MIMF

Hello Garhard, Here's a link a thread that shows a circuit schematic I used recently and have been happy with. http://www.mimf.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3976&start=20#p38858 If you search for Jenkins Headphone Amplifier, you should find a report (I think this was a student thesis) that d...

I've used waterslide decals printed by Bedlam Creations. Haven't had any problems with them under a nitro finish...

Next, some close-up shots... And the headstock... Thanks for looking everyone!

Without further ado, here are some photos of the completed UkuLiLi!

First, some full-length shots...

There's been a long lapse on postings on this project... I finally got it finished and have some photos I'm pretty happy with so it is time to wrap up this thread! I did not take many in-process pictures during the finishing. Here are a couple of shots during the primer coat phase. IMG_0617__Scaled....

Thanks for the input Michael and Todd! For closure, here's what I did… First off, I had a lot of coats built up on the tape so there was heavy lacquer coverage. I pulled the tape trying to keep a low angle, though the tape had gotten so brittle this wasn't really possible. As expected, I ended up wi...

I'm in the process of applying the finish to a guitar and have a basic question; this is my first time finishing on my own… For background, here's what I've done so far: - Masked the fingerboard and fingerboard binding with 3M blue painters tape. The body is unbound. The fingerboard binding is ivoro...

On to finishing! Since this is the first guitar that I'll be finishing (I've sent the previous instruments I made away to a pro), I elected to use spray cans of nitrocellulose lacquer from ReRanch. The color I chose is Copper Tone Metallic. Before applying any lacquer, I painted the control cavity w...

The last thing I needed to do before starting to apply the finish was to make the bridge. The bridge is made from a scrap of some sort of Rosewood and routed with a 1/8" groove for a bone saddle. I cut the groove at an angle on the router table using a 1/8" bit and a small metal wedge with...

I'm having a hard time seeing how your small parts router sled works. Here's another photo of the small parts router sled, mocked up to show how it can be used. Router Sled Description.jpg In real use, the bobbin flatwork material (not shown) is attached to the bottom of the template with double-si...

We have a 3-D printer at work, but I have yet to think of anything guitar related to print. Yeah, I have some friends with access to 3-D printers too and the only thing I can think of to print are knobs and tuner buttons. Even with these parts though, I question the durability. I put my little boos...

In addition to the tailpiece, I thought it would be pretty cool if I could make a pickup cover too. I tried several approaches to making the cover. In the end, the only method I could get to work was to mill the entire thing out of a single chunk of brass. Here's all the hardware ready for chrome pl...

And finally on to the jack/end plate. The plate needs to wrap over the end of the UkuLili and provide a means of holding the wire on the trapeze. Here's a drawing of the side profile. The open loop allows me to slip the trapeze in and out as necessary. Tailpiece Side Profile.jpg To make the part I s...

Next up is the string retainer/anchor. Here's the drawing for the part. Tailpiece Anchor.jpg And here's a (poor quality) photo of the finished part. No in process photos; the part was made entirely on the mill. String Retainer.jpg To complete the trapeze portion of the tailpiece the wire needs to be...

My plan for the UkuLiLi is to use a bone saddle acoustic bridge with a trapeze style tailpiece. Since this project is also an excuse for me to learn more about CNC programming, EDM and milling I made my best attempt at fabricating all the necessary tooling to make the parts I need. Let's start with ...

One more post on the circuit... Two things I didn't mention in the previous post: 1. The battery ground is disconnected when the circuit is bypassed so the battery doesn't drain. 2. The signal at the jack tip is mono, regardless of whether the circuit is switched on or not. To get sound out of both ...

So after giving it some more thought, I decided that the foam insert in the electronics cavity wasn't going to be a great way to hold the circuit and battery in place. I looked at some other mounting options and concluded that the circuit could be held on some standoffs that double as the nuts on th...

Again, I used Eagle Light to lay out the PCB. My initial plan was to cut a foam insert for the electronics cavity and let the circuit sit in a cutout in the foam. Because I chose this "mounting" scheme, I did not include any mounting features on the board. Here's the board layout. Its a tw...

I made an LM386 amp like that and used it as a tube pre-amp back in the old days. Nice! I'm hoping that the circuit will also provide some boost if switched on while plugged into an amp... Before starting the PCB layout, I wanted to make sure the circuit works and sounds decent. Here's a photo of t...

The next item up is the onboard headphone amplifier. I wanted the onboard headphone amplifier so the UkuLiLi could be played quietly but still retain its electric character. My requirements for the amplifier were: 1. Must use the same jack plug as the main passive external output. 2. Volume control ...