New wood and neck joint routing

Tenor size flamed koa, concert size flamed maple and soprano
size flamed maple. Each with a matching headplate. Ukulele, anyone?

It happens to me every now and then, that I find myself browsing the "guitar builder/luthier supply" -category on ebay.com. A few weeks ago a nice 6-piece koa set in tenor uke size caught my eye, I placed a bit and won. (It usually takes some last minute bidding to win. Luckily, this one ended around our midnight so I was still awake). In a few days, the same seller had a nice maple set happening, and to cut the shipping cost, I bid on that too. And won. The seller under name 1boardfoot turned out to be Adele and Pat of Island Tonewoods, an extremely warm couple, operating on the web through public library, because the snow storm had cut the wires from their home. So I got two sets with the shipping cost of one, and a BONUS set as a free gift, all very professionally packed and wrapped like the pic shows. Awesome! Highly recommended! No shortage of uke material in the near future.

Jouni's guitar is advancing too. The neck joint has been made, and utilizing my brand new Makita router, I cut two channels for mahogany alignment/attachment bars that get glued under the fingerboard. The bars have 4mm threaded inserts to attach the fb to the top with screws.

This plywood block, covered with walnut veneer, was inserted
under the fingerboard area to accommodate the fingerboard screws.
Truss rod nut acces is drilled through

As seen through the sound port. Thanks Miika for noticing
 that a simple plywood block would've look dull here

High-tec routing station :). The jig is held in place with
two screws through the off-cut -to-be parts of the neck

All straightened up. The neck heel had of course
to be fit and aligned before this cut

Looking a bit messy in the picture, but will be covered anyway.
The carbon fiber bars along the truss rod will help
strengthen the neck even further.

a few glimpses into the factory

This hobby I have, luthiery, used to take so much time and energy. But then it came to me. Use children as employment! They are fast and efficient, consume little, and their little hands do marvelous things even inside the tiniest ukulele!

Well, not really.

Crafting things with children is many things, but it's not very efficient, productionwise speaking. But  we get to learn the woods and the tools together; practice drawing a straight line from A to B; using the cabinet scraper, and using it after the thumbs have gone numb; we learn careful planning and coping after careful planning failed, we learn to communicate and ask for help etc.

I truly hope and pray that the only ukuleles or other instrument that are made by children, are made by the children that got to learn a craft and hobby out of free will, with their parents or a club at school or community.

But I know the world is not such a sunny place for all the children.

So, the next time you plan on buying something dirt cheap and easily disposable, remember that it's cheap for you, because somebody else somewhere has paid a high price for the product.

It might be a child working 16 hours a day, seven days a week.
It might be a man or a woman whose ID card was taken  to keep him/her from running off the inhuman slavery.
It might be somebody, whose health was severely damaged due to the production chemicals or mechanics.

Preparing the top bracing. My building pal Miika taught me a good
method to keep the braces rectangular while sanding.
Here it's revealed to the whole world to see...

Carefull planning

Band saw takes some adult supervision

Go Barin'

Miika cleaning up the glue spill out.
Spotless insides is a mark of a skilled luthier,
I heard myself teaching.

One side for Miika, other for Kaapo.
The maple in these miniature dimensions
bends extremely easily!

Nice figure!

some sanding required