I'm planning out a uke and I want to put a center hole like traditional ukes. All of the builds ive done so far have been through-neck designs, so im at a bit of a loss for how to attach separate necks onto a cigar box.
How do you guys do it? do you bolt it on? If so, how? What about using a mortise and tenon join and just gluing it in there?
I was also wondering about internal support. I don't think a uke scale and strings would put enough strain on the box lid to warrant a lot of internal structure, but I was thinking of putting a couple simple ribs ribs under the bridge area in addition to the anchoring blocks for the neck/tailpiece. Maybe that would be overkill, though.
Replies
Ah, information abounds as usual.
I knocked around the idea of string pins in my head for a while. I'll look at trying some and see hoe they go. I really like the look of them.
Johnny, I almost the same idea for bracing, minus the back brace. The box isn't very large and doesn't have very broad surfaces, though. I put in the end blocks for anchors, though.
Mark, Ive never had any experience with either of those fasteners. I'll have to pick some up and tinker around with them.
Thanks for the input guys. Sorry for the late response; I got a new job and it's been a bit of a chore getting into a groove.
I've made several bolt-on necks for uke and mandolin-sized instruments. I too build up a neck "heel" and then use a seperate fingerboard which protrudes a little past the heel area to position it on the box.
The neck is secured either with "furniture inserts" (screwed-in threaded pieces that take a bolt) or "screw bolts" which have half the length threaded like a wood screw, and half like a machine screw.
After positioning the think and screwing the wood-screw part into the neck, a corresponding hole is drilled in the box and the machine-threaded portion goes into the box where it's secured with a nut and washer.
That end of the box is reinforced with a piece of 1/4" oak.
So far, very sturdy.
Jason:
I prefer a bolt-on neck for quick and easy box replacement if it starts to warp or de-laminate over time. I use a cross dowel nut through the heel and cover the hole with a thin heel cap. It’s incredibly strong and will outlive anything else on the instrument. Here’s a picture of a tenor showing the neck connection, bridge plate, fan bracing, and back brace. The bracing may be overkill for a soprano uke.
Jason, I have had amazing success using guitar style string pins. The bridge floats with string tension holding it in place. Yes the strings do dig in to the top but not noticeably. Easy to set intonation. One glues a 1/4" strip of wood under the top to help grab the strings and strengthen the holes. Use a rat tail file to make the tapered holes. The pins must be snug. Look here:http://www.ianchadwick.com/ukuleles/northern.htm
pretty cool huh?
Don
Jason W. said:
Good stuff guys. I'm not sure why I didn't think of wood screws from the inside. I suppose I'm too used to thinking outside the box.
I'm definitely going to put a heel on. I was thinking of just gluing a couple square blocks under the wide end (opposite the headstock) and shaping it from there. I'm still working on designing the tail piece. Unfortunately, I don't have many tools for shaping or manipulating metal.
That's a nice write up on how to build a CBU. It looks like he (she?) removed the original "bottom" of the cigar box and replaced it with a thinner piece of plywood (maybe even used good "sound wood"). If doing that, then maybe bracing the soundboard is a good idea, but I wouldn't do more than he's doing. I have never built a CBG by replacing the soundboard with a thinner board, but it might be well worth the effort in terms of producing a nicer sounding instrument. Maybe I should put that on my "to try" list. Seems we are in agreement on the heal. Nice description, Don, on making a heal and attaching it to the box. My heel description was just a "quick fix" to that particular build. Don's way is the best approach, definitely so! So you spell heal "H-E-E-L". I'll try to remember that one, too.
-Rand.
Don Thompson said:
http://home.comcast.net/~kathymatsushita/otherinstruments/htmlpages...
Sheesh.hope I got it right this time. I make my ukulele necks with heels by gluing up wood stack in the heel area. I then saw and shape it further, get it close to finish with the fretboard glued on. I then place my neck with the fretboard centered on the box and draw an outline of the heel on the box. Then marked the location of three screw holes and drilled them in the box. Set the neck back aligning with the previous outline and marked the screw holes from the inside. Drill pilot holes and there ya go, Bob's your uncle. One does have to make sure the screws are not too long of course.
Hi Jason,
If you are using a heal on your neck, then a minimal amount of internal strengthening should work fine with a nylon strung Uke. Just reinforce the side of the cigar box (all the way across) where the neck will be attached with a 1/4" to 1/2" thick piece of wood, then bolt on the neck where it attaches to the box using maybe 3 or 4 fair sized wood screws (the longer the better) and some wood glue for good measure. The most common problem with a poor design is that the neck will bow upward at the point of connection once you tighten up the strings as you tune them for the first time. This happened to me on my first bolt on, and I corrected it by adding a heal (actually a triangular cut of wood that I screwed on with 4 wood screws, 3 into the neck and one into the reinforced side of the cigar box). I was using steel strings, too. Uke strings should not be as bad as they put less stress on the neck-to-box connection. I'd definitely plan on doing a heal on the neck because it moves a fair amount of the bracing outside the box which you will want to keep free for better resonat'n.
In regards to bracing the sound board, unless you terminate your strings on the sound board, you don't need to re-enforce it. However, re-enforcing the soundboard will stiffen it up making it resonate less freely. My recommendation would be to use a tail piece that bends over the end of the box and re-enforce that side if you think the side of the box is not stout enough.
There is a CBN discussion group for CBU (Cigar Box Ukulele) builders. You should check out their discussions.
Good luck with your build.
-Rand.