Ukulele Building Course Townsville

[ozziebluesman]

Hi to you all.

Recently I approached a local furniture make here in Townsville with a proposal to conduct a Ukulele Building Course here in Townsville. Kingfisher Furniture is a family owned business managed by Joel and they make very fine furniture. Joel has an excellent knowledge of locally grown timbers and knows how to use the large array of woodworking machinery setup in their workshop. Joel is also a wiz when it comes to making jigs and working with wood. Although he mostly uses the big machinery in the workshop he also loves to use well tuned hand woodworking tools. We are both building an instrument in the course and it is Joel's first ever musical instrument. I said to him be careful that building musical stringed instruments is addictive and he said too late, he is hooked already. We have been working together over the past two months setting up our course to build a concert ukulele. The course is designed for people to build a concert ukulele without high level woodworking skills. The course started two weeks ago with six participants and we are up to speed so far although both weeks have gone an hour longer each week. Although it has been a fair bit of work it has been very enjoyable and a great deal of fun for everybody.

Here are a few pictures and there will be more details and progress information with pictures in the future....

[Kim]

Looks like you guys put together a really well organised course Alan and in an awesome workshop to..

Cheers

Kim

[Trevor Gore]

Nissen or Quonset?

[ozziebluesman]

Thanks Kim, it has taken as much time and more as each session to organise it and sort out our jigs. A lot of the setting up will be once off requirements so we hope our next course is easier. I am blessed that Joel is a smart and quick thinker so most of our building issues are solved quickly.

I will give more detail of the course in the coming weeks.

Trevor: Sorry mate, I don't understand your question. Is it something to do with machinery brand or model?

More to come soon

Cheers

Alan

[68matts]

Trevor: Sorry mate, I don't understand your question. Is it something to do with machinery brand or model?

I think he might be referring to the shed.

[ozziebluesman]

Ahhhh....The shed used to be a soft drink factory in a previous life.

Cheers

Alan

[DarwinStrings]

Good on ya Alan, "takin it to the streets". I was offered a situation via the N.T. crafts council to put a course together for the refugees (detainees) that manage to make it past Christmas island. I gave it a good think but in the end couldn't do it cause of personal reasons.

Jim

[Trevor Gore]

Trevor: Sorry mate, I don't understand your question. Is it something to do with machinery brand or model?

I think he might be referring to the shed.

Goes with the moniker I suppose. Both Nissen huts and Quonset sheds were pre-fab buildings used by the armed forces in WW1 and WW2. They were semi-permanent building that could be erected really quickly. The Nissen huts were the original pommy version, designed during WW1 by Major Peter Nissen of the Royal Engineers. Spans up to 30 feet and as long as you like. The ones I was used to were smaller and tended to have bricked in ends. The Qunoset hut was a development of the Nissen hut by the USA army, built originally at Quonset Point, Rhode Island. The biggest was about 40' across and 100' feet long. There's not too many of either type left, these days

Given the size, I'm thinking the one pictured was originally a hangar, but I'm not so much of a shed nerd to be able to pick the type!

[nnickusa]

Looks like fun. How much of the work did you do to set up the course? ie: necks prepped, sides bent????etc...

[Ormsby Guitars]

How much you charging?

[DarwinStrings]

My answer up there ^ stated that I did not teach the course for "personal reasons" I wasn't going to elaborate but now that I have brought it back to my mind I think I'll have a little rave. I felt in the end that although the building might have been fun for the detainees, that that is not what they are here for. What they would like is to have a job, be a part of Australia and contribute to this country by way of looking after their families being gainfully employed. We just lock em up, imprison them for the crime of wanting a better life. I would prefer, rather than to have them lightly entertained by building ukuleles that they were given the opportunity to work (someone has to pick nasty, burn your arms sap filled fruit in the relentless tropical sun) even if it were to just enable them to save for a time when they are released from gaol. In the end I felt like I would be more of a look good tool for the people who make the decision to deal with these people in the way that they do, pandering to something that I find distasteful. Okay now maybe I can get on with work and get the politics out of my head

Jim

[ozziebluesman]

I will give a run down after the course is finished on what the students actually did do in the building of the instrument. They have been very busy the first two sessions I can tell you

We are charging the same as Allen and Michael are in there Cairns Ukulele Building Course.

Cheers

Alan

[H3ytm@n]

Nice photos Alan. See you on Sat.

[ozziebluesman]

Thanks Mike, look forward to seeing you there again. I had a picture of you helping a student but thought I should wait to put it on the forum. Mike has given up some of his freetime to help Joel and I run this course and we appreciate his input greatly.

Cheers

Alan

[timberfreak]

Thanks Alan and hi all!
I'm loving this instrument making. Alan is doing a great job teaching this course and im pretty sure all of us students are having a blast!
By the way Trevor, the shed is a 30mx12m quonset hut.

Joel

[Trevor Gore]

By the way Trevor, the shed is a 30mx12m quonset hut.

Living archaeology! Great stuff! Must be one of the very few left, especially in the large size. I'm guessing originally used for servicing flying boats, WW2. Probably has a few tales to tell...

[ozziebluesman]

Today we had our third session building the concert ukulele. The humidity was very high here today so we didn't get the top glued on but all instruments are prepared and ready to do so. Good progress achieved again today and we are on track to be finished in the fifth session.

Here are a few pictures of our solera, mould, jigs and templates. The course is to build a kit so sides are bent, neck blank cut out, fingerboard slotted, bridge cut out and saddle slot cut and the instrument is then built using a bench sander, drill press, spindle sander and basic hand tools. We could do without the solera however it is nice to glue top and back bracing and keep the build all lined up nicely.

[ozziebluesman]

Woods used in the build are Queensland Maple for the neck blank, all back and sides are Black Wattle Acacia, Silkwood, Silver Ash, Black Wattle and Queensland Walnut tops. Fingerboards and bridge material we have Black Wattle, Gidgee, Jarra and Blackbean. Peg head we have a nice assorted box of goodies with some interesting figures and colours. We are using Sitka spruce for bracing and kerf lining. A very simple rosette and end graft of black white black purfling. Stew Mac has done well providing the Grover machine heads and we have some buffalo bone for the saddle and nut. By the end of next week we hope to have the box closed and the fingerboard fretted and glued down.

Here are a few pictures from today's four hour building session and thanks for looking.

Someone asked was there much work setting it up. Yes!!!! The next course will be a breeze.

Thanks again to Michael for his time and help.

Cheers

Alan

By the way Sue drilled her dot inlay holes perfectly although it looks like it was a major Job!

[nnickusa]

Good stuff, Alan. One day, I'd like to mentor another person.....

[ozziebluesman]

Week four and we are a little behind. The instruments should be ready for finish by the end of next weeks session. Looks like our first course is going to be six weeks duration.

We had a visit from Bob for Murray Bridge in SA to the workshop on Saturday. Great to meet you Bob who is a ANZLF forum member and thanks for lending some of the students a hand. We managed a good long chat after the building session and it was another fun day. I was worn out though!

Here are a few more pictures. We managed to close the box as it was 50% humidity around 11 am.

Good progress was made again by all!

Thanks all for your interest.

Cheers

Alan

[Allen]

It always seems to take longer than expected when you get students Alan. I learnt after the first class I did that for the vast majority of them, it wasn't getting a finished instrument as the primary goal, but rather the experience of working with ones hands, and being able to escape from what ever their life and job had for them the rest of the week. I'm pretty sure that many of them tried to drag it out longer than really was necessary just to prolong the enjoyment and escape.

Kevin looks most pleased with himself.

[ozziebluesman]

Thanks Allen for your comments. Feed back from the students is they all like the hands on carving and shaping jobs. We have learnt plenty and will be able to streamline some parts of the build for our next course. Things like the neck blank needed to be closer to the required specs and it required extra time to carve and shape them but as I just said, the shaping was the most fun.

Kevin is a cool dude and we have been spending sometime together working on his weissenborn project. He has a good feel and will build a very nice Ukulele. He was the only one in the class who tried the Silver Wattle as a top and it has turned out his Ukulele is going to sound real good.

Safe trip back home and back.

Cheers

Alan

[lauburu]

Thought I recognised a familiar face! Hiya Kevin.

I just love the jigs you've built for this course. Keen to see the final products.
Miguel

[ozziebluesman]

Saturday we had forum member pappygreen, Brett visit the workshop and he too was quick to lend a hand to our students. I am very lucky to have so many friends and experienced guitar builders who are interested in our course and prepared to give up their time to help out.

Cheers

Alan

[ozziebluesman]

Almost finished. The students where sent home with their instruments to do a final sand during the week. We just need to mask the bridge area, apply a few coats of shellac to seal the instrument, install machine heads and setup. We were well organised today and progressed along nicely. There were a few building challenges that popped up that we had to address but nothing that could not be solved with little stress.
Some more action shots for you:
To be continued.........................