Difficulty: Advanced
Cost: $$
After seeing other walking stick/instruments online, I wanted to make my own. I relied heavily on the experience I gained while building my travel ukulele from a single piece of wood.
The wood on this ukulele is bird’s eye maple. The piece I started with was about 1″ X 5″ X 38″. Once I drew out the plans on the wood, I slotted the fret slots while the wood still had its factory edges. That keep the frets nice and square.
I cut out the rest of the body and then pounded the frets into the slots. The scale length is 19 inches and I tune it like a regular uke (high g, c, e, a). The under saddle piezo rod is soldered directly to the flush mount jack. The saddle is a length of plastic tubing placed on top of a piece of angled aluminum.
This is set up to be used in the right hand of the user. I tried to keep the back as free as possible snag points. I debated not having strap pegs, but put them on because the unwieldy shape can make it hard to hold while playing.
The wood was given a Tru-Oil finish. This is a really fun instrument, and I may pretend to be injured just as for excuse to use it in public. 🙂
See it in action!
I think you need to invest in some white gloves Daniel. And possibly some spats. Fantastic job. I particularly like how that wood has come up. Bird’s Eye Maple has a lovely look to it! I’m becoming more and more intrigued with tru-oil. Never used this before.
Tru-oil is great stuff. You can wipe a few coats on with a rag, and then buff it with some wax a few days later. It’s great on pretty wood.
Gooday Daniel.
Mate, I’m intrigued with this instrument, it looks amazing.
Couple of questions. Firstly I can’t play any musical instrument but do want to lean a string tool. I have a problem with my fingers in that my knuckles won’t allow me to wrap around a smallish neck.
Is there any reason a neck can’t be made wider across the fretboard ?
Do you have plans for the W/stick Uke ?
You could make the neck as wide as you need it to be. This one is almost as wide as an acoustic guitar neck.
I don’t have plans for this one, but I might make some rudimentary plans for a 3 string dulcimer/strumstick cane in the future.
Looks amazing! Never done a ukulele build before, but very interested in starting. What would you say I should do as a beginner, and do you have any basic tips/tricks to custom building?
I’d start with something simple, like a diddley bow.
You could also try one of my simple plans (found through the free plans tab).
I taught a class last summer that might be helpful.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
WOULD YOU SELL IT BY CHANCE