Loose Ends

I have a LOT of loose ends. I need to finish up 5 instruments. Let's lay them out:



The first two are for the grandsons. This will show you how my brain works. I saw this 10 string baroque guitar by Stradivarius.



Cool thing and it sounds great. Checked out the size, and they are all over the place, but basically a smallish body with a long scale length because the saddle is set very low. Then I got the idea I could make it smaller for the boys. Easy enough, right? Then I saw a ukulele at a garage sale for $2. It had a case. The case looked to be the right size. I bought it. The Strad body fit right in.

The ukulele is a baritone, didn't even know that there was such a thing. It is tuned the same as the bottom four strings on a guitar. Cool, the boys could have fun with that, and the notes would be the same. AGH! The ribs on one side are cracked from the neck to the bottom block.

More work. The neck proved to be loose too, Was never fitted well. The ribs are fixed, the neck fits now. New varnish on the sides.

I need a new rib iron. Tried to bend some rosewood for banding the guitar, and the heat gun broke.

So I need a rib iron, need to glue on the ukulele neck, and buy another peg. That one is easy.

I need to bend and glue the banding, glue on the neck, put in frets, and glue on the bridge, and varnish the little guitar.

Now for the violins:



The Gagliano viola needs a tailpiece, nut and saddle, and a bridge. Easiest one to finish.

The Gofriller viola, and the del Gesu violin both need finishing up on the woodwork before varnishing. I wanted to string them up and see (hear) any differences as I thinned in the recurve area. Those aren't really hard things either. But they do need to get done before I can start on other cool stuff.



Cool stuff? Oh yeah, there is always cool stuff to do. How about Walnut, and Quilted Maple Gofriller violins? Gofriller's because they look cool, and the lower bout is only 199, and the wood is on the narrow side. Still need to draw the plan up. Do them together so any sound differences can be played around with.

I have another hunk of Birdseye, one Cherry piece, a piece of Sycamore for a 5 string. Oh yeah! There is still the 5 string Cherry and Poplar 5 string in the drawer that I have to fix the purfling on. I must have been in a fog when I did that job. Where do I hire these people?

I only have three boxes to keep the instruments together with all their stuff. I need at least 2 more. I have three other ones, but they house exotic wood for fittings and fingerboards, block wood and clamp wood, and wood for linings and ribs. Maybe I could use the big blue box for that stuff...