Leaderboard

Turns out my "uke-kit" doesn't quite look like the one above, but it's close enough. Drilled a hole in the heel of the neck and placed a dowel in said hole. All this wood fiddling takes it's toll. Time for a meal before I continue the "build"

The finish has maybe 2 coats more to do. There's a lot of waiting around, though, when the varnish is dry enough to touch and handle but not dry enough to take the next coat. So in that time I've started on some of the other jobs. The bridge goes on last (you have to scrape away the finish that you've just spent weeks putting on!) but needs to be shaped to match the spheroidal shape of the top. This is where the old 'engineers blue' approach comes in - except you use blackboard chalk. I put a wide strip of easy peel masking tape where the bridge will go and gave it a liberal coating of chalk. Then placed the bridge on top and moved it around a couple of mm. Hey presto - the high spots: Then all you do is scrape where the chalk is and repeat (multiple times). Here it is after the first scraping: So same m.o. - now scrape these areas away. After about 8 iterations, I am getting there: So I know now that most of the area is making good contact. Just a final bit of tidying up and it will be ready to fit as soon as the final coats of finish have been applied. The colour won't change much now - it will just get glossier. Here's where we are at in overall look so far: So - all being well - a few more days of finish coats and drying and then I can move towards final steps