Comment

Comment by gary sheldon on November 28, 2014 at 8:00pm

Like you, I am mostly making my own boxes these days for guitars.  I am also doing box joints on the corners  .I do mine with a router and a jig I invented.

Comment by Andy Stone on November 28, 2014 at 6:35am

Love the laminated wood Gary. if it sounds good it should be very stable, so you live on a sailing boat? My box is far stronger than a cigar box so I can get away with the high loads on the hinge but you block should work if it's thick enough. If routing is a problem I wonder if a neck could be made from 3 pre-sized pieces? ie two tall pieces with a shorter one sandwiched in between to create a channel.

Comment by gary sheldon on November 27, 2014 at 5:20pm

Andy,

Cigar box uke:

The heel you see here does not go through the front of the box.  The machine screw goes through the front, through a block behind the front and into a T nut.  The back of the heel is cut at a very small angle from 90 degrees,  Theoretically, tightening the screw will close the gap and drop the neck some.    It didn't really work as a neck angle adjuster, but made a very solid neck joint as the neck is connected to both the front of the box and the top.

The big problem is very high load on the glue joint between the heel and neck.  The neck and the heel are made from laminated Douglas Fir which was excess from building the laminated ribs of the tall ship Matthew Turner in Sausalito , Ca.  The ship is currently under construction.. 

Comment by Andy Stone on November 27, 2014 at 11:50am

This was a modification and I should have made the block that holds the adjuster bolt (and captive nut) long enough to be glued to the front as it puts a lot of pressure on the back panel.But it works well and is interesting to compare the tone with different height actions, too lower action though nice to play definitely kills the tone. To remove the slack from a cheap hinge simply hit the loop around the pin with a hammer to tighten it up,

Comment by gary sheldon on November 26, 2014 at 11:24am

Holy Cow!  That is very cool.   I tried something vaguely similar (without hinge) , but it didn't work.

Comment by Andy Stone on November 26, 2014 at 10:38am

The neck angle can be adjusted with an allen key as it's fitted with a hinge!