[ Saw whirs, theme music plays ] ♪♪ It's time for another episode of "The Woodsmith Shop."

And on today's episode, we have a special guest, a friend of mine, Ben Strano, coming to show us how to build a ukulele.

That's right.

Normally, at this point, I tell you that it's time to build, but I think this time... let's play.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters.

Offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

♪♪ And by... Kreg, tools designed by woodworkers for woodworkers.

Create what inspires you.

Additional funding provided by... ♪♪ Titebond wood glues, the pro's advantage.

♪♪ And by... ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Theme music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Today's episode is pretty special.

Ben Strano is joining us on the show.

Thanks for coming, Ben.

Thanks for having me.

Ben and I work together in the greater "Woodsmith" universe here, and we're both woodworkers.

But one of the things that I want to do on this show is to show all the different kinds of woodworking that are out there.

And, Ben, you've kind of found a cool little branch to go down.

Yeah.

I've become obsessed with making baritone ukulele specifically... Yeah.

but lutherie in general.

Okay.

So, how did you get started in making them?

I wanted a good baritone ukulele, and I couldn't afford one.

Okay.

Same way I started woodworking.

I wanted a coffee table and couldn't afford one.

But it is a type of woodworking that was very, very intimidating to me.

Yeah.

And I felt like it was gonna be a rabbit hole, and yes, it is a little bit of a rabbit hole if you go deep into it.

but it's something that is approachable for just about any woodworker.

I don't think that you need a whole different set of tools to get into instrument making.

Most of most any woodworker would have the tools required to build an instrument -- with a few caveats.

But there's not really all that much to it.

It's just woodworking.

It's making pieces of wood smaller, gluing them back together in the right order in the right place.

Yeah.

Well, you brought along a partially complete one.

Yeah.

I think when you take it apart, you can see the connections between more regular woodworking that we would be familiar with and instrument making.

Yeah.

Like I said, we've got a thin piece of -- In this one, I think this is Adirondack cedar.

We've got a thin piece of wood.

That top is generally a soft wood.

And a theme throughout instrument making is you're trying to go for straight-grain, quartersawn wood so there's not as much movement, because everything is kind of wrapped into a weird package here.

And this particular ukulele is just built off of a commonly found set of plans.

So there's nobody rewriting any history here.

But you've got these -- These are called braces.

Again, these are spruce -- quartersawn spruce.

This is the bridge pad, and this is a hardwood.

My friend recommended using walnut, so that's what I'm using on this one.

And then we have these two braces across the grain.

And a lot of woodworkers see that, and they think that's breaking a rule.

You can't glue a piece of wood across the grain of another piece of wood.

But my argument to that is they've been doing this for centuries... Sure.

...and it's worked out pretty well so far.

So we're using small pieces of wood, real thin.

And again, quartersawn pieces of wood are gonna be much less likely to move or move as much.

So that's the top.

And then here on the back, you can see a little bit more of the anatomy of an instrument.

There's the sides.

This one's cherry, but you can use, again, any hardwood.

People use softwood as well.

But cherry that is thinly cut, resawn down And I bend them.

You can buy them pre-bent.

And then we have this piece right here.

This is a kerfed liner, and it is just a piece of -- I think this one's boxwood with some kerfs cut in it so that it flows around the curves a little bit easier.

And then we have more braces.

And then right here we have basically just a support piece, because the back of this ukulele is two pieces of wood glued together.

This one is book-matched.

And there's not all that much to it, though.

Right.

So, like, all the things that you're saying are really in many ways familiar to making a box or making a cabinet.

It's just smaller, narrower and a slightly different shape.

Yeah.

So if somebody wants to get into that -- I mean, full, deep dive into the instrument -- certainly can do that.

But what's a good way to get started?

I recommend people buy a kit.

Okay.

Because there's a few tasks that aren't going to be comfortable to a lot of woodworkers -- That's bending the sides, and then the fingerboard here, those slots just need to be precisely placed.

So I recommend people buy fingerboards.

And if you don't want to bend sides, you can buy them pre-bent as well.

So kits are a great place to start, though, just to see if it's something you enjoy doing.

Yeah.

So today's project, what we're gonna be doing is making what's called a cigar box guitar, where it's using some kit material, and then they were using old wooden cigar boxes.

Yeah.

But just hear "box," and you could really make your own box, right?

Yeah.

You can add all sorts of personality to it.

You can use scrap wood.

As you'll see, the one we're gonna do was made out of scrap wood in my shop.

And it doesn't really take much, and it's a quick build, and it's fun, and it's a way to be creative too.

Okay.

But first, I think it would be really fun to see how you go through the process of bending sides.

Awesome.

Okay.

Let's get started.

♪♪ I'm gonna show you how I bend sides for my ukuleles.

And there's a lot of different ways you can do this.

If you're just starting out -- Like, your first instrument, I almost recommend buying pre-bent sides in a kit just to see if it's something you enjoy doing.

From there, I started off using a hot pipe bender, and it's just basically a piece of black pipe that you heat with a torch on the back.

Or I made one that was heated with a light bulb inside, and that light bulb was controlled by this box.

This is a heating control box.

And these can be hundreds of dollars.

Or if you're the cheap type like me, you can make your own with parts.

There's not all that much to it.

I have an outlet on the back, and there is a thermocouple that is plugged into a socket on the back.

This thermocouple is just basically a thermometer.

It's just telling you the temperature right there.

And then here I have a heating controller, and all it is is a switch that turns the circuit off and on and keeps things at the temperature you want them at.

So I use this for my hot pipe bender.

But then I started doing this a lot more, and I thought it was time to upgrade to a heating blanket.

And what this involves is this is a silicone heating blanket.

These are often more used for warming industrial barrels of glue or on diesel trucks for warming the oil at night or something like that.

But you can buy these in any size you really need.

And this size is perfect for the instruments that I make.

So this is gonna heat up to whatever temperature I set this at.

And we also have a couple of pieces of spring steel that support the wood as it's being bent.

And this is the wood we're gonna bend.

This is a really nice board of cherry - curly cherry with nice, straight grain.

It's quartersawn.

It's one of my favorite boards.

And I love making instruments out of this board.

One great thing is you can get a board and make a lot of instruments out of it.

So first thing I'm gonna do is we have aluminum foil here, and I am just going to spray some water, and the water is going to help with the heat transfer and get that heat directly into the wood.

And you don't have to go nuts.

But just wrap it up this way.

I do try and keep track of the back.

If you notice, this instrument has a little taper to it.

I've sawn that in just to save time for myself later, but I will keep track mentally of the back.

And... ...you're just gonna wrap it up like a burrito.

Now the back is in the front.

Now the back is in the back.

Do that, fold up the sides... ...and we are going to make a sandwich.

And I should note this piece of wood -- I am a metric fan, and I generally saw these and sand them to 2 millimeters, or about 80/1,000ths of an inch.

And now comes our silicone heating blanket.

And then after that, we have our last piece of spring steel.

And the thermocouple gets put in there under the heating blanket -- between the heating blanket and the piece of wood.

And now I'm just going to secure all of this with some binder clips.

So we have all of our binder clips on.

I have a couple right next to the thermocouple, just to keep that in place until everything's really tight on the molds.

But we're gonna come over here, turn it on to 300 degrees, and start to clamp it down.

Okay.

So we are clamped in.

And I'm just going to turn on my heating element.

♪♪ And we will let that get up to temperature.

♪♪ Okay.

So you can see that our sandwich has become much more pliable than it was.

And we're at about 300 degrees.

Getting there and abouts.

I generally start bending around 280 to 300.

And all I'm gonna do is take some of these clips off.

And now I'm going to take this block of wood and press it firmly against the mold.

These molds I just cut out of MDF.

There's a couple of spacers in there to give me some width.

But they're nothing fancy.

And now I have this block that will fill the gap.

And there are much more elaborate systems for doing this, but like I said, I like to make my own things.

And especially this middle section -- this inner bout, it's called -- it just requires a little bit of extra care.

Most luthiers start there, and I do sometimes.

And I'm just making sure that the thermocouple is staying in place.

And once that sandwich is firmly up against that middle section, I can take my block and one last clamp and finish this bend.

And now I'd just like to look and double-check that it's... seated up against the mold.

And reminder -- I am wearing heat-resistant gloves right now.

So now that we're bent, I'm gonna lower the temperature down to 270 degree, gonna let it sit for 10 minutes, and then I'm gonna lower the temperature down to 250 degrees and let it sit for another 10 minutes, turn it off, and let it cool down to room temperature.

Okay.

So our side is back down to room temperature and it's time to de-mold it.

And the spring steel is gonna to push it up a little bit, so don't fear... ...if it feels a little bit not quite what you were expecting.

So here it is out of the mold, still in foil.

So let's take care of that.

So... ...I call that a very successful bend.

There's no cracks to be seen.

The curves are all nice and fair.

These wiggly bits here, those will just get cut off later on in the process.

♪♪ Now, in my head, the box is the starting point for this.

But I don't think that's the case, is it?

Well, the box is where we're gonna start because we have one already.

Okay.

But all of the measurements come from the neck.

So this is the kit neck that we bought for this episode.

And it's a nice little neck, and it comes with a bridge and tuners and strings.

But everything that we lay out on the body needs to be measured off of the neck.

Okay.

So we have this body.

You could use any box -- finger-joint box, miter box -- whatever you want to use.

We decided to just rout out an ukulele-shaped almost bowl.

Right, which we've done on the show before.

You have a template and this bit, and you just dig it all out.

Yeah.

I did this on my CNC at home out of a solid piece of ash.

It's a little bit thicker just to make it strong, and it's about the dimensions of a cigar box.

Like I said, all of the measurements are based off of the neck.

So we have a nut here, and this is our 12th fret with the double dots.

This measurement is 7 1/2 inches, And the saddle, or this line of the bridge, is going to be placed 7 1/2 inches away from that 12th fret again.

And I always cheat it back maybe 1/32 of an inch as well, just for intonation purposes.

If you want to build along with us, you'll find all the plans at WoodsmithShop.com.

We'll even include the DXF files that I used to rout this out.

Cool.

So the next step is to -- I have these crosshairs to where I want the sound hole to go.

Okay.

I'm simply going to trace this body on this board.

And it's actually kind of cool.

This board came from a friend of mine.

It is reclaimed from a Steinway piano soundboard.

Ooh.

That's cool.

Now, the next step is to cut this out with the bandsaw.

And we want to be real close to the line.

Okay.

So we've got our glue on the body.

And I'm going to put our top on.

I'm also going to use the piece of plywood I used to lay out everything.

And that's just gonna protect the spruce, which is pretty soft and has a tendency of denting when you clamp it.

And this is one of those things where you put way more clamps on a very small thing than you thought possible.

Okay.

So our ukulele body is out of the clamps.

And the glue is dry.

Everything's ready to go.

Now I need to flush-trim this top to the body.

And I'm going to do that at the router table, but there's a little bit of an unconventional twist.

Normally, the action at the router table is almost always going right to left.

And that is for a good reason.

You don't want to go the opposite direction because the bit could grab and throw your workpiece.

But we have a very, very thin top, and this spruce has a tendency of the bit grabbing the grain and tearing it out.

So since it's such a small piece, I am going to climb-cut, or back-rout, some of these sections.

And you'll see the grain -- the grain on this ash is a good example -- is flowing this way.

And if I'm routing this way, I'm going in the right direction.

But coming up, I am going against the grain, and that's when it might tear out.

So on this section, I would go backwards.

But when I do that, I know physics are not working in my favor and the workpiece is going to get pushed against me.

In order to counteract that, I have a grout float that I got from the local hardware store.

The red sponge happens to be generally the grippiest of them, and this gives me a big handle to hold on to, and it is holding the entirety of the workpiece, and it's a very safe operation for me as long as I know what I'm doing.

If you're not comfortable doing this, don't do it.

Use sandpaper, a spoke shave, card scraper -- plethora of options to keep from climb-cutting or back-routing at the router table.

[ Router humming ] The next stage in our project here is to attach the neck.

And what we need to do is drill a hole on the top end of it to accept the bolt that comes with the neck.

And then we'll be able to slip this in place like that and then lock it down with the nuts on the inside.

I like the part that we're really starting to look like an instrument here.

It's -- I don't know.

When you put that neck on, that's a ukulele to me.

Yeah.

So the next step to make it a functional instrument is to put the bridge on.

And this is where we need to break out our perfectionist selves if we can.

Okay.

So the first thing I did is I laid down a couple of layers of tape.

And I took a rule, and I held it up against the edge of the neck, drew a line.

Same thing on the other side.

Drew a line.

And that gives me basically a center line that I can place the bridge on side to side.

Okay.

And then from there, I measured from that nut -- from the front of that nut, I should say -- here, to the 15 inch-mark, and same thing on the other side.

And I drew a line across.

That gives me this plane.

Sure.

And then I measured the middle of this slot to the front of that bridge, and that was 6 millimeters, or just shy of 1/4 inch, and I marked that line and did that.

So now the front of our bridge, we know, can go right on that line.

And now we just need to get the side to side and make sure that it is pretty much... pretty much as close to perfect as we can get it.

And to hold it in place.

I do tend to take a dab of sticky tape, or double-sided tape, onto the back of it, just to make sure that I can breathe while doing this and not blow the bridge away.

So I'm just going to get that lined up where I think it's good and then place it down and let the double-stick tape do its thing.

Now, for all intents and purposes, that's all we should need.

But I am a little bit neurotic, and we're gonna confirm.

So I just have a piece of string.

I'm gonna wrap it around the tuning post for that first string.

And I am going to look at this and say... yes, that string is going -- And on the back here there is a hole.

On the back of that bridge.

You can't see right now.

But the string gets tied to that.

And I just want to make sure that string is gonna reside on the neck when we're done, that plane.

Okay.

And then, on the other side, I'm gonna do the same thing.

And it's pretty good.

It's pretty good.

I'm fairly pleased with that.

So this is where our bridge is in a happy place.

What I'm gonna do now is I'm going to take a very sharp knife and I am going to delicately slice through that layer of tape.

I'm trying not to score into the surface beneath it, but if I do, it's not the end of the world.

So now that we have that scored, I'm gonna take the bridge.

Now I will just... peel that out.

So the tape's really doing two things here.

It gives you a place to do layout without writing right on the surface of the instrument.

Yes.

And it also -- Well, it does three things, because it gives me a bit of a ledge to put the bridge into when we glue it up.

Oh.

Yeah.

I didn't think of that.

And it also keeps squeeze-out, where we don't need to clean it.

All right .

So now we have that negative, that recess, and still double-stick tape there.

But now we can just drop the bridge in.

And there's a little bit... Oh, like a -- It registers in there.

Yeah.

A little bit of registration there.

Okay.

Because when you start clamping it down, it does have a tendency to move.

I am also going to drill a couple of holes.

This bridge has some locating holes there, and I'm just going to drill a couple of holes in order to make our life a little bit easier.

All right.

So we have everything registered.

We have our holes drilled through.

That's gonna make our life a lot easier.

That's a nice thing about this kit.

And we'll just apply some glue.

This clamping is something where just enough really is best.

Okay.

Now we're gonna take this stick, and I'm going to clamp this side while you get this side clamped down.

Okay.

And we will have a clamped up-bridge.

♪♪ Huber: You know, it really is surprising how quick this goes together.

So what do we go with once the saddle's in place?

Strano: So I just put the saddle in place, and the tuners were in, and then it's just a matter of stringing it up.

The strings tend to stretch a lot, so they take a little while to settle in.

But we have a playable instrument, and it sounds like an ukulele, and we did it in about a day.

Yeah.

And...I don't know.

I'm really pleased with it.

Thanks for joining us, Ben, and sharing your passion for building instruments.

If you're ready to play along with us, the plans and files for our version are at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

That's also the place where you're gonna find all kinds of other project inspiration, tips, and techniques to help you become a better woodworker.

And then spend some time in your shop before we gather right back here in the Woodsmith Shop.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Announcer: If you'd like to get more video tips and techniques, sign up for the free weekly Woodsmith eTip.

Every week, you'll receive an e-mail with a video tip to get more out of your table saw, router table, and more.

Sign up at WoodsmithShop.com.

Everything in today's show comes from the newly expanded Woodsmith Guild Edition, with shop projects, plans, tips, and techniques.

To get a free preview issue of the Woodsmith Guild Edition and a free Woodsmith book, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

In addition, past seasons of "The Woodsmith Shop" are available on DVD.

Or you can watch them online from your computer, tablet, or mobile device.

For more information, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters.

Offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

♪♪ And by... Kreg, tools designed by woodworkers for woodworkers.

Create what inspires you.

Additional funding provided by... ♪♪ Titebond wood glues, the pro's advantage.

♪♪ And by... ♪♪ ♪♪