Ultralight Ukulele Demo

 Here's a little demo of how the cat food can sounds.

 

Ultralight Ukulele from The Tinkers Damn on Vimeo.

Ultralight Ukulele

Long time no post. Sorry to say I have not been building instruments for a while. Making backpacking gear has been my main creative outlet the last few years. The exception (and crossover) project was this ultralight ukulele. Following a project using carbon fiber golf club shafts for a pack frame, I made a quick idea sketch of a stripped down uke to take backpacking. The idea stuck with me, and last year I followed up. The result is this 2.3 oz (65 gram) fun little thing!

It is surprisingly fun to play, and has become a favorite daily pastime even when I am not on the trail.

• The neck is a section of carbon fiber shaft from a thrift store golf club.
• The tuning pegs are delrin tapered on a small lathe and fit in carefully paired holes in the shaft walls. Fitting the pegs was the difficult part to finesse.
• Hanging on the yellow bit of string is a small steel pin. It fits in a cross hole in the head of each each tuning peg. The pin provides the leverage to adjust tuning.
• The fret board is a scrap of curious plastic material. It has a smooth, hard face and a light, rigid, foam-like backing that was easy to carve with a small curved chisel.
  
• The nut is a bit of hard white plastic sheet stock - unknown what kind of plastic.
  
• Only five frets made of nylon zip tie shafts. Five is enough for all the basic chords. I expected the instrument would be funky enough that more frets would probably have poor intonation anyhow.
• The body is an aluminum 5.5 oz cat food can, thoroughly cleaned and polished. The bottom face of the can became the resonator belly of the body after some careful shaping with a hammer on a small round anvil.
• The bridge is a bit of aluminum bar stock. The string tension keeps the bridge in place with the help of small beads of museum wax under each foot.
• A bit of epoxy putty anchors the neck in a hole in the side of the can. A bit more epoxy and one small screw anchors the butt of the neck on the opposite wall of the can.
• The strings are anchored in holes drilled in the can. Each hole is reinforced with a bit of wood and a bit of epoxy to keep the nylon strings from being cut by the metal of the can.
• The strings are a standard nylon soprano set.
• Scale length: 330mm
• Total length: 17 7/8 inches (455mm)

Li'l buddy has come along on a few backpacking trips. It's light enough to add to my kit as a luxury item, it has proven durable enough for the trail, and it doesn't mind getting wet.

I will post a video as soon as I can get my soggy old brain to recollect about filming and editing.

catching up

I used to have a unique domain and a host for all this cookie tin ukulele stuff. Those days are over. As a result, all the following posts are transfers from the old web site (all in one day! what'd ya know?) so the post dates are meaningless.

the beat box

It’s time for me to get my application in for the 2016 San Mateo Maker Faire. I’ve participated in a few previous Faires and this year I thought I’d add something to my usual offering of cookie tin ukuleles and other instruments. If all goes as planned (and they like my proposal) I’ll be at the Faire in May with a peddler’s cart that will transport several instruments and provide a little treadle powered down beat.

In the video I demonstrate my first two crude cam sets that play a waltz and a shuffle. I hope to fit up four sets to knock out a variety of beats. So far this is like playing along with a bad drummer, but I’m getting better at it. The cart rolls nicely on the two wheels like a garden wheel barrow, and when it is tipped up on end (as seen in the video) it will display my instruments and offer its wonky rhythm. The wheels, bearings, and sprockets were scavenged from a kids bike a neighbor was about to chuck in the trash. Some of the wood box is left over molding from a frame shop and the shafts are from my lifetime collection of dumpster gold.
There are many improvements and tweaks in the works; including fitting up the inside of the cart to secure the instruments for travel, painting the exterior, improving the cam sets, and adding more mass to the fly wheel. Stay tuned, there’s more to come.

blue flake lap steel

Indeed, here it is, in all its chunky squared off glory and all its slinky-slidey twang! It’s my first go at building a baritone scale lap steel ukulele, and I am having too much fun. Now I just need to learn to play the dern thing. Yes, I know that’s a mouth full. Learning to play a lap steel – and doing it well – is no small task.

As I mentioned in my previous post, this instrument is the direct descendant of a big kid-safe lap steel I knocked out just before the San Mateo Maker Faire. Regardless of my questionable skills playing this wingnut I’m sure it won’t be that last one I build.

• tin: 230 x 76 mm, 9 x 3 in.
• scale length: 520 mm, 20 1/2 in.
• head to tail: 760 mm, 30 in.
• G .024, C .018, E .015, g .013 plain steel loop end
• squarish profile maple neck
• teak fret board
• stainless fork string anchor

I have been fooling around with adding a carbon mic and a piezo pickup. Someday soon I’ll update the photos and demo to show off the wacky electronics.

Blue Flake Lap Steel from The Tinkers Damn on Vimeo.

big pink lap steel

Just a week before the big to-do in San Mateo this year I whipped up a big lap steel instrument to have something for the kids to whomp on.

 With fat solid steel strings, a neck cut out of a 2×4, and pegs that require a wrench to tune, I knew it would keep the kids busy with nothing to break. The original, above, had only two strings and the tin was flat so it barked quite a bit when the strings were plucked. There is a bit of me fiddling with the beastie at the beginning of the video from the Faire.

I had so much fun with it at the Maker Faire I decided to make some improvements when I got home.

The revamped instrument has a shaped tin body for better resonance and no bark, an 80cm scale, and four strings for more snaky slidey fun.

big pink lap steel from The Tinkers Damn on Vimeo.

gondola-la

And now for my second soprano ukulele with nylon strings and a supercalifragilistic coordinated theme!

a fero da prorà on the head stock

gondolas bobbing along the sides

and gondolas on the silk neck tie strap! Expialidocious or what?

Hold on to your socks! Jeannie may just puff out of that bottle on the strap and whisk you off to Venice in a hula skirt.

• tin: 210 x 50 mm, 6 1/4 x 2 in.
• scale length: 330 mm, 13 in.
• head to tail: 550 mm, 21 3/4 in.
• G .025, C .036, E .032, A .021 nylon
• maple neck
• padauk fret board
• silver plate fork string anchor and arm rest
• silk neck tie strap

gondola-la from The Tinkers Damn on Vimeo.

San Mateo Maker Faire 2015

Tinkers Damn spent two and a half days at the San Mateo Maker Faire this May. It was quite a hubbub once again.

For next year I will have to come up with some way to close up shop and take an hour break in the middle of the day.

The crowd can be overwhelming, but I still had a ball.

Yes, the young’uns were indeed obstreperous…

but many of them had a grand time picking out a tune.

The adults had a fine time as well. Here’s a short clip of me plucking the lap steel (more about that below) and playing “Freight Train” on old electric blue.

San Mateo MF 2015 from The Tinkers Damn on Vimeo.

There’s a slew more photos on Flickr if you just can’t get enough. As usual, many thanks to mrs. a-go-go for being the shutter bug. See you next year, San Mateo! Thanks for having us.
Regarding the lap steel, I whipped that monster up just a few days before the show. It is far from perfect but it gave me another durable instrument to put in front of the kids. It’s not much to play but I had fun with it and I swear I am going to revamp it soon. Stay tuned for a post on the lap steel’s rebirth! Maybe I can get some of the distortion out of it and put enough strings on to get some real steel fun out of it.

big red baritone

Big red, and a baritone, no less! My first go at a baritone scale ukulele used a 10 inch snowflake tin with the same art design as big green, a concert ukulele from some time ago. The similarities end there. Big red has a 520 mm scale length and a voice that is an octave lower. For my own convenience big red is strung and tuned in a typical ukulele GCEA so I can play it without fussing to learn the chords for the standard baritone ukulele tuning of DGBE. If there is anyone out there interested in big red and would prefer DGBE I would certainly be amenable to swap in a set of strings for that tuning. Meanwhile, I am getting a kick out of the deeper voice and I am sure I’ll be using the big ten inch tins for more baritones to come.

• tin: 250 x 90 mm, 9 7/8 x 3 1/2 in.
• scale length: 520 mm, 20 1/2 in.
• head to tail: 780 mm, 30 1/2 in.
• G .022 wound, C .032 wound, E .026 wound, A .018 plain steel loop
• or for a standard baritone tuning: D .030 wound, G .022 wound, B .017 plain, E .012 plain steel loop
• maple neck
• teak fret board
• stainless fork string anchor
• silk neck tie strap

big red from The Tinkers Damn on Vimeo.

faded blue

It’s been a while coming, but the blue was already faded when I started. After tinkering with a chassis punch on the flying iris I thought I’d put it to use on a bigger tin. This uke projects its hoot and holler right out front thanks to the six sound holes in the belly. She’s bound to keep the blues away.

• tin: 255 x 100  mm, 10 x 3 7/8 in.
• scale length: 380 mm, 15 in.
• head to tail: 645 mm, 25 1/2 in.
• G .010, C .015, E .011, A .008 steel loop
• maple neck
• paduak fret board
• stainless fork string anchor
• neck tie strap

faded blue from The Tinkers Damn on Vimeo.