Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Top shelf, Jeremy!

Are the tuning pegs of the Stewmac variety? And is there any noticeable 'slip' when the Uke is tuned up?

Regards and job well done ...

Stunning bridge, Rod.
Any chance of a tute on how you did the inlaid rosette. Or at least, how do you do the black 'in-between' strips to simulate lead in a glass panel?
Cheers

G'day All I stumbled on a new quarterly magazine the other night via the Uke Orchestra of Great Britain's Facebook page. The magazine is edited by members of the Fellowship of European Luthiers , based in Germany. This first edition is being released FREE as a PDF download (7.85Mb). It contains a di...

... I've placed my sensors directly beneath the saddle, but between the 1st and 2nd, 3rd and 4th strings. Will see how I go with this. So the tape is completely acoustically transparent, but the gel works better? Hmmm ... I just wanted them to be easier to move if it became required in this case, b...

Thanks for chiming in on this post, Allen. I also use brad pins when gluing bridges so I took extra caution to exactly locate the pads on the bridge patch prior to drilling, given the Maccaferri pads are 3/4" diameter. I do recall the image you threw up in your Gallery post that showed the installat...

Gents, an update! These are the questions I posed to K&K Tech Support in an email Wednesday night. Hi Jack Can you confirm whether your help page on installing a twin spot internal pickup to a ukulele (http://www.kksound.com/findpickup/ukulele.html) relates only to retrofitting an EXISTING ukulele. ...

Good stuff, Kim.
Notice that site refers to the word 'retrofit' and the use of tape to fix to soundboard.
I dropped a line to K&K Tech Support tonight regarding some of the points raised here. Given the time difference I await their reply soon. Will post here any advice they offer.
Chiz

Excellent points Markus ... I had the same thought this evening that K&K are selling these Twin Spot Internals with a view to the client retrofitting a ukulele, rather than installing the pads during a build prior to gluing down the top.
Cheers

Gentlemen I thank you for your collective wisdom re this post. Frank - I'm gobsmacked too and more than a little disappointed after forking out $190 that adding a K&K Preamp did not result in much improvement. There does not appear to be an on-board pot which allow the user to adjust the 'hotness' o...

Thanks Trevor for your sound advice. I had a close look at your original thread when you first posted it, very clever design. I'm not too confident that I'd be able to remove the Pure Maccaferri pads in one piece, given they are WELL stuck, and inside a concert sized Uke body. But your solution is a...

Cheers Bob
Good to know ... do you use tape or CA Gel? Part of me doesn't trust sticky tape.
All the best to you!

BTW ... Rumor has it the themed instrument for next year's Playmakers in late February will be the Selmer Maccaferri. Yet to see the official program.

Kim You're a bloody genius!! No, hadn't gotten into other forums to find a solution, but hey thanks for that image and link. The positioning is pretty much spot-on to where Allen Macfarlen placed his transducers on a build featured in the Gallery in recent weeks. Before I glue the top down on the ne...

Hi Tod The CA glue you see in the pics is all from squeeze-out that I applied liberally as per instructions, though I may have gone overboard given this is my first experience with installing transducers. The two pads and associated leads were completely encapsulated in black plastic when they came ...

G’day All This ‘buyer beware’ scenario relates to the under-performance of a piezo K&K Pickup. A recent commission was for a ukulele with a pickup. The build is a Tiger Myrtle Concert body; 2mm Bearclaw Sitka Spruce top; a tenor-scale neck (i.e. slightly wider fret spacing) and Aquila Low-G concert ...

Every now and again you witness things in life that are truly inspirational.

This post seems to have generated an interest in the Papoose small-bodied guitar, so here's a bit more info and images. To quote from Wikipedia : The P1 Papoose was the first guitar model made by Tacoma. It was designed by Terry Atkins and George Gruhn. It has a relatively short 19.1" scale and is t...

Hey Nick Pete Young is our Official Chief Photographer and Archivist; he snapped all of the images shown here and has hard drives full of our build pics covering the last 7 years. He and Maurie have each made Papoose 6-string guitars which are about the same dimensions as a Baritone Uke in terms of ...

Can you give any info on that striped Peppermint Hi Tod Phil Anderson owns a mobile Lewis Sawmill and he cut that coastal Peppy several years ago from a log that somebody got him to slice up into slabs. It's been stacked amongst a large mountain of furniture-grade timber in his Nannup workshop, and...

John Maddison wrote: Pete's All-West-Australian Tenor ukulele using WA Sheoak (w/Bloodwood bindings) under construction ...

*Edit - those bindings are Beefwood - apologies.

G'day We previously posted a few pics of a visit to Albany by Tim Spittle back in January 2011 (to view click here ). During the recent mid-semester holidays we had a chance to catch up once again while Tim made another flying visit to trade a few bits of tonewood and to welcome a Newbie to our grow...

And while we're on a roll with questions Allen ... how DID you manage to thread the poly strings up through the soundboard/bridge holes, given they come already fitted with tie-off anchors?

Good info & pic Allen, much appreciated!

Was it pricing or performance that influenced your decision to go with a 2-pad pickup in favour of the 3-pad Mini Western K & K?

I was fortunate enough to get a response from Owen Holt who designed this type of instrument and got the compensation numbers from him. Can you elaborate on those specs, Allen? And do you have an 'inside' shot showing how you anchored the pickup pads? And as an aside, Aquila have released a new ran...

There's no such thing as wastage in all things Lutherie, especially when you're dealing with rare, exotic & expensive species.
Dom has it pretty much covered ... and then there's bindings. In relation to ukuleles: traditional makers made nuts & saddles from hardwoods instead of using bone.

...I was fortunate enough to have John Maddison drop in during a trip up from Albany last week, he can probably vouch for the output. :gui Kim, consider it well & truly vouched for! ... :wink:. Gotta say, when your girls started ramping up some impressive AccaDacca etc riffs I was more than impress...