I knew a good luthier many years ago. he said that he would select the wood by tapping it next to his ear. supposedly it’s obvious which slabs of wood sound lively instead of dull. something to look into, anyway. I assume this is just for the hollow body work but who knows?
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Haha, i did buy one! I also took some classes at the time, then COVID hit and i sort of… had a hard time getting back into it. I would like to have another go at it but classes are not something i can afford right now, though i know i should just practice with the little bit that i did learn 
in the meantime here’s pics of the ones i have:
Here’s my wee little starter uke, it’s hard on my hands to play and hold in place but it’s still nice for what it is
Here’s my nicer one, it’s a joy to play
And as a bonus here’s a traditional Venezuelan four string guitar called a Cuatro. It has a small crack in the front i really want to take to a luthier to fix. I haven’t played it yet, i wanted to have someone fix the crack and the bridge being a bit high but it hasn’t been a priority.
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Hey, I know someone who plays the cuatro! He’s in Chicago, but most of his family is still in Venezuela, which is where he grew up and learned to play.
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I’d like to be able to play mine, my short attention span pulls me into other things but i hope to pick up my uke practice again this year I don’t have much of a talent for music and its theories, i struggled a lot in the class i took but i did enjoy it.
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a broken press part has delayed card 5 in the Flagler Overseas Railway series of post cards.
work resumed yesterday, and this mailing should go out next week.
meanwhile, here is a sneak peak at what the postmaster general of the Conch Republic is up to: perfing stamps! this is the 1c Red Flagler postage stamp.
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Oh wow! Looking forward!
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my shower brush was made of laminated wood that fell apart after a few years. the bristles were fine so I made a new body out of pressure treated pine and siliconed the back of the bristles and nailed them down and 2 layers of clear coat
the grip was too oval and wide so I made it circular
fun to make something sculptural for a change
today we were back at a place we had worked before. we made this cubby bench during a remodel but now it’s upholstered and the gym is all set up
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I was never big on tabletop RPGs as a kid so I have limited experience painting figurines but my son recently helped a friend create his first D&D character so I printed and painted an 8” tall model for his birthday. It’s an axe-wielding dragonborn clown holding a backup sword in its tail. He also glows in the dark.
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The latest with the Light Herder HD Video Feedback Fractal Device: I wanted a more organic, live source for the secondary input that influences the feedback. Here, I use the wireless video transmitter/receiver and my fish tank. Little fishes help create hypnotic images. Explanation, and then feedback at 1:22.
See a detailed video on the device here:https://youtu.be/cvdN7_BIaDk?si=we1zcV0s9UINpiWC
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Cello creation continues. A big part of the fun here is that I’m building something I basically know will not work! Since I did near zero research on cello building before starting, I learned that I did not include a ‘bass bar’ - a rib going up the inside of the cello top (front) that appears to make a big acoustic difference. Without this bass bar, my cello might sound bad. Biut HA!, it’s made of cardboard, so it’ll never really sound like a real instrument. To me, this learning about real technique, is part of the great fun I’m having. And I’m sandwhiching this in between work, family, and rebuilding my Honda Civic, so it’s a nice big topic change for my addled brain.
After making the body, I went on to the bridge. I know the bridge is a really stressed part of a real cello. Even though I’m not planning on this holding real strings, I want the bridge strong. I made the bridge by emulating Laminated Veneer Lumber. I had just bought new struts for the family truckster, ,so had some double thickness carboard. I cut that into sheets, and made my own glue from flower and water. I figured paper mache dries pretty tough, and I needed all the rigidity I could get.
I wanted it really flat and tight, so i mashed it down with the rolling pin, then dried it overnight under the weight of many bricks.
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I did five layers of carboard and glue. Then I drew my bridge parts. The fingerboard is seperate (and made of ebony!), while the main bridge and scroll are in real life 1 chunk of (usually?) maple. Cardboard doesn’t lend itself well to my carving skills, so instead I’ll fabricate the scroll and pegbox from multi pieces.
I had cut the body with a razor knife, but the multilayer LVC (laminated veneer cardboard was too hard to cut that way. A coping saw worked fairly well, but left a lot of rough edges when I made the F holes in the front of the cello. So I used the jigsaw. I think the higher speed is what gave the smoother cut.
I made the bridge out of two pieces, and slotted them together. That gave me a little extra edge to work with, and the ability to get more glue into the parts. I think that works like impregnating the epoxy into kevlar (guessing here, as I’ve never done kevlar layup).
I direct glued the bridge to the cello body, but later had to redo it to correct an error. On the redo I drilled two holes and made cardboard “pins” to help hold it all together. In reality I should have reinforced the inside of the body where this hooked up. So many lessons!
It’s looking a lot more like a cello, and the errors give me a smile.
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Thought I’d share photos of my sunroom storage solution in progress - this project went on hiatus just over a year ago with the birth of our first child, just hadn’t found the time to put work in on it. Not to mention not much bike riding has been happening anyway.
The idea is that it is all modular more or less. #10 screws w/ t-nuts at regular spacing that happens to match the shelf brackets and bike hooks allow for afixing pretty much anything to the wall with minimal effort wherever i want. Cubbies below (with possible future bins) for storage of outdoor and bike stuff double as a bench. Hopefull I’ll be able to finish it in the next week or so, I came up short on some of the hardware i needed and am waiting on more. FWIW, this is all really sloppy carpentry made with cheap pine. But it is already working out great!
Another lingering project that was unearthed in the sun room as i was finally able to declutter a bit - this 15-91 singer sewing machine from the '50s. Given to me by my sister, previously owned by my dad.
Im told it is mechanically good and mostly okay from an electrical standpoint. But clearly the veneer is shot. So i need to completely refinish the cabinet, and fix the janky electrical repairs done by my dad. The edging on the cabinet is soild wood, so I’m going to need to try to figure out what it is so i can get a matching veneer…
ETA: The veneer on the tilt-out storage is book matched and looks salvageable
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functional and pleasing to the eye. as someone with 3 bikes in a two-room apartment, I admire this quite a bit
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Thank you for the kind words, especially given the wonderful professional work you do 
Hardware came in and the installation is all done!
Now to maybe add hooks, move shelves, add / remove other unforeseen things as it all evolves to fit our needs.
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Next up in the cello build was a fingerboard onto the bridge. Real fingerboards are ebony. I used some cardboard that came as the reinforcing corners of a box. Fingerboards are curved, but mine was 90 degrees - not ideal. I wet the cardboard down the middle, and then pressed it under a 4x4 for a night to partially flatten it out. The reinforcing corners are a bunch of thin layers glued together, and prettyt strong.
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Then I proceeded to build the scroll. more mistakes! The scroll holds the pegbox, and in real cellos appears to be carved from one piece with the neck. I built the scroll from several pieces, but got my dimensions a little wrong. I built flat sides and slotted them to slide over the bridge parts, giving lots of area to glue. I pushed and smooshed glue into the corregations to try to build it strong enough to hold string tension (more on that later!).
Then some cover around the top:
I drilled holes for the pegs, and then smeared the inside of the holes with glue to harden them, then re-drilled again to smooth them and round them out. I sized the holes to fit straws from the local ice cream & milkshake shop (Sweet Cow !!!). I filled each straw with a strip of glued corrugated cardboard to make it semisolid. That required over 24 hours to dry - I think bc the glue wasn’t exposed to much air.
The ‘scrollwork’ on the side is made of a spiral, cut out and with shims underneath to give it height.
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