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Comment by gary sheldon on April 17, 2014 at 7:38pm

My Gitty uke kit arrived today.  It looks real good.  I may start putting it together tonight.

Gary

Comment by gary sheldon on April 15, 2014 at 10:01am

I see.  : )   .

I got my neck drop and new tailpiece working.  I love the bridge break angle much better than before.

One think I forgot about the neck angle is that I didn't account for string tension. I probably lost about a half a degree when I strung it up.  I didn't check.

Anyway, I have one more useable guitar now.  I'll start retrofitting the others any day now.

Gary

Comment by Michael Fred Johnson on April 15, 2014 at 6:55am

Gary

 I have no experience of Gitty's uke kit,was not even aware of it.Just had a look at it on the electric interweb and it looks amazing value for money,you can't go wrong.Trouble with me is I like to make things myself.

Comment by gary sheldon on April 14, 2014 at 11:13pm

Thanks, Michael.  No, I am not using a uke resonator.  I am experimenting with a "doggie bowl" thrift shop resonator.  But I got side tracked with the neck drop project.  I jsut have to drill the tailpiece, screw it in and string it up.  Tomorrow.  Oh, and relieve the top of the neck inside the box with the belt sander.

BTW, have you had any experience with the Gitty Uke Kit?  I just ordered one.  I can't buy the parts retail for the $38 they charge.  I should recieve it later this week.

Gary 

Comment by gary sheldon on April 14, 2014 at 10:54pm

Hi guys:

  Another late night rant and possibly some useful information.

I am following some of Rand and Michael's suggestions.  Neck drop and tailpiece design.

I took my guitar #2 and removed the neck from the body.  I wasn't that impressed with the cigar box.  I am putting the neck into another cigar box.  This box was a reject.  I built a neck for it and eventually loaned it to customer to try out.  He returned it a couple of days later saying he hated it.   Not much sound.  It sat around for several weeks and one day I decided to figure out why it was so mute.  After a lot of head scratching I found that the cover was made of MDF.  Like papier mache.  It is the artificial wood that they make base boards and interior trim pieces out of.  Medium Density Fibreboard. That top was lined with paper on the inside and had a beautiful veneer on the top. I carefully cut the top off and replaced it with a decent piece of thin birch plywood.  But I digress.

I am rebuildong guitar #2 with a very small neck drop.  Probably only 1 1/4 degrees or so.  I can always increase it later.  By the way there are two building methods which will cause one to use a taller bridge/saddle.  One is neck drop and the other is a raised fingerboard.  Since I use raised fingerboards, I figure the neck drop doesn't have to be so much.

I was wondering how I am going to locate the back of the neck in the box without a through hole.  I decided to put a glue block on either side of where the neck should be.  That is when I discovered another trick.  Rather than measuring and marking where the blocks should be, I decided to use scrap, factory planed wood to temporarily lock things into place.  I got lucky and used 2 pieces of oak neck material and one piece of plywood on each side of the neck.  It was a perfect fit!  Will, once again try to send a photo.  

Comment by Michael Fred Johnson on April 14, 2014 at 10:47pm

Hi Gary 

I assume Your question refers to the guitar using the uke resonator.

The cone sits in the well formed by the ply rings glued to the underside of the sound board(see "Box for three string reso").The cover does not touch the cone it is there to protect it from damage.These spun aluminium cones are extremely thin and very easily damaged if they are deformed in any way they will probably collapse under the string tension.

The plastic strip is super glued into a rebate cut using a router.I haven't had the router long so previous to that I cut the rebates for guitar bindings by hand.Score the top and side of the guitar body with a cutting or marking gauge and carefully remove the waste with a chisel.

I don't use a through neck on resonators(see the photo of the dovetail) an alternative to the dovetail is shown in this photo,slot both sides of the neck where it extends into the box  

Comment by gary sheldon on April 13, 2014 at 12:19pm

Thanks for all that good info Rand.

Comment by Rand Moore on April 13, 2014 at 11:41am

Hi Gary,

I see you're "on-line" now. With regards to your last post, the recommendation for the downward angle is 2-3 degrees. If you have a long neck as compared to a short one, you'll find you'll need a much taller bridge especially with larger neck angles as you found when you did your calculations for a 5 degree downward angle. I usually don't bother with the math, and if my bridges turn out not to be tall enough, I shim them by placing a thin board under the bridge. Maybe not the most "professional" way, but its an easy solution. As you can see form our photos, the break angle is not that sharp as I might have said in the text of my earlier posts.

When building an acoustic instrument, I almost always cut away maybe 1/4" of the wood under the sound board for better vibration. The exceptions are the two mountain dulcimer instruments I made, where the fingerboard is glued directly to the top side of the sound board. I doubt it makes as much difference as some people claim, but its a fairly standard practice. With metal resonators, drums and cake/cookie tin instruments it's pretty much a necessity. Not so much for wood.

-Rand.

Comment by Rand Moore on April 13, 2014 at 11:17am

Hi Again.

Actually, on these resonator instruments, I have changed my practice, and re-routed the "thru-the-box" part of the neck downward an inch or so to avoid coming into contact with the resonator (a cookie tin lid). So, to compensate, I re-enforce the tail-side wall of the sound box with another board to better take the string tension on the tail-piece which is no longer being carried solely by the neck. Sorry for misleading anyone. When I build a regular acoustic "guitar", the neck runs pretty much straight thru the box (maybe slightly tilted to give the neck a few degrees of downward tilt) and the tail piece in anchored to the tail end of the neck so the neck carries all (or most) of the string tension.

The reason this is important is so that the extra stress is not placed on the sound box, which often is built very thin (fragile) for better resonating characteristics at  the loss of structural strength. A couple examples might be my "thin walled sound box" which are built using 2mm plywood for all sizes with minimal framing to reinforce the structure; and another would be cake/cookie tin instruments which might crumple under string pressure if the thru-the neck part of the neck wasn't there to carry the string tension on the tail piece.

-Rand.

Comment by gary sheldon on April 13, 2014 at 11:01am

Rand and Michael:

  You guys are awesome.  Thanks for the comments and help.

  I went to the hardware store a little while ago and got a sheet of copper that is a thickness that I can bend, but is probably strong enough to take the tension of the strings.  I will make a tailpiece like Rand described, except that I will bend it back about 20 degrees at the top and slot it for quicker string changes.

Earlier, I drew a 5 degree angle on a sheet of door skin and measured off some inportant distances.  It has been decades since I took any trig, so I had to grunt it out.  5 degrees is huge.  The nut would drop 1 5/8"!  The tailpiece would have to rise almost an inch, and the bridge would have 3/4" added.  Like and Eifel tower.

  So my neck drop will probably be more in the 1 to 2 degree range.  I am assuming that the front of the box is the fulcrum.

  Michael, your resonator guitar is an inspiring work of art.  I don't have the great power tools like you do, but I can occasionally get some time on a band saw or drill press.  I really like your white trim.  Was it difficult?

 A couple of questions:  Is your inner cone mechanically attached to the outer cone?  If I build a resonator with 2 cones and run the neck through it will the sound be destroyed?  I want to stay with the through body design.

Another question for either of you.  I relieve about 1/16" or more at the top of the neck under the sound board to allow it to vibrate.  Do you agree with this?

I need to take my laundry out of the washer now.  I'll attempt to send some pics of my old tailpiece.

Gary

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