Getting closer on the Nunes...

Got some good work today, and I felt good that I simplified my approach to some nagging problems.

First, I started in with a bit of work on the Cuatro.

Removing tuners was fairly easy. I'm not sure how I failed to notice that one screw had been replaced with a tack.

Little cracks on one side.

And a pretty nasty crack on the other side, which had been reglued once. I decided to just wick in CA glue and clamp.

Well, that was pretty simple.

I also scrounged through my can of tuner parts and found a replacement screw for one that was missing on the gear of a tuner. All set to go!

Onwards to the Nunes. I started off by mixing a small batch of garnet shellac.

I then when to work with the table saw. The plug immediately burned up, so I had to give up on that for a bit. It was off to the hardware store, and then some wiring work.

A couple hours later, I was ready to roll. I had been thinking of all kinds of ways to make a saddle slot in a ukulele bridge, and realized that I was REALLY over-thinking things. I clamped a 2x4 to my miter gauge, and chopped the end off square. I then screwed on a chunk of plywood as a hold down.

Pefect!

And now I had perfect saddle slows. The bridge on the left is for the Nunes, the one on the right is for a Duke Kahanamoku uke that I've been slowly working on.

The shellac was ready for doing touchup.

Nice! It really darkened that binding.

Wow - nice match!

I also worked on the side. I added shellac, and then thought I would take a razor knife and add some grain-like cuts.

Much better. That patch is still pretty ugly, but I can't do much more without risk of collapsing the whole side.

A bunch of finish later, and it is getting really close to ready.

I added my maple saddle to the bridge as well.

I shot boring old spray-can lacquer on the bridge, and it looks fine.

I've also spent some time filing around the bridge, trying to give it a bit of a worn look to match the uke. This whole project is getting really close to done - I need to glue down the bridge, polish the new finish just a bit, install tuners, and string it up. So close!!