Prototype tenor ukulele

Haha. Ohana makes a great kit that takes care of all that - only trouble is it doesn’t fit in my :glowforge:

I wish I had seen your project before I started mine. Love what you have done. I especially like the neck. I used fusion 360 to design mine. I am coming from the 3d printer of designing. I also chose to use 1/8" plywood. I like how you put so many locking holes to help line it up.

I haven’t finished yet but I am getting close.

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The only ukulele I’ve made was 3D printed. :slight_smile:

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Welcome to the community- I’m sure you’ll find heaps of good information here.

One gentle note — it’s against the forum guidelines to ask for the files used in “Made on a Glowforge.”

Cheers!

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You’re in luck though, I don’t know if related to the OP, but there’s already a pattern available on Etsy :slight_smile:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1043334618/soprano-ukulele-diy-laser-cut-design?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=ukulele+pattern&ref=sr_gallery-1-1&sts=1&organic_search_click=1

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Welcome to the forum.

As others will let you know, it is against forum rules to ask for files. No big deal, lots of us made the same mistake.
https://community.glowforge.com/faq

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My bad everyone. Sorry for breaking the rules. Lesson Learned.

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We almost all do it at least once :slight_smile:

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No worries. I should also add that the forum ban on file requests is not an open invitation to direct message the author :rofl:

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Oh, yes. I’m going to have to look at this. I bought my son a tenor uke as I thought it fit his voice (baritone) better than his soprano. Making one is going to be a must .

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Could you please tell me what settings you used for your fret slots? I have built an entire uke and I for the life of me cant get the fret wire to bite into the wood…

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Alas there is no reasonable Glowforge only way. The issue is that the kerf of the laser is narrower than the width of the fret wire “bit” (I don’t know what it is called but you know, the part that sinks into the fretboard). You could engrave a .023" wide channel for each fret, but it’s kinda hit and miss as well as that it takes a long time to engrave. What I did was use the scoring mode to score the fret locations into the fretboard, then I used a fret saw to cut to the appropriate depth. I use Steward-MacDonald’s Japanese fret saw with their slotting miter box to get cuts as accurate as my Glowforge. Probably not the answer you were looking for but this was the solution that worked for me. I’ll have to revisit this issue at some point and if I come up with something better I’ll be sure to let you know.

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I’d be curious if a defocused score would widen it enough - or too much! You’d likely have to do a few passes since it also lessens the depth but…

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Quite possibly, @deirdrebeth . I’ve never gone down the defocused route myself - but seemed like it would take too much trial and error and since I already had a perfectly functioning fret saw, that’s what I ended up doing. I’ve also seen some clever designs that use mdf frets that slot into a fretboard made up of tiles, each being the proper distance between frets. Though these frets would not last long and the accuracy of the fretboard is entirely dependent on the consistency of the thickness of the mdf.

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As the tiles could be accurately made, if the frets were some sort of tiny "I"beam would that make a decent solution? I am thinking tiny model train track. You could use particularly exotic wood not available for fretboards normally, Snake wood, Pink ivory wood, etc. even polished stone like lapis.

the issues with that is it’s nearly impossible to be precise in the width, even without defocusing. while you can test, you’re trying to get a very precise slot. and any char on the edges will keep it from being totally stable. defocusing is even more of a crap shoot for exact width. when you cut a slot in the fretboard, if you’re even a tiny bit too wide on even one fret, you’ve trashed the fretboard.

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