Cigar Box Ukulele

I recently started playing the ukulele. I was on a beach in Italy in April (at Paganello) and I met a few guys with ukuleles. We played against a team from New Zealand and they sang us a song, accompanied by a uke. Afterwards I went and had a look at it and decided that I needed to get one. So I bought a cheap soprano and started playing. About a month afterwards, I bought a not-so-cheap tenor and started playing a little better. And a month after that I decided I was going to try my hand at building a ukulele myself.

So I did a lot of reading online and came to the conclusion that building instruments is really hard. Who knew? I also came across cigar box instruments and decided that I would build a cigar box ukulele. The reason for this is that building a "normal" ukulele involves bending wood to make the sides and a lot of fairly intricate woodword to build a body that sounds decent. I have absolutely zero woodworking skills and so I decided to go with the cigar box approach because it would, in theory, be easier. Also, when I eventually make a mess of it, all I will have done is ruin an empty cigar box.

So I bought a few tools online: a saw, a spokeshave, some chisels, etc. Then I bought some more. Then I started building and I soon realised I needed more, so I bought some cabinet rasps, some clamps, a workbench, all kinds of files and plenty of very specialist tools for installing frets, etc.

As for materials, I built a test neck out of spruce, just to see if I could do it. I didn't make a terrible mess of it, so I acquired some lengths of mahogany and quite a lot of cigar boxes of various shapes and sizes. I ordered tuning pegs, pre-slotted fretboards and material for making bridges, saddles, nuts, etc. from various web sites and got cracking.

I haven't documented the process as much as I would like to have done, but I have taken a few pictures. Although the ukulele is still not complete, I will put some of them up here as a progress indicator (and also probably because I am procrastinating and probably won't get around to putting up more pics for a long time).

As a disclaimer, I should say that I have made multiple mistakes on this particular uke. I have learned quite a lot from the process so far and expect that the next one I make will look a lot more respectable! So if you are an experienced luthier, keep in mind that this is a first, self-taught attempt. Come back in 5 years and I'll have something worth showing off. :-)


This picture shows the first stage. A length of mahogany is cut into three blocks, which are glued together to form the heel of the neck. A section at the other end of the neck is then cut off at an angle and glued on to form the headstock. In this particular ukulele, I didn't glue any ears to the headstock. In hindsight, I think this was a mistake as the tuning pegs are very close to each other.


These pictures illustrate the process of shaping the neck. As can be seen, I used hand tools (a chisel for the rough shaping and then a spoke shave and a cabinet rasp for the rest). The end result is somewhat odd. Everything is slightly off centre. I suppose you could say it adds character, if you were feeling charitable! As with most things, I suspect that perfection comes after many imperfect iterations.

This is a shot of a shaped, unsanded neck. The headstock still needs some attention, but it is starting to look like a ukulele neck. Notice I left a block at the heel of the neck. It was my original intention to make a traditional dovetail joint for joining it to the body, but I made a couple of practise joints and they weren't up to scratch, so I ended up cutting off that block of wood and I will be attaching the neck to the body using bolts. I should probably also mention here that I'm not using a truss rod or anything. I don't know how necessary it will be on a neck this size (tenor) so I am experimenting.


These pictures show the pre-slotted fretboard (I didn't trust myself to get the slots right on my first attempt) and some fretting supplies. Luthier supplies are expensive!



Here is a shot of the neck with frets installed. They aren't 100% finished, but I think they look reasonable enough here. I added some mother of pearl dots in as an after-thought. I know absolutely nothing about adding dots and didn't even look it up online, so I'm not sure if I went about it right. I made some holes by hand with a drill bit, filled them with superglue and pressed in the dots, then sanded them flush with the fretboard (I think I should have done this before fretting!) I know they're all slightly off-centre but this uke is more about getting something built than aesthetics, so I'm not too bothered about it.


This picture shows the neck as it nears completion. The fretboard is cut down to size and glued on; the frets are all seated (although some of them still need some attention); the headstock has some tuning pegs attached, in a fairly haphazard manner (hopefully there will be no major issues when I string the uke) and the bottom of the fretboard is cut in a circular shape where it will meet the sound hole of the body. I also have a corian nut that hasn't been glued on yet.

This is one of the cigar boxes I acquired. It's a large-ish box, suitable for a tenor uke. I don't know what it's made of, but I like the look of it. It feels pretty solid and seems well-built.

Here is a shot of the cigar box with a sound hole cut. I used a special drill attachment for sawing holes. It came out a little rough, but I sanded down and it doesn't look too bad now.


Here is a preview of what the uke will look like. The neck and the bridge aren't glued on yet - they're just arranged into position to get an idea of what the finished product will look like.

And that's what I have done so far. I plan on attaching the neck early next week, assuming that the threaded inserts I ordered online are suitable for the job. Then I will glue on the bridge, make a few finishing touches and adjust the action of the strings and it should be ready to play. I will probably spray on some simple furniture varnish for now and consider something more elaborate for future projects. The cheapness of the varnish can seems somehow in keeping with the spirit of making an instrument out of an old cigar box.

And that's all for now. Stay tuned for more updates. Hopefully the next time I will be able to include a sound file of how it plays.

Recipes that Scale

I was reading Paul Graham's essay about Ramen Profitability and what caught my attention the most was this footnote. It is a recipe for rice and beans, which is apparently healthier than ramen noodles (I am entertained by the fact that Paul feels enough responsibility for his aspiring web entrepreneur audience to go to the trouble of making sure they eat right, but that's not what this is about).

The interesting thing about this recipe is that it is for 2n people and the ingredients are listed throughout in terms of n. This seems like a particularly elegant way of specifying a recipe. I like to experiment with recipes I find on the web quite a bit, but more often than not it is a recipe that "serves 6" or some similarly useless number for a singleton chef such as myself. So I try the recipe anyway, but first I have to adjust the ingredient list accordingly. It's a simple thing, but expressing the recipe in terms of n makes it easier, in my mind at least, to adapt a recipe. I wish all recipe writers would make their recipes generic and scalable like this.

Father's Day Card

I was taking some photos with my camera and, when transferring them to the computer, I came across some photos that I took just before Father's Day.

My sister lives in the US and A and so she e-mailed me a photo of herself with her husband and her son and she asked me to print it and make it into a Father's Day card for her. I arranged it into a suitable PDF and dropped it over to the DCU print shop. I asked them to do two copies - one in colour and one monochrome - so I could pick the one that looked best and use it.

I ended up selecting the colour one for my sister, but then when I got home I realised that I hadn't actually bothered to buy a card for my father (I rarely buy cards because they seem impersonal and overpriced) and that the gift I ordered was not going to arrive on time. So, rather than show up in my parents' house with only a card form my sister, I decided to repurpose the extra card.

Here are some pictures of the results. You'll have to excuse the quality of the photographs. I'm not much of a photographer at the best of times and, in this case, I snapped these to send to my sister as an illustration of what her card actually looked like. I would take better pictures for this post, but I no longer have access to the cards.

First, the card from my sister:

I couldn't resist the urge to add a bit of an in-joke on the back of the card:

Many of the people who read this blog (in fact, probably both of you) will get the first half of that joke, at least!

Here is my modified version:


And here are both cards side by side:


My card is crudely stuck together with sellotape and the Dónall-heads are poorly cut out. I think that it adds to the effect.

I think my father quite liked the cards. Both of them were on the mantlepiece until last week when they were taken down to make way for my nephew's birthday cards.

Snow

It has been snowing on and off for the last week. As I have spent most of my life in warmer climes, this is the most snow I have ever seen (barring the times when I have been more than 2000 metres above sea level). There are parts of the DCU campus that have been covered by snow for an entire week.

I took advantage of this fact to test my new camera. It's a very new camera, so I'm not quite used to it yet. Also, it is a standard digital point and shoot camera, so the quality of the pictures is not comparable to the output of a DSLR or similar.

Many of the photos came out rather over-exposed, which is to be expected really. Several others were somewhat out of focus, which I attribute to experimentation with the various settings. Here are a few shots taken in Albert College Park which I quite like, even if the composition is less than perfect...



I tried to get more of a reflection out of the water on this one, but it was starting to snow quite heavily again (the mistiness in the background is snow) and I didn't want to hang out for too long. I made the mistake of walking through the puddle on my way back. It was much deeper than I expected and I plunged into it up to my ankle. I foolishly chose to press on - the entire section of path visible in this photo is waterlogged and I was thoroughly soaked by the time I got to the end of it.

I adjusted the colours of this one in photoshop because the original was a little under-exposed. I would have taken more care with the shot, but my feet were numb from their icy bath after the previous photograph and I just wanted to get home! As a result, I think the photo is a little redder than I would like it to be. It seems my photoshop skills are even worse than my photography skills!

Cleaning Up After Myself

I have a confession to make. Two, actually. The first is that I eat fast food. I know it's bad for me. I have seen this video, watched Supersize Me, read Fast Food Nation and even, unfortunately, seen the film version. I recognise that what I'm eating barely counts as food, but sometimes it is just convenient. Other times, to be perfectly honest, it just satisfies a craving for junk food.

Having said all this, I eat fast food quite rarely. I really do mostly do it for convenience. I estimate I eat a fast food meal twice per month, on average. Of course, this is an average figure. I sometimes go months without setting foot inside a Burger King, other times I find myself there twice per week. I don't think it's a serious problem, in the same way that a smoker who only smokes two per day doesn't have a problem.

My second confession is likely to be much more contentious, at least to those of you who frequent these "restaurants". I don't always clean up after myself. I sometimes toss a greasy napkin onto the pile of discarded wrappers, get up and walk out the door.

My motivation for this post is that I was in McDonalds last night (for the first time in about 2 years) with Rose. We had just been to the cinema and she wanted to eat something. I didn't, but I felt it would be rude to make her go by herself, so I tagged along and got guilted into buying a cheeseburger (why are girls unable to eat when in the presence of a man who is not eating?). When we finished, I announced I was not going to put the wrapper in the bin and she looked at me as if I had just urinated in her cornflakes, then proceeded to tidy up after me.

My reasoning for this is not just that I am a complete jerk. That's only about half of it. The other half of it is based on the fact that I am not obliged to clean up after myself. When I receive my tray of "food" I am not reminded of my duty to dispose of it properly. In fact, if you look closely the next time you are in one of these restaurants, you will notice that the person who served you your food will occasionally come out from the "kitchen" (I'm going to keep on doing this to food-related words because it entertains me), put away trays, straighten up chairs and drag a wet mop across the floor.

Of course, that is not the whole story. I am not so defined by my role as customer that I refuse to lend a hand when it costs me nothing. But the fact is that I regard the cleaning up after myself part of the exchange as a kind of a tip. In a normal restaurant, you eat your food and when you're done, you pay for it and, if you liked it and you felt that the service was good, you will leave extra money, often in proportion to how much of a good time you had (note to Americans and other people who pay their waiters less than minimum wage: I live in Europe). In a fast food joint, on the other hand, you pay for your food up front. The staff have no incentive to make an effort because they know they will not get remunerated for it. So I consider cleaning up as making their job a tiny bit easier and that is my tip.

As an example, if I go to, say, KFC, and I get served by a friendly young Chinese girl who doesn't obviously hate me and my food is served promptly and in a warm, edible and moderately tasty state, I will be happy. If I am able to find somewhere clean and warm to sit, I will be very happy. After this sort of experience, I will clear my table and leave it as I found it. On the other hand, if I go to, say, Burger King and I am served by some guy who doesn't understand my order, and gets impatient with me because I don't have the right sort of Dublin accent for his imperfect grasp of the lingua franca, then proceeds to serve me stale chips and a lukewarm, excessively oily burger and the wrong drink, I will not be happy. If I then have to clear a table to find somewhere to sit, i will be doubly unhappy. When I finish, I will plonk my tray on the table and saunter out the door. Bonus points for accidentally dropping greasy things on the floor.

So you are probably thinking that I am an excessively vindictive, crotchety old man. Maybe you're right. I can't say I care.

Coming up: my solution to shops stocking Christmas items before November - hiding them in interesting places (at the back of a freezer, on top of the shelves, etc.). Bonus points if the items are perishable.

Meeting my pseudonym

I have been reading about Lewis Carroll recently. In particular, I have been reading about the fact that his real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and that he first adopted his nom de plume when he was 21.

Reading about this reminded me of my own pseudonym, and the time that I met him.

When I was about 17, I chose the name "Robert Kane" to be my pseudonym, if ever I needed to give a false name, either when publishing classic children's literature or when apprehended by the police. I chose this name because I reckoned it would be easy to remember. The reason for this is that my parents initially planned on calling me Robert (my uncle Robert apparently talked them out of it, so that my name is now Dónall Eoin Roibeard McCann). As for the name "Kane", it is close enough to McCann to be easily remembered (and, in fact, I have read in more than one place that it is an anglicised derivation of McCann, although I can't attest to the veracity of this claim).

So, for a few years, I used this name when I needed a convenient pseudonym. I never used it as a fake name for the police, but I did write a few things here and there that were attributed to Robert Kane.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I was studying for a year in Valencia, Spain, and Robert Kane began posting to the forum used by my university ultimate frisbee team in Dublin! As it turned out, one of the new players that year was actually called Robert Kane (also known as Blonde Rob) and was just as surprised as I was that somebody else was using his name.

Since then, I haven't used it as a pseudonym, but I have failed to come up with an alternative that I find suitably fitting and similarly easy to remember.

I'm sure C.L. Dodgson never had the problem of accidentally bumping into Lewis Carroll...

Fun with Hairdressers

Here is something you can try at home (assuming you live in a hairdresser's) . One prerequisite is that you will need about a week's growth of facial hair.

Go home (or to the hairdresser's if you're not trying this at home) and find a hairdresser with a pretty poor grasp of English. Get in the chair and tell her what you want done to your hair (this is, of course, merely a formality, due to her aforementioned loose grip on the local tongue). Sit back and relax while she performs her dark arts, but remember to pay attention towards the end, when it comes to the part when she gets the razor and trims the edges at the back and sides.

Assuming you aren't some freakish testosterone fiend, a week's worth of facial hair should be relatively sparse - enough to be noticed and make you look badly groomed, but not quite enough to be considered a beard. The hairdresser will not know whether or not to trim the sides, in case you are, in fact, growing a beard and wouldn't appreciate a negative side-burn look.

To complicate matters, your carefully selected hairdresser will not have the ability to ask you to disambiguate your fuzz by the standard method of asking you a straight question. Instead, she will look puzzled at it for a minute, then decide to go for it, and apply the razor to the edge of the hairline. She will then, naturally, turn to the other side of the face, look puzzled again, decide the original decision was a mistake, and turn the razor off and put it away wordlessly, leaving you with a fashionably lop-sided look and a date with the razor when you get home.

Or maybe that just happens to me.