Cigar Box Ukulele Build Complete!

I finished my ukulele build this morning. It sounds good!

Cigar Box Ukulele Build - Frets

Frets are finished! I also trimmed some of the paper label away from the cigar box in preparation of attaching the neck.

Cigar Box Ukulele Build - Soundhole

Today I cut the soundhole. I don't have a lot of tools so I had to improvise. I took a piece of jigsaw blade and stuck it into my X-Acto knife holder. It wasn't perfect, but it worked. I smoothed everything out with a file and some sandpaper.

My favorite part is you can see the guy on the inner box label through the hole!

Cigar Box Ukulele Build - Neck

I got the fretboard glued to the neck. It was a precarious operation and I wasn't prepared for it. There was no real way for me to clamp the pieces together so I ended up holding them while dinner burned on the stove. Ooops! This morning I stained the assembly with Varathane golden mahogany wood stain. One thing I always screw up on when gluing wood is being too messy. Wherever you get glue on your project it won't take stain so be more careful than I am!

Cigar Box Ukulele Build

I started a new cigar box build over the weekend. This time I'm working on a ukulele. I got the neck, tuners, strings, bridge and nut from a kit I bought on Grizzly.com. The fretboard is going to be cut from a piece of basswood and I bought fret wire from StewMac. I was originally going to use an Arturo Fuente cigar box, but I've changed my mind and am using an old Royalists one instead.

First I drew a template for the fretboard. I then traced the image onto my basswood and cut it out with a coping saw.

I laid out the frets by tracing the spacing from another ukulele I have. Then I used my coping saw to cut the slots into the fretboard. More to come this week!