Stew Mac Diaries 1

Welcome to the first of hopefully many (but not too many) installments of the "Stew Mac Diaries" as I document my first attempt at hand crafting a ukulele using the world-reknowned Stew Mac Kit.
Detials of the kit can be found here: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Kits/Ukulele_Kits/Ukulele_Kit.html

I have always been into DIY and past projects include computers, roll film driers to speed up the film development process, miscellaneous technical gadgetry as well as all kinds of other MacGuyver-esque doohickies to make life more interesting (notice I avoid using the word "simple"). As a lifelong musician and ukulele enthusiast since 2001, I figure that building my own ukulele is only natural! A little cheering on by my better half sealed the deal.

I placed my order on July 18 and hopefully the kind folks at DHL will have my kit to me in 3-7 days. In the meantime, I will try to make a few trips to the hardware store to pick up the essential supplies needed for the jig and any other tools that I may be lacking.

I did some background internet research on building the kit and watched a few short videos on Youtube to get in the right mindset. The youtube "documentary" series only goes to episode 2, so I am left wondering if the intreprid builder's use of bent tongs ever managed to do the trick of gluing in the forgotten cross braces. I have also downloaded the pdf instructions from the stew mac website and I am converting everything to metric. I have both Imperial and Metric tools, however, since I live in Japan it would be easier to do everything in metric. I have learned that it is better to plan and build using only one standard instead of constantly converting on the fly.
The guys at the hardware store also do a lot less headscratching that way.

I'll try to keep this blog updated as I work through the various steps and look forward to comments and suggestions by all you ukesters out there. That being said, my consulting schedule is booked pretty solid, but I will try to get in as much uke time as possible.

See you next time!

Kanagawa G