Had a good hour of work today.
Back to the Nunes uke. The top is looking good, the cracks are nicely glued up. Although they are still a bit visible, they are very solid.
That side hole needed some serious reinforcement, especially with how thin the wood is. I prepared to build a string clamp. I found a block of wood, and a single tuner.
Some help with drilling holes.
And here it is - it will draw the string in, and draw whatever is on the string closer too.
I took some magnets, and traced the linings and some random bits of wood on the outside of the uke. There are some reinforcement cleats in there that I have to watch out for.
I made a thin piece of koa, and marked places to drill both it and the side of the uke so that a guitar string could pass through.
This tiny set of drill bits belonged to my grandfather. He told me that they were used to drill the holes for pilot lights in radiators. Very tiny, very fine.
So fine that I couldn't chuck them in my drill, and had to chuck a chuck in my drill so that I could chuck the bits in the chucked chuck. The hole is tiny. It will be a cinch to fill it with a bit of glue and dust, or even just a bit of drop shellac. Actually, I might fill it with pore filler, now that I think about it.
And here we go. I tried a test run to see how it would work.
And I promptly split the reinforcement in two. That won't work...
So I made a caul, and then wet a new reinforcement and rubber-banded it on the caul. This should mold it so that it works without breaking.
I also added a bit of gasket material to the clamp. I decided not to do any gluing now, I was running out of time and wanted to have no rush when I did the job.
I did take a look at the busted up binding. This will need to be replaced.
I took a chisel to it, and slowly cleaned it out.
Nice and clean, now I can make up a new section, and place it in.
That did it for the day - it was time to make lunch, and head out for the day.
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