ASSEMBLING THE KITS
Saturday, October 19th, 2013: Today I embarked on my quest for cigar boxes of suitable size for the ukuleles. Since I need soprano-sized boxes, I was looking for boxes at least 8" to 9" long, and 6" to 7" wide. Visiting around seven cigar stores around San Jose, I found that most shops primarily had only small, cube-like boxes, or had none to sell at all. But I did finally find one cigar shop, West Coast Cigars, in south San Jose, which had a lot of boxes that I could use. The very friendly employee there even gave me a good deal on the boxes ($2.00 each and four free boxes)! I bought fourteen boxes. He said that new cigars arrive weekly, so I could obtain more boxes if I needed them!
Also....a side note. Even though I don't smoke, I do enjoy the delicious aromas of the various cigar and pipe tobacco blends that permeate cigar stores. I think I can see why some people get into smoking cigars and pipes.
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Monday, Nov. 11th, 2013: I haven't moved forward in the cigar box uke kits project lately, because I'm still waiting to hear the final count of how many students are committing to the project. However, today I decided to go ahead and start on the tops. Today I thinned enough cedar (to 1/16" thickness) for 12 tops. I then traced around each box, cut them out just outside the outline, and number-coded each top to each box. Finally, I marked each top with the centerline, the soundhole center mark, and the brace and bridge patch locations.
Tomorrow I'll cut out the soundholes. |
Tuesday, November 12th, 2013: Today I did a few things. I first routed out the 2" diameter soundholes with my Stew-Mac soundhole jig attached to the router base.
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TO THE RIGHT: I have cut out the 1" by 4" bridge patches (1/16" thick), using some scrap mahogany and cherry I had lying around.
TO THE RIGHT: I have also cut out the 1/4" by 1/2" braces from some spruce scraps I had. Each one had to be sized and labeled for the particular top it would fit (all the cigar boxes are different sizes). |
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