Good move to hook up with someone in flooring! I've thought about that but just keep going to big orange and lumber yards.
I really didn't expect this project to amount to much but it quickly started looking pretty. I'm going ahead with this neck but if it shows a bow under 3 light gauge strings I'll do another neck.
I found a flooring guy locally that gave me some maple and jatoba 4' stair treads that I'm ripping for necks. He says he's been just throwing these cut-offs away! The maple is laminated for 8" width but is solid 3/4" thick. The jatoba is a full 1" thick x 4". I think after my experience, I'll only use poplar for short uke necks if I have nothing else.
I reinforced the neck with two oak splines and hope they suffice to keep the neck in service on this as a 3 stringer, but worst case scenario is that I have to replace the neck and I'm OK with that. I've got 5 neck blanks (maple and red oak) ready and waiting and just bought some more wood last Friday. I now have maple, oak, cherry, and Brazilian cherry aka jatoba.
Comments
Good move to hook up with someone in flooring! I've thought about that but just keep going to big orange and lumber yards.
I really didn't expect this project to amount to much but it quickly started looking pretty. I'm going ahead with this neck but if it shows a bow under 3 light gauge strings I'll do another neck.
I found a flooring guy locally that gave me some maple and jatoba 4' stair treads that I'm ripping for necks. He says he's been just throwing these cut-offs away! The maple is laminated for 8" width but is solid 3/4" thick. The jatoba is a full 1" thick x 4". I think after my experience, I'll only use poplar for short uke necks if I have nothing else.
I reinforced the neck with two oak splines and hope they suffice to keep the neck in service on this as a 3 stringer, but worst case scenario is that I have to replace the neck and I'm OK with that. I've got 5 neck blanks (maple and red oak) ready and waiting and just bought some more wood last Friday. I now have maple, oak, cherry, and Brazilian cherry aka jatoba.
Looks good, hope it works out. I just had to trash two poplar necks 'cause they looked like pretzels after I strung 'em up.
looks like a fine job shaping the neck!!!