All ukes, all the time

Today I managed to get an hour in of work on some little problems.

I'm not sure what the best way is to fix this mess. Cracks, super thin wood - it's not good.

A chisel evened it out a bit, but it's still pretty nasty. The wood is paper thin, and attempting to clean that left side was futile.

I've got a patch ready, but there is a problem - flat patches don't look great on round surfaces!

I dropped the patch in some hot water, and all kinds of tan stuff started pouring off. Wierd.

I clamped the wet piece onto the curved caul I used before.

For a different uke, I'm replacing a torn-up bridge. My replacement is not great looking either, but it will do the job. I cut some slots in it, and then hit it with some lacquer.

Back to the Nunes uke. I needed to make a bridge for it. I measured the scale, and decided that I should just use the front of the bridge as the saddle.

I set up my milling vise and a Saf-T-Planer to make the cut.

I proceeded to go the wrong way with the planer, and made a torn-up mess. Nice job. I fed the next one through in the other direction, and it turned out beautifully.

See? Feed direction is important.

I still needed a caul to clamp the patch on the outside of the Nunes, so I mounted some cork to a block of wood.

I covered the side of the uke with sandpaper.

And I rubbed the caul back and forth to shape the caul.

Later I glued in the patch, and glued on the bridge for the Nunes. It was very fast work, since it is rather cold outside, and hide glue just doesn't work well with cold. I didn't bother taking pictures, since I would probably not have a successful glue job if I did.