Kia ora, G'day and Aloha,
Just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Donovan Preza and I live in Hilo, Hawaii and I'm transitioning into building ukuleles again. I had a short life break from woodworking and instruments but now I'm back at it. I have only been lurking here for a couple of weeks but I'm impressed by the conversations and level of craftsmanship on this forum. I was referred to this site by David Hurd who has been kind enough to share his knowledge with me in the recent months.
Attached is a picture (camera phone) of an ukulele I made and finished 5 or 6 years ago but started approximately 10 years ago. At the time, I knew nothing about compliance mapping, chladni patterns and the like. But I recently tested it (this past weekend) to try and figure out what I did right because it came out pretty good sounding. It's a little stiff but has decent coupling. The compliance mapping confirmed that it was a little too stiff and the tap tones confirmed the back and front were coupling pretty well together (about 2 semitones apart). What an experience it was! I was stoked to see the results. I started this build 10 years ago using a printout of a picture on Kawika's website of his 5 fan bracing and tried to imitate it because I knew what I was building at that time was way overbuilt. I used Audacity for the tap tones. I read up a bit on the Visual Analyzer but could not get it to work for me as well (and I did read the how to on this forum). I will try again later but for now Audacity does enough for my current level of understanding with everything at the moment. Currently have another tenor ukulele in progress which I'm in the process of tuning the back right now.
Hope to learn a lot from this forum and eventually be able to contribute more to the conversations
donovan
Kia ora, G'day and Aloha
- 56nortondomy
- Blackwood
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Re: Kia ora, G'day and Aloha
Welcome to the forum Donovan, you'll like it here, all good guys and pretty helpful. Wayne
- Nick
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Re: Kia ora, G'day and Aloha
Welcome to the forum Donovan and thanks for the intro. Hope you enjoy this little corner of the world
"Jesus Loves You."
Nice to hear in church but not in a Mexican prison.
Nice to hear in church but not in a Mexican prison.
Re: Kia ora, G'day and Aloha
Thanks Wayne and Nick. I've enjoyed reading some of the older threads these past few days. Interesting stuff!!! With all of the ukulele builders on this forum I think the forum sub-title should expand to include Hawaii or at least include the "North" pacific I feel the same shipping pains as Australia/New Zealand. Anything coming from China, Japan etc. goes past Hawaii straight to L.A. only to come back to Hawaii (aka the Jones Act). US businesses only ship free to the "Continental US" and this forum only includes the "South" pacific...talk about no love for Hawaii man56nortondomy wrote:Welcome to the forum Donovan, you'll like it here, all good guys and pretty helpful. Wayne
(just being playful...I've read on other threads that you guys from the South can take a joke. Also in my other life I'm getting a phd in Geography (history of cartography) so I enjoy seeing how people carve/map things
Donovan
www.koapaaukuleles.com
www.koapaaukuleles.com
- DarwinStrings
- Blackwood
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Re: Kia ora, G'day and Aloha
G'day Donovan, very clever to use that box with the sparkly stuff rather than make your workshop look like a 8 year old girl got to it.
Jim
Jim
Life is good when you are amongst the wood.
Jim Schofield
Jim Schofield
Re: Kia ora, G'day and Aloha
Thanks Jim,
Gotta give credit where credit is due. That setup belongs to David Hurd (Kawika Ukuleles) who was kind enough to let me borrow it while I'm trying to get a grasp on his "Left Brain Lutherie" book. The irony was it helps keep all the glitter off the floor but not out of the soundhole. I pulled the ukulele out to show a friend yesterday and did not clean out the glitter so now my ukulele looks like it belongs to an 8 year old girl rather than my shop. I think I may have to transition to the tea leaves. Less chance of these kinds of sparkly moments.
donovan
Gotta give credit where credit is due. That setup belongs to David Hurd (Kawika Ukuleles) who was kind enough to let me borrow it while I'm trying to get a grasp on his "Left Brain Lutherie" book. The irony was it helps keep all the glitter off the floor but not out of the soundhole. I pulled the ukulele out to show a friend yesterday and did not clean out the glitter so now my ukulele looks like it belongs to an 8 year old girl rather than my shop. I think I may have to transition to the tea leaves. Less chance of these kinds of sparkly moments.
donovan
Donovan
www.koapaaukuleles.com
www.koapaaukuleles.com
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