It's not a cigar box guitar, but.....

[mumaharps]

I have been inspired to make some thin ukuleles. The inspiration came from an instrument made in Quebec by the Seagull Guitar company called the Merlin. It is a dulcimer in sort of a guitar shape. What was unique acoustically about it was that it's overall thickness in only 1 inch.

So the Aspire connection is that I have used a "model" generously provided by Carveone of the head stock of his cigar box guitar. A slight modification was to angle it downwards with the tilt tool. Used vectors for the rest of the tool paths which included profiling and pocketing. I have finished a tenor sized uke and am working on some more which includes a couple of soprano sized Ukes. The stock was finished to one inch. I didn't opt for two sided machining as I wanted to shape the neck by hand. The photos show where I'm at so far. The banding on the sides of the finished tenor are a result of needing to cover mistakes.

[CarveOne]

That looks great!

I like the sound hole treatment a lot. Anything you can use the files for just inspires me that much more.

CarveOne

[glenninvb]

mumaharps,

Very nice!
You just inspired one of my next projects.
Being I make my CBG bodies from a solid epoxy laminated block this is right in line. Being laminated I can get the wall thickness around 3/16- 1/4
The last one was yellowheart and the sides were a tad over 3/16 w/ top epoxied directly to body. Sounds very crisp w/ light acoustic strings
I'm thinking 1/4" thick lams (1 1/2 total) of purple heart or bloodwood and hard maple for the body and curly maple for the top.
Can I get a ukulele from a true 8" wide blank? Do you have basis measurements or a good link? including fret scale, string sizes etc.

Thanks,
Glenn

[mumaharps]

Hi Glen,

Here is a link for a pdf of a soprano Ukulele

http://www.grellier.fr/plans/Soprano_uk ... ele_en.pdf

Fret calculators are on the net -- one that I have used is this

http://www.stewmac.com/FretCalculator?g ... oCOmzw_wcB

I calculated fret spacing after every thing was together. That way I didn't have to worry about total accuracy during assembly. Just me being paranoid about fret positions.

Roger

[glenninvb]

Thanks for the quick reply!
Looks like an 8" wide blank will work perfect and with a scale length of approx. 13.5, they are smaller than I realized.

I will never sing like "IZ" (did, sad) but maybe I can play like him

[mumaharps]

Yah, well.... who will sing like Iz.

As to scale length When I've made a soprano before I thought the scale was a little short. I much liked the results of the tenor better. I am making the current soranos with a 14" scale.

Good luck...