I will leave the subtle facets created by the carving gouge here on the back of the tie block:
while the other surfaces will be comparatively sleek.
It makes for cool textures too:
For complex locations like the heel, I often hold the light in one hand and the tool in the other, moving the light back and forth to examine every bit of the surface.
In this photo I’ve just cut in the facet on the right with a carving chisel–which takes two hands, so the light is on a stand nearby.
I’ve been thinking about this wood for a long time:
I feel that love is the core “energy” of life in all its fantastic diversity. Music (also amazingly diverse) springs out of love as a powerful force to join (bind) us; to catalyze connections, community, gratitude, and, in a great circle–or ring, if I may–love.
No doubt this is ripe for psychoanalysis, as well as accusations of extreme sappiness and fuzzy-headed thinking; but sappiness seems quite fitting for a woodworker, while fuzzy-headed is merely accurate;-).
I will be bringing an ukulele stand to the UKEtoberfest auction; it’s time to start thinking about it. My design process usually starts with the wood, and while winding through the thickets of planks around the shop these jumped out as candidates:
A few behind the scenes images as UKEtoberfest draws closer.
The silking on this Carpathian spruce top is lovely. “Silking” refers to the hazy gently waving lines that are roughly right angles to the growth rings, going up/down in this pic. They are the trees ray cells, and their prominence indicates nice quartersawn wood.
Long ago I got a a few small planks of Palisander (Dalbergia barroni most likely), including one with volcanoes. Having seasoned them for a good many years, I cut some recently, with a good deal of trepidation to start. This is the volcano plank:
Opposite approach, ebony instead of maple, with chalk to simulate pale stripes between the different woods:
What about a single volcano surrounded by darker palisander from a different tree?
And tie-dye! Amazing “tiger” myrtle from the same tree as the end graft in the previous post, with the darker (volcano-free) palisander:
A different pair of volcanoes–though more like Belknap crater to the previous North Sister–and how about blackwood with a simulated sapwood stripe? You can see actual sapwood at lower left center.
From my lethal wood collection, wenge, savage with burrowing splinters.
Composing–figuring out which pieces of wood, cut which way, combined and arranged this way or that, will fulfill all the functional needs, celebrate the materials, and bring delight to an instrument or piece of furniture–is one of the best parts (and most crucial) of my work.
The wedge shaped end graft in the picture is some super-amazing myrtle from the southern Oregon coast, combined with oak from the historic Hackleman grove via the Lumber to Legacy project spearheaded by Mark Azevedo and Albany Parks and Recreation; see the story here: Lumber to Legacy.
Yes…it’s an oak-ulele, to be auctioned later this fall along with contributions from many other regional craftspersons and students to raise money for oak habitat restoration.
I love the way these look together, with a bit of black/white/black purfling to draw the eye to the transition. The oak has strong straight grain with squiggly pale lines called “ray fleck” (from the ray cells, which help make oak split easily for firewood); the myrtle varies the theme with squiggly dark lines, and adds a soft undulation to the dominant straight grain of the oak.
It often takes a shockingly long time to arrive at a satisfying combination, at least shocking when I’m fretting that progress only happens when cutting, joining, gluing, and shaping wood. But the time spent imagining the insides of planks or burrowing in wood supplies for yet another candidate pays back a thousandfold, not just in the finished project, but unleashing the energy and perseverance I need for the seemingly infinite number of operations, detours, false starts, and train wrecks that inevitably go with building things well.
All in all a pretty good return for a 3″ slip of myrtle, a fragment from an orphan ukulele side. It makes it darned hard to get rid of scraps though.
7:30pm, day three, Guild of American Luthiers convention, Tacoma, Washington. Where seemingly well-adjusted folks who make musical instruments poke their phones inside of other maker’s guitars to see how they’re put together…
…ah, Kasha bracing, and a very thin top at right center.
Early evening light bathes the clock tower courtyard at Pacific Lutheran University.
Kimo Hussey, a master of the ukulele from Hawaii, is jamming with Jay Lichty, who makes beautiful ukes and guitars from (as he puts it) “that hotbed of ukulele music, Asheville, North Carolina”. Kimo is playing one of Jay’s ukes, and the night before had given a concert with it.
I’m carrying the first ukulele I built, having just come from the exhibit hall where I have a display table alongside many real luthiers.
[I am so insecure at the exhibition that my table was mostly covered with woodworking tools; I taught folks how to quickly sharpen their planes and scrapers to a high standard, something I do daily in the shop and teach almost non-stop when I work Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Events. My uke was wedged over to the side, constantly at risk of being splattered by swarf (a muck of water, iron filings and abrasive particles generated during sharpening on waterstones).]
Kimo and Jay are making great music–swing tunes, pop, rock, you name it. I’d like Kimo to play my uke, but no way I’m interrupting. There’s a lull, my heart rate doubles…but I keep my mouth shut. They play some more. 7:50, time to pack up soon for the evening concert.
If not now, when? There’s a tiny lull, and my voice cracks as I ask Kimo if he’ll play my first uke. He says “you mean you want me to help christen your first ukulele?”. I manage to blurt out yes, that’s it exactly. He says “I’d be honored to help christen your uke”. I try not to let my jaw bounce off the ground, pull it out of the case, and he looks it over closely before starting this:
Wow! I was walking on air the rest of the evening.
No blog entries for nearly two years, and it’s tempting to craft an excuse. To be clear, it was my daughter’s dog, Loki–with a name like that he’s obviously guilty. You can see it in his body language:
Pat Megowan Stringed Instruments 