mostly unfinished

the uke was done, now a part of it is being redone. The tuners that came with the grizzly kit were difficult to control. they quickly drifted out of tune and it was a challenge to tighten them enough to hold. and yes, I understand that this is for a 2 year old and tuning isn’t a major concern for her but it’s a matter of principal now.

the original tuners where just straight through friction tuners so I wanted to replace them with some geared tuners for better control. I purchased a set of four grover geared machines and set about installing them. the holes for the previous tuners were significantly smaller than what was needed for the new ones so I needed to drill those out first. I was concerned about tearout and the finish chipping but none of that happened. it all went very smoothly:

then it was just a matter of marking the mounting screw holes on the back and press fitting the steel grommet on the top side. minus the time it took to find just the right bit to drill out the holes it probably took all of 10-15 min of gentle work. 

it adds a good bit of weight to the uke and I think I’d search for some lighter tuners if I would do it again, but it’s a vast improvement and the weight feels nice overall. 

now, seriously, I’m done with this for a while. time to find an unfinished project from before and move forward on that… 

it’s done. all the parts are on and accounted for. I put a few coats of wax on the whole instrument and strung it with Aquila strings. it doesn’t sound half bad, now I just hope my daughter likes it…

almost done… really.

so, after pulling the tape off of the headstock this is the final look for that:

overall I’m pretty happy with it, hopefully it’s actually pretty good as an idea and not just me remembering how great it was to see her slop on the paint. but I’m fine if that’s the case too. 

once that was done and dry I began applying the shellac to the neck and headstock. a coat or two later, the neck looks like this:

this application is going so much faster and so much better than the pre olive oil days. I called it good after only 6 or so coats, probably half of what I had applied to the body. once that’s good and cured I’ll go through the same sanding process as I did with the body. 

after the neck was dry enough to handle I removed the tape from the soundboard where the bridge is going to be glued. I was nervous about this - concerned that the finish would pull and flake and that the tape would be difficult to remove since it’s been on there for a few weeks now. however, it all went exceptionally well and you can see the original finish now where the tape was:

I’ll get that bridge on and then wax the whole instrument, put in the tuners and the nut and string it up. I know that there will be a good bit of adjustment to get the action low enough to the frets, but I’m not overly concerned with that. the end is in sight and the next post will be the finished uke. 

it’s been a whirlwind of long days and projects at home so I haven’t been able to give the time I’d like to the uke, but I did get somewhere. I managed to get a couple base coats of shellac on the neck and headstock as a pore filler. I sanded that back down and the prepped the uke for my daughter’s decorative touch. She’s only two so I figured she could slather on some paint on the headstock after I masked it off a bit to give at least a few crisp lines. Here’s the striping pattern I settled on:

I figured with a little bit of bare wood showing, it may retain some design edge that she’ll appreciate later (assuming, of course, that it lasts and that she keeps it…).

anyway, I broke out the acrylics and a nice brush for her to use, suited her up in a painting shirt and let her have at it (also, notice the rest of the uke is securely masked off). Here are the results:

ha! it’s amazing. I pulled my tape off before it dried too much and forgot to take a picture. I’ll need to knock down a bit of the bulk paint with some sandpaper but overall I’m leaving most of the texture. next step is back to the shellac… I still need to sand and mount the bridge, mount the nut and give a coat of wax before tuning it up as much as I can. Hopefully it all goes well. 

in the mean time, she’s handily enjoying my cheapo uke in her own time:

shellacing began on friday night and lasted until sunday night (during free time) for the body. both friday and saturday were frustrating as I battled against the very quick cure time of shellac. as soon as you begin application, the alcohol begins to evaporate and the surface begins to get sticky. I was swirling my application pad in a meager homage to a french polish and found that the pad would bind up ever so briefly no matter how fast I tried to be. This binding would leave cloth impressions on the piece and was very aggravating.

I was hoping that as each coat would burn into the next that I could alleviate those marks but I was racing against the cure time with each pass. This was all deeply frustrating and I thought I had made the wrong choice to go all shellac and not just a poly rub. 

that all changed on Sunday. I came across a post on the interwebs that said a touch of olive oil could ease things up a bit, so I tried it and with amazing results. I had the time to work the finish in, I could burnish it into the previous coat, everything began to work. 

I applied two coats using this method after sanding my previous finish flat. Then I took my micromesh sanding pads (used previously for lathe work) and ran those over the surface to get a very smooth, fairly glossy finish. I think a pass with some carnuba wax will really make this look amazing. 

here are the photos…reflection at a glancing angle off of the top of the body:

and I’ll admit I really love how much depth the side grain has - so I took 2 photos of that:

and one more shot of the top - showing the colorization. though I still need to clean up the sound hole:

while installing the inlay on the fingerboard, I marred the wood finish at those frets. the process of enlarging the inlay hole chipped out the varnish that was applied from the factory and then while sanding down the inlays, the finish got significantly scratched. I wasn’t quite sure what to do about it, knowing that an attempt to repair it could look pretty terrible. after sleeping on it, I decided that I should get rid of all of the finish on those frets and apply an accent stain. after carefully sanding from #220 to #400 on those areas I got back to bare wood. I masked that off in prep for some stain:

I very carefully applied a stain that would take the wood just a bit darker than the surrounding frets and create a bit more contrast for the white inlay. I will also shellac these areas at the end and that should take it a bit darker still and protect it a lot more. 

the stain turned out nicely and looks quite different at a variety of angles:

I had previously wiped down the entire instrument with mineral spirits to clear out all of the sanding dust. it gave me a bit of a preview as to how it will look once shellac and oil is applied I’m pretty excited to get there. after the mineral spirits finished evaporating, I measured for the location of the bridge, masked that off with tape and masked off the fingerboard in preparation for the next finishing steps on the body and neck:

then I went to bed. hopefully I can start the finish 

mostly a photo update here… since the glue on the neck has set up, I trimmed off the extra bits and sanded it flush with the back of the body. I eased all the edges from the cut and brought everything back up to #400 sandpaper:

then on to the fingerboard - before moving on the inlay was added. Grizzly kindly drilled holes, though oddly the holes are undersized by quite a bit.

I can understand a tight fit, but I couldn’t get them started. So I enlarged the hole with a 7/64” bit and hammered them home. they then had to be sanded flat and in the process I did take some finish off of the fingerboard as well, so I’ll have to repair that. 

final step of the night was to glue up the fingerboard to the neck, clamped and rubberbanded until the next time:

next steps will include some careful measurements followed by a bit more sanding and then I can begin the finishing stages….

my daughter recently turned 2 years old and I thought she deserved something nice - or at least nice-ish. she loves strumming my guitars (we’re at about the same playing ability) and my little Lanakai soprano ukulele fits her really well. I had seen the Grizzly ukulele kit a while back and thought for about $30 and a few nights work I could give her a completely usable, decently sounding instrument without a being to spendy. added bonus that I get to make it for her - as my most cherished gifts over the years are the ones people made for me. 

now, I’m no luthier by a looong shot and this kit is pretty much a glue up and finish job. that being said, I’m excited that at the end of a few evenings it’ll be a playable instrument. I had a great deal of satisfaction from my cigarbox guitar for my uncle, this is right in that same vein. 

the kit came as shown:

all the parts fit in a small box. the body is walnut ply and the neck is solid walnut. the finish on the wood was okay but definitely needed some sanding love. I took it from #180 up to #400 all over then wiped it down with a wet cloth to pre-raise the grain and then took another pass at everything with #400 after it had dried. 

a few centerline marks and a thin layer of glue later and I was ready for the ratchet clamp (which I just purchased for this project but that’s a guaranteed handy tool!):

so hopefully in the next night I’ll saw down the extra bit off the neck and I can probably begin the finishing process after a few measuremenst for the bridge and such. my plan is to do a very thin coat or two of shellac as a pore filler then follow up with a few layers of tung oil on top. it’ll take several days and I’m hoping for good results - something that looks nice but is also fairly durable. we’ll see.

since moving into the house, I’ve been wanting to install a rain barrel. the key is to do it both cheaply and efficiently so we can make the best of the collected water. while I realize that every bit of cash that I put into making it better will also make it more difficult to recoup over the years, it seems to me that cost savings is not the primary goal with this. it feels like a waste to use drinking water for the garden and other plants when harvesting rain water is so easy. overall this is not a zero sum venture in terms of saving money, but more about saving potable water for things that need it more than the plants do. 

I started with a barrel which was pre-fitted with everything that was needed. this includes a removable top, a hole cut with a screen attached, a valve at the bottom and dual overflow outlets. the barrel I chose was a recycled olive barrel and cost around $100. it holds a fairly standard 55 gallons - which isn’t a whole lot but good enough to get a feel about what we’ll really need going forward. 

first things first, got a platform built up from some left over brick and slate from a derelict fountain in our backyard. this got leveled with some scrap wood cuts left over from the stool for my daughter. nice red oak from a shipping pallet, which should hold up just fine. this platform needs to be strong and close to level as the barrel will weigh in close to 470lbs when full. 

the diverter is of the Fiskars brand and I believe I got it on sale for about $30. what’s very nice about it is the removable window to get to the inside. this way I can always see if there’s an issue or clear it out if it gets clogged. it also gracefully handles overflow by simply back flowing from the barrel and diverting right back into the standard downspout. installing it was probably the most nerve wracking part of the whole process - though not really all that bad. I did have to hammer out the corners of the spouting to square the up for a good fit, but all in all it worked out. the diverter was designed for use with Fiskars barrels with their own press fit connectors.  so I connected to the overflow port and cranked down with a hose clamp.

considering that I’m not diverting the entirety of my spouting into the top of the barrel and that the diverter is relying on a 3/4” flex pipe, I was concerned about how much rain I would need to actually fill the barrel. a little bit of math later and I wasn’t that worried, here, I made a graphic:

this of course assumes an ideal scenario of collecting everything. even so it bore out rather well after one burst of rain a few nights after installing the barrel. I don’t know how much fell that night but it certainly wasn’t awfully heavy, but the barrel ended up 2/3rds full. another drizzly day later in the week and we were topped off. there even seemed to be some odd bubbling up of excess water out of the top of the diverter, I think it had to do with the debris screen being seated incorrectly but I’ll have to wait for another rain to see if that was the case.

I’ve been using the barrel with a watering can, which is less than ideal given how awkwardly the can needs to be held under the spigot. it’s a small inconvenience that I’ll get a fitting to take care of. 

ultimately I’m hoping to install drip irrigation to the garden which is about 60’ away. I have my concerns about how much pressure I’ll be able to maintain over that distance and how much I can feed it, but that will be ideal. after that I’ll look into expanding to more than my meager 55 gals. either way there are some happy people now that this is installed…like this guy:

big thanks to my dad and my bro-in-law for some extra hands and heads to get this installed lickity split.

a little while back I had shoved a circular saw through the slats in a shipping pallet I had. this freed up some room in the garage and generated a bit of very rough red oak lumber.

I wanted to make a small step stool for my daughter and it seemed like there was some interesting wood buried in there. with dimensional lumber I can imagine you could crank a stool out in about 2-3 hrs. this took me a bit longer.

using a table saw to square up a couple edges I glued and clamped 2 sets of boards together to form a wider plank. after and overnight I could figure out the final sizes of the top and legs. I ran those through the table saw and spent a couple hours just sanding them down to a proper smoothness. I routed the top edge of the seat, and jigsawed the half circle from the legs. after a final sanding pass, I glued and screwed it together and set about with some stain and hand rub poly. the grain is fantastic and I’m happy with the final result.

 at just about 7” tall, it’s perfect for her to sit on and boost up to the couch. between all the gluing, sanding and the finish time, it took a few short nights (and one longer one). good times.

I had more progress over the holiday break than this, however this is the only photo I’ve got. it’s a bolt out of brass hex sitting on a nickel, I made 2 and this is the nicer of them. it still needs some cleanup, but overall it’s done. only about 8 min of actual work for this. I’ve got 2 more to make and I think they’ll be much faster turnaround.

beyond this I technically finished up the block that’ll hold the bearings for the flywheel and pulley axle. I think I’ll get it up and working and then dress up that block a little more, carve off the sides to reveal more of what matters and give it some nicer lines. Hopefully I can get enough time together this week to get my major plates squared and drilled so I can begin rough assembly of these items….

turning my attention to the non-round pieces of the engine, I move to the mill and square up some aluminum plate. the rough stock is full of marks from the extrusion and sawing, so the idea is to get all of the faces as close to square as possible, then make your measurements from there. I squared one the night before and touched it up with a scotchbrite pad to remove the toolmarks:

tonight I started on the larger piece it’s sitting on. after making sure the vise is square on the mill table, I toss it in, lock it own and skim off as little as possible:

all I want to do here is flatten the surface so I can reference off of that to start flattening the others. the tool I have here is called and end mill. you can cut using the face of it and also the sides. it cuts through the aluminum like butter leaving a very nice surface finish - the circular swirls are merely scratches:

it’s difficult to feel those marks even with your fingernail. next I would flip that clean face down into the vise so that the opposite side ends up parallel and work my way around from there. my vise jaw won’t open enough to accept the piece flat so I need to bodge together a method of holding it down to mill the large faces.

getting these to size generates a fair amount of swarf:

so, I left off about to drill some holes - after a little bit of checking around, I went ahead and committed to drilling what I needed to drill before I moved on to truing up the diameter and bringing it down to size.

so I measured my current diameter and it was around 52mm or so and I had to come down to 50mm as per the plans. 

since I can’t mount this in the jaws of my chuck and still turn the outside diameter down, I have to hold it with enough friction on each face to counteract the cutting forces but still allow it to turn. the way to do that is to put masking tape on one side and the press the piece against closed chuck jaws with a live center. a live center is a tool that sits in the tailstock of the lathe and has a point which contacts the workpiece. that point is mounted on bearings that allow it to spin with very little friction. in contrast a dead center is just a point and you have to oil it frequently to keep it from overheating or injuring the piece.

so here I placed a piece of rod in the chuck to help it run true and then just stick the tape to the side of the part that goes against the jaws.

then I extend my tailstock and apply pressure to the part against the chuck so that the chuck can drive the piece and I can cut on it.

I take light cuts in this situation and my goal is to remove just enough material that the surface is smooth so I can make a more accurate measurement of size. here you can see the cleaned diameter surface and the measurement at 51.78mm. so I’m still 1.79mm oversize which means I need to advance to tool just about .9mm because I’m removing from the radius and any movement I make with the tool equates to double the amount of material removed.

during this process, two things went wrong. the tape let go and the chuck really marred the surface of my pulley. not terrible, just a pain. I swapped out the tape with a circle cut of a business card and had no problems after that. unfortunately I also blew something in my live center - which I had purchased on clearance from a wood working online store. I don’t know if it was something I did or just a center that wasn’t up for it, but grease spewed from the back and spun and flung drops everywhere. that however happened after my last light cut on the diameter and didn’t affect my work. I couldn’t really continue cutting so I just ran the lathe slow and broke the sharp edges with a file.

final measurement of the piece at 50.01mm… for those keeping track, that’s 4/10,000 of an inch off. yar.

to finish this piece I need to place an order. I still need my metric taps and dies and now I need a new live center. once those arrives I can finish this part with the channel for the pulley and tap the crank pin hole. till then I will have to move on to things I can do without those. 

I didn’t have too much time in the shop this evening, but I did manage to get one thing done and then try something else out.. first I drilled the axle hole in the pulley using the tailstock chuck in the lathe. then I marked out the spot for the offset crank bolt, 11mm from the center and moved it to the mill-drill for drilling.

I do not have metric taps so I just spot drilled the location for easy centering up in the future and once the taps come, I’ll drill it out and tap the hole.

on another note I’ve been wanting to try a couple different things to get a nice surface finish on my parts. I may opt for a combination of gloss and satin, but we’ll see. tonight I polished the bottom of my burner cup as an experiment. I removed tool marks with 400grit sandpaper, then moved to 600, 800 and 1200. I wasn’t completely happy with the results. I then put a polish wheel in the dremel and loaded it up with a polishing rouge. I ran that over the bottom with better results - though it’s clear I’ll need a bigger wheel, maybe attached to my drill. I finished it off with a dab of toothpaste and a wet paper towel. this is what I got:

there are a bunch of issues yet, but I feel good about being able to reach a very nice polished surface with the finish I’m starting with right off of the machines. slick!

I want to show more “process” images here, but have mostly been posting finished items. so I’m going to attempt to more clearly document the build of at least one of these things. the next part I’m creating is the pulley, this will not only have a channel to hold a belt to theoretically drive something, but also a mount for an offset shaft for the displacer piston.

first thing I need to do is get the chunk of AL I’ve got down to 10mm thick. so I chuck it up in the lathe - you can see how roughly cut the face is.

the first step is called facing, this is where I trim away the rough areas to create a smooth, square surface. below you can see how this looks as it happens, going from a matte finish to a mirror-ish finish rather quickly.

I’ll advance the tool into the piece little by little until all of the lowest spots are removed and the full surface is smooth. you can see the reflection of the cutting tool in the face here, that’s about as good as I’ll get it using this tool. I will finish and polish it as well as I can with high grit sandpaper later.

now that one face is flat for sure, I flip it in the chuck and press it against the jaws. then I face the other rough side, ensuring that they’re parallel to each other. I realized after I that was done that I could have skipped that and gone right to the next step, but that’s how it goes.

next, I take a marking guage and set it to just proud of 10mm. a marking guage is a simple tool you can easily set at any height and lock it into place. it’s got very hard, very sharp points so that you can scribe lines into your workpiece. here I’m using a set of 1x2x3 blocks to ensure that my work surface is flat and square to set the height. I went a little too far here, but I’m still learning so I thought and extra 2.5mm would be plenty of space to screw up.

I take a thick black marker and paint the outside surface of the soon-to-be pulley. then I place the piece down on the block and rotate it against the scribe. this gives me a line at 12mm that I can cut deep and fast until I get to it. then I know to slow down and take easy cuts and work my way to the 10mm thickness.

so that goes back into the chuck and I cut away until I get as close as I feel comfortable. in this case I stopped a little proud because I’ve got some scratches I hope to polish away and I don’t know how much I’ll be taking off. But I’d say that 0.06mm is pretty close for this part in particular. that’s only 3/1,000 of an inch, which is really pretty good for me.

that’s all I have for now, next up - drill the center hole, turn the outside diameter down, add the pulley groove and then drill the offset shaft position.