More Kamaka

Okay, not a whole lot got done today, but what got done was good.

I sanded some more. 

And more.

And more! I'm not going to be able to eliminate that gouge on the side, that would simply be too risky. 

This was an amazingly thin neck to start with, and now I'm on the cusp of breaking the thing altogether. 

I made a piece to fit, but it ended up too thin. Time to make a second one. 

I needed the ends to be perfectly square to the bottom, so I got out a level and used it as a kind of shooting board, holding the piece against it while sanding on my sanding board. 

I had to round the edges slightly, as there was no way I could get the inside corners of the cutout area perfectly square. And after all this, we decided that the piece was a terrible mismatch in looks, so I made a third. 

I had other Kamaka ukes out for comparison. I'm getting to know a lot more about the Gold label era Kamakas. 

After making the third piece, it was time for some glue and an overnight stint in a clamp. 

Looking at this Kamaka and the others, I'm guessing that it is a late 50's, early 60s uke. It has a "W" written on the neck block, exactly the same as the "W" written on the neck block of another uke I have that is known to have been made in 1961, so that would be a good guess for the year. These don't have serial numbers, so that is about as close as I'm going to get for a guess.