – Jonathan Dale
7M ago
A little while back I wanted to do something different. Being a fan of Celtic music, I decided to build an octave mandolin. An octave mandolin is like a regular mandolin, 4 pairs of strings, only it is tuned a full octave lower. The Irish Bouzouki is an octave mandolin. I built what is called a ‘flat top’ mandolin (as opposed to a carved top like a violin) though the top and back are not flat. Both the top and the back have a 15 foot radius. This was also a chance for a bit of experimentation. I laminated the walnut sides. Three pieces of 1/16” walnut veneer, pre-bent on a hot pipe, and then l ..read more
Jupiter Ukulele – Jonathan Dale
1y ago
I am learning to do side purfling. This purfling, at the bottom of the binding, gets mitered to matching purfling on either side of the end graft. There are a number of ways to do this, but this is how I do it at the moment.
The end graft is installed with purfling along the sides before the binding channels are cut. When the binding channels are cut they are cut just shy of the end graft. The remaining binding channel wood up to the end graft purfling is cut out with a sharp chisel.
Now the issue is how to cut the end graft to the correct length so that the binding will go ‘over’ it with the ..read more
Jupiter Ukulele – Jonathan Dale
1y ago
Here are three (out of 4) that are in progress. The red streaked one is ‘box elder’ which gets these red streaks naturally. The other two are crotch figure black walnut, one bookmatched and the other a one-piece back. The walnut ones get the redwood tops with the heart abalone rosettes in the previous blog entry ..read more
Jupiter Ukulele – Jonathan Dale
1y ago
‘heart’ abalone pearl is where the muscle of the abalone was directly attached to the shell. It is very fine grained and kind of ‘bubbly’ looking, rather than broadly pearly. I normally did not use the heart paua abalone for much, it was kind of waste from the regular paua abalone pearl. I had a customer a while back who, after looking through my pearl types, wanted a heart paua abalone pearl rosette in a Port Orford cedar top. Well, that rosette came out really well, so …
I decided to do one again, this time in a redwood top. It really makes an interesting rosette ..read more
Jupiter Ukulele – Jonathan Dale
1y ago
I generally build things in sets of 4, as that is what fits on the bench, and one minimizes the amount of shuffling of jigs, fixtures, etc. when build a couple of the same size. (The last set of 4 had one of each size, soprano, concert, tenor, baritone, and there was much shuffling of things. They were all commissions. Here is the last set:)
The next set includes a much ‘wilder’ set of things. I’m getting around to building #100 (tenor), which will have some extensive inlay and has Florida rosewood back and sides, I have a commission (customer is not afraid!) for a co ..read more