Ukulele Build Part 16 Final

The bridges were glued to the tops using the cam clamps that were detailed earlier in this series of posts.  I used a template to find the exact location of the saddle and then marked the perimeter of the bridge with low tack masking tape.  This not only showed exactly where the bridge went but it also protected the top from excess hide glue.

The bone nuts were finished by filing the slots for the strings into them and the action of the ukes were set to the specifications in the instruction manual.   The fret boards and bridges got a coat of bore oil and the saddles were glued in place with white glue.  I made the mistake of stringing the first uke like a guitar (high end smallest string to low end largest string).  After consulting the directions I restrung the correct way to G-C-E-A and now they are ready for use.  The Grover tuners are much better than the through the head piece friction tuners that came with the kit and I'd recommend getting a set should you choose to build a uke.

I hope that you've enjoyed following along with the build.  Now I've got to figure out how to play these...

Ukulele Build Part 15

I decided to finish the uskes before gluing on the finger board or saddle.  This made one less thing to mask off and made sanding the finish easier because there was nothing mounted on the uke to get in the way.  I masked off the neck as well as the spot on the body where the saddle will be glued on.  The ukes were mounted on pieces of doweling ("uke on a stick") to make for easier spraying of the lacquer finish.  I decided to try two different finish styles.  The uke made from the kit was sanded out to 600 grit wet/dry then 1000 grit wet.dry and then buffed with 0000 steel wool.  This left a very soft matt finish that feels really smooth to the touch (great for necks).  The scratch built was finished in the same was as the "perfect guitar finish post" describes and is a deep, high gloss.  Here are photos of the ukes.

"Steel wool finish Uke on a Stick"

High gloss finish (the dull spot is where the saddle goes)

High gloss back with steel wool on the back of the neck

Ukulele Build Part 14

These are some home made cam clamps that will be used to hold the saddle in place for gluing.  They needed to have a fairly long throat to them so that they can reach through the sound hole to where be able to hold where the saddle goes.  The also needed to have sufficient clearance built into the fixed lowermost jaw so that it can clear the internal sound board bracing.  The principle is that when the cam is rotated outward, it causes the movable jaw to bind on the rail and compress the workpiece.  The are made from hard maple and plans can be found on the internet.

Binary Clock

Here is a cool project that keeps surprisingly good time.  I had wanted to build a binary clock using a PIC F84 microprocessor.  A binary clock is one that counts up using the binary counting system of 1's and 0's.  In this case the column of lights furthest to the right is the 1's column, followed by the 2's, 4's, 8's, 16's and 32's columns. Using this system 100110 is 32+4+2=38.

The problem with this project was that although I could get the clock to work, I had a miserable time getting the clock to keep accurate time and also be able to display the time using LEDs.  If I had a seperate time keeper, the project would have been a breeze but using PIC Basic as the programming language made it hard to be able to tell to the microsecond how long various arguments would take to execute.  I gave up a few years ago but revisited this project just about a year and a half ago.  This time I came at the problem from the angle of using Assembly Language as the programming language.  This took all the timing variables out because I knew the frequency of my crystal and also knew how long each operation would take.  After some experimentation on a bread board I had a stable and well functioning circuit.  When I soldered up the project, the timing changed and it took several weeks of bench-top experimentation to get the clock working to be accurate to within a second or two per week.

The buttons are for suspending the timer and setting the minutes and hours.  It uses a twenty four hour timing period and the LEDs are muiltplexed in sequence because the PIC F84 has only 12 output pins and I need to drive 17 LEDs.  The circuit strobes the hours LEDs, then the minutes LEDs and lastly the seconds LEDs.  This happens so quickly that there is no blinking or flickering, although there is occasionally a little ghosting in non lit LEDs that can be seen in a very dark room.  The power supply is a 9V DC wall transformer and the case is an Altoid tin because every electronics project is cooler if you can fit it in an Altoid tin...

The time is 8:28 and 53 seconds

Pinewood Derby Matt Kenseth

Here is a pinewood derby car from several years ago that my son and I built.  The decals are made on an ink jet printer and coated in clear acrylic.  The shape of the car, sanding and painting were all done by my son when he was in the fifth grade at that time.  The car is a lot easier to build than it looks and that is beauty of custom made decals because they allow you the ability to make just about anything you like with a minimum of effort.  If you look closely you can see the "battle scars" on the rear spoiler from a fifth grader racing this car...

Pinewood Derby Batmobile

Here is a pinewood derby car from a couple of years ago.  It is a reproduction of the Batmobile from the 1960's Batman TV series that many of us know and love.  I found plans for a paper model of the car online and resized them to fit a standard size pinewood derby car.  The car's body is built up from many pieces of basswood.  For example the rear fins, front cowling, arch between the bubble windows, front fins and doors are all glued onto the pine body.  This made the car end up just about at 5 oz because basswood is denser than pine.  The bubble windows are made from clear plastic and are held in place by super glue.  The interior details are decals except for the fire extinguisher between the seats which is made from dowling.  The orange pin stripes and exterior markings are also decals, the siren is paper and the wings on the sides of the siren are brass The paint job is black lacquer with a clear coat covering.

Hi-Q Game

I took a short break from Uke making to produce this year's Christmas presents.  Many years ago my dad made a really cool Hi-Q game and I have fond memories of playing it as a child.  Years ago I bought ball bearings to try to reproduce the game but gave up because I don't have access to a milling machine like my dad did.  This year as I was cleaning, I ran across the ball bearings and thought that rather than milling the game out of a single 5/4 block of oak, why not make it out of two pieces of 1/2 oak and use a scroll saw to cut the ball chase rather than mill it...


The game is made from two pieces of 1/2 inch oak that are glued together after the chase was cut using a scroll saw.  The 1/2 inch board that I bought was nice and straight but I didn't bring a straight edge with me and I found when I got home that it had a significant cup to it.  I built a jig that clamped across the board and when tightened down, it flattened out the cup so that I could cut the raceway.  If I didn't do this, the raceway would have sides that were not perpendicular to the game and the balls could hang up when moving through the game.  The two pieces were glued with the cups facing opposite directions so that the glued up board was relatively flat.  The raceway includes two chases where maple springs were mounted.  The first sits by the top entry hole where the balls are inserted into the game.  This spring presents minimal resistance to insertion of the balls but prevents the balls from leaving the game board (and keeps you from having to search your floor for bouncing ball bearings).  The second spring has a button attached to it that when depressed, moves the spring out of the way and allows the balls to leave the game via the side hole.  A piece of 1/8 inch plexiglass covers the bottom and allows you to see the ball bearings in the game (half of the "cool factor" of the game).

If you are not familiar with Hi-Q (aka solitaire in the UK I am told), here are the instructions.

Object: 
Try to be left with just one ball. 

Set Up: 
Place the balls on the game board, leaving just the center hole empty. 

Playing: 
You can jump over a ball with another ball horizontally or vertically (not diagonally!).

When you jump over a ball, you can remove it. Multiple jumps with one ball are allowed. 

Scoring: 
When you have no jumps left, count how many balls are left on your board. 
6 or more left   ...................................... BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME 
5 balls left  ........................................... NOT BAD 
4 balls left  ........................................... VERY GOOD 
3 balls left  ........................................... EXCELLENT 
2 balls left  ........................................... SENSATIONAL 
1 ball left .............................................. OUTSTANDING 
1 ball left in the center hole ................... PERFECT HI-Q GENIUS