Improved Uke

Welcome to my third instructable. I hope you enjoy it and find it helpful.

Not many steps in this instructable, as I am only going to highlight improvements I have made to the design of my first uke.

This ukulele is one I have made for the son of a work colleague who saw my first uke and liked it. He supplied the tin, a Vaseline gift tin - a little small for a uke, but I just about managed it.

The neck, nut, fingerboard, frets etc are the same idea and design as my first uke, but I lengthened the fingerboard after looking at other people's ukes.

Due to the shape of the body, and also its small size, I had to come up with a string retaining system that isn't just four screws in the butt of the uke. Luckily, I had some picture hooks lying around - the kind that hang from picture rails, and with a drill, a pair of pliers, and a small file I made something I'm pretty happy with.

It is screwed through the body and into the neck, and it does its job well. The only word of caution if you decide to do the same: make sure you file the holes for the strings or they will break when tightened against any sharp bits.

And that's about it. The bridge is the same: a small piece of off-cut pallet wood from the neck; the nut is another small pen cut down - I was lucky to find a blue one this time to match the overall colour scheme. The tuners are ultra cheap friction ones from ebay.

I am in the process of making a few more for other people, so when I get them finished I'll post the results.

I hope you like the results.