Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mike Whisenhunt on August 7, 2011 at 7:44am

wow...thought those pics would embed themselves automatically. /technologyfail

 

Permalink Reply by Norton Grimm on August 7, 2011 at 7:49am

I have a Mahalo Uke very much like that one. If you don't care about saving the body I would just cut it apart and scrap the body. Scoring around where the neck/fretboard and body meet with an exacto blade might be a good start to see how well it's on there.

Permalink Reply by Mike Whisenhunt on August 7, 2011 at 8:30am

Thanks, I might do that. It is one of those "eventually" things. I did, however, manage to find a suitable screw to fix the tuner. Scavenged one out of an old pc tower. I thought they looked awful familiar...

Permalink Reply by Habanera Hal on August 7, 2011 at 11:23am

Fix it up (with a CB body) and give it back to the teacher and kid.  The rewards will be ten times greater!  I find giving away my guitars brings me as much joy as to my friends who recieve them.

Permalink Reply by Mike Whisenhunt on August 8, 2011 at 2:57pm

Every time I look at the Uke I see that Brick House box of mine....begging for it.

Permalink Reply by Kalmario on September 6, 2011 at 9:24am

what is the intonation like?  most cheap ukes like that need refretting too. (in my experience)

 

the neck attachment is most likely a dove tail join.  another fun thing to do is rip the sound board off and replace it with a thin solid wood one.

 

Cheers

 

Cliff

 

Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on September 14, 2011 at 10:51pm

Mike,

I have seen a number of these at garage sales. The necks are joined in two ways:

1) The neck block you can see through the sound hole will sometimes have 1 or 2 screws in it. the screws go through the neck block into the wood of a single piece neck with a carved heel, made from 1 piece of wood. These are reeeelly cheap, and the necks warp easily. Often the sides of the uke are nothing more than lacquered cardboard. From your pic, that would not appear to be the case.

2) As Kalmario sez, and given that there are no screws evident in your photo, this is very likely a dovetail joint. The compound heel is also something of a giveaway. This technique is used on lots of acoustic guitars and ukes, with a glued dovetail providing further strength to the 2 piece neck. Also, the sides of your uke look like thin bentwood.

To remove the neck without destroying the body, you'd first have to remove the fretboard, which looks to be glued down. You'd have to attempt to get a thin hot blade under the part of the fretboard that overlaps the soundboard. This would only work if the manufacturer used hide glue, which would immediately soften under heat, and allow you to remove the joint without fracturing.

If this is glued together with white glue, carpenter's wood glue, or PVA glues like Super Glue, the glue will probably fracture, risking fracturing of the wood. Norton's suggestion of scoring all the joint edges with an Exacto blade is a good one.

If the hot thin blade treatment doesn't work, cutting it out of the body and reinstalling it in a cigar box sounds like a great idea. Hey, maybe you could do a workshop at your church showing the kids and teacher how to build a CBU from these parts?


How much do you like your Sunday school teacher and his / her kid?

Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on September 14, 2011 at 11:55pm

Mike,

Looked closer at the sound hole pic, and went Googling. That's a First Act FG404 or 4022 Soprano Ukeleles. We Be Toyz sells 'em for $19.99. They normally come with some Hawaiian graphic peel-off stickers. First Act has headquarters in Boston, MA, with manufacturing outsourced to China, except for their in-house Artists "Custom Shop" in Boston.

I'm 99.9% sure that's a dovetail joint with a modern, not hide, glue. About 1/3 of the customer reviews indicated
that this thing would literally snap at the neck joint during initial tuning, which suggests a brittle glue (or just as likely, ignorant parents who overtightened the strings).

Just for grins, here's links to TRU, First Act, the product description, a video review, and an owner's manual:

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3102999

http://www.firstactdiscovery.com/products/guitars/guitarsacoustic/s...

http://www.firstact.com/upload/pdfs/product%20manuals/fg404%20instr...

http://www.expotv.com/videos/reviews/16/153/FirstActDiscoveryFG404S...

Hope this helps,

Oily

Permalink Reply by Mike Whisenhunt on September 15, 2011 at 3:21am

Wow, Oily, you're concise! I will say that I already dismantled(dismembered?) the uke and mounted it to a box. I will say that in doing so it yielded this answer: glue. That's all...only glue. The wood on the inside of the body was glued and brad nailed from the front of the box, Then the heel was just glued. I took so much time and care when all it needed was a little twist and it would have popped right off. Oh well, it made a NICE looking uke. Pardon the rotate fail...

 

Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on September 15, 2011 at 8:09am

Mike,

Concision has never been one of my strengths.

Your ease of disassembly would explain the 1/3 customers reviews that indicated massive neck joint failure occurred during tuning. It also proves that I 've never taken one of these apart. My bad.

Aaaaand...that is one FINE looking instrument. I guess the question now is, do you keep it, or give it to the Sunday school teacher?

Permalink Reply by Habanera Hal on September 15, 2011 at 10:39am

If this is available at TRU or Wallyville for around $20, do you feel the parts gleaned are worth it to install on a CB?  I've used a Grizzy kit (about $30 with shipping) and wouldn't mind saving $10 if the parts are comparable.  Besides, it'd be fun to smash 'em up!

Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on September 15, 2011 at 11:32pm

Hal,

I suppose you could piece it out, lessee:

For $20, you get a neck, fretboard, angled headstock, 4 tuning machines, a bridge, saddle, and nut. Only thing you have to do is separate this from the body. No sanding, finishing, scale length calculation, scarfing, gluing, hole drilling, string guide cutting, fretting, sanding, finishing, or sanding.

If you calculate the cost of these parts from, say, a well-known local supplier, or eBay, I'd bet you'd easily spend $10-15 on parts plus shipping, and you'd still have to do all of the above. So the real question might be, what is your time worth?

TRU might get a tad suspicious if you walk out with 25 or 30 of these "for the grandkids."

Then again, how many people pick up neck wood, bolts, fasteners, etc., at Lowe's or HD, and why? Easily available, and saves time. Not many of us builders live in a sharecropper's shack.

So if it saves you time, and works just good enough, then why not?

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