2 Feb

Lil’ Rev Drop Baby Drop CD

Posted by Tim in General, Products. Tagged: , , , , , .

Funny story; I went to the 1st Annual Milwaukee Ukulele Festival last September and as most know that is where Rev lives. Lil Rev and the awesome Milwaukee Ukulele Club put together an amazing festival. I met so many people and reconnected with a million more. I actually sat and talked with most of the artists that performed. While I was there I was handing out these little promo things with my site on it (Gotta plug the site when you can) But before I would even think about handing them out I had to make sure that Rev said it was OK. So I corner him, he was running like a mad man, and asked him about the swag I wanted to give out. Luckily he thought it was great and I was on my way. A few hours later Lil rev finds me and hands me his new CD and asks me to review it. Now why did it take me so long to review it?

I lost it, thought it was in the trunk of my car. Looked everywhere and I thought that maybe the car ate it and it was getting dark. Life happened and I totally forgot about it until I was looking for a one of my electric tuners and I ran across the CD, never found the tuner. And the long of it is what brings me here.

The Review

Drop Baby Drop By Lil' Rev

Click Here to listen to samples on Amazon

The best way to describe the album is written on the back:

“Drop Baby Drop is an enchanting collection of rare blues, rooted originals, novelty, old time country, and rusty old tin-pan alley classics performed on concert, tenor, baritone, banjo, and resonator ukuleles by award-winning Uke master Lil Rev”

It is true that it has all that, but to me this album is a must if you play ukulele. I play more recent songs from the Beatles and maybe throw in a little AC/DC, but I also find myself playing a lot of the songs like the ones on this CD. This CD is a great collection of songs to really learn from. I can’t read music to save my soul so I listen to others play and use it to get the melody, rhythm, and lyrics for when I try to play the songs.

In the course of listening to the CD at least 100 times, since I found it again, I have found a few things that I would improve on. The recording quality is lacking a little, you can tell that it was recorded in a home studio. It might have been intentional to make the vocals and some of the instruments seem like they are far from the microphone or made to sound old. I think it might of needed some more mixing to balance vocals and instruments. The other issue is use of echo on almost every vocal makes it seem faked big room. Just record in a bathroom and it will come across more natural. Please don’t get me wrong these are things to be expected from an independant CD.

All in all this is a must have for any ukulele lover. Each song leads right to the next. I never find myself skipping to other songs in the album. I just put it in, crank it up, and sing a long. Also if you ever have seen Lil’ Rev play live this will bring back all those memories.

Go Buy it NOW!!!1

Amazon MP3 $8.99

Amazon CD $18.99

Elderly CD $14.95

27 Jan

Me Speading the Love at ISU

Posted by Tim in General.

Some know that I work at Illinois State University as a computer tech, but by night (sometimes during work) I am passionate about ukuleles. To prove it, here is a link to my schools new State Your Passion campaign video site. I am in the first video.

1 Jan

Family Photo 2010

Posted by Tim in Family Photos.

As a nice way to start the new year I have decided to post a “family photo” for 2010. I will do this every year that I have the blog going. 

Family Photo for 2010. Click for a larger version

 From left to right: 

  1. A soprano kit ukulele from Grizzly that i built 2 years ago
  2. My Bushman concert cut-away that  I went to indiana and got from John Hall directly when I visted the Bushman Brewworks
  3. My first ukulele! It is a Oscar Schmidt OU-2 that I painted and tweaked.
  4. The all black sideways one on the left is my Soprano Risa Solid that I bought when I turned 30. waited 3 months for them to finally make a black one for me, and now you can just order it.
  5. The Other sideways uke on the right is the first cigarbox ukulele I made from Papas Boxes. They have changed the design since then.
  6. Bottom left is a 1930’s Richter collegiate soprano that I found at a flea market. Still plays great.
  7. The the cigar box ukulele that I just finished and have been posting about. My Papa’s Boxes Uke kit.
  8. The last one, on the lower right, is a soprano Rogue that I purchased for $17 from Musicians Friend. It was one of the stupid deals of the day. Put Worth Strings on it and it plays really well.

If you have a family photo that you would like to share, just send me a picture with a quick description of each member along with your name (What you want posted)  and where you live (City, State)
 

Happy New Year

31 Dec

Papas Boxes Concert Build: The Build

Posted by Tim in Brands, Papas Boxes. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

ITS ALIVE!!!!

Well here I am ending the year with a built, and by no means finished cigar box ukulele. In all this project took me a few more weeks than I thought it would. Part of it was life and part of it were things that I did not expect while building this crazy thing. Below I will talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly. (Most of it good with the ugly things stemming from my issues) 

Finish 

As I said in my last post I would start with the finish I used on the box and the neck. Just like with the whole build I do not have the tools to do the awesome finishes that you might see on professional grade instruments so I went with the best one I know, Traditional Tung Oil Finish from Formby’s. It is simple, I think it looks great, and it is really hard to mess up. 

Body Hung by its Jack. The painters tape is coving the area that the fret board is glued to

All I did was hang the body from the pick-up jack that I installed (I think this only works because it is so light) and the neck by some wire strung through one of the screw holes. I used a little painters tape so I would not get it in the top of the fret board (It is not recommended to finish the top of a fret board, I only did the sides).  Tore up an old t-shirt to wipe on the Tung oil finish (not actually all oil, I used a modified Tung oil so it has some polyurethane in it) 

After a regimen of 6  thin coats of Tung oil, sand with 400 grit sandpaper, another  3  heavy  coats of Tung oil, sand with 400 grit sandpaper, followed by 6  thin coats of Tung oil, sand with 400 grit sandpaper , then 600 grit sandpaper. ending with 1 last really really thin coat of Tung oil (Just enough to make it shine and remove sanding marks) I was done.  Took about a week to do, but there were issues. 

The neck is perfect, no issues, it was with the body that things turned out a little ugly. As you can see in the pictures there are spots. I tried sanding them out but I can only conclude that it is glue from the “plywood” top that seeped  through and there was no way to remove it. It is only visible in certain lighting situations. If It was a professionally made instrument it would have been scrapped or thrown away for such defects but I just figured I would soldier on with the build and roll with it and report my issues. 

Back Issues. You can see the same type spots that are on the front

Front Finish Issues. You can see the Spots on the left side by the mouth.

Assembly 

A Closer look on how the Neck and Body are Joined

I could bore you with how good I am at following directions, and they are pretty good, I will only touch on what I did and note some interesting things that I encountered. 

I will start with attaching the neck to the box. Unlike a normal uke neck that is glued on, the only thing glued to the body is the end of the fret board.  The actual neck is held in place with an L bracket and two screws. The beauty of this design, if you follow the templates given, it gives you the ability to adjust the action, kind of acting like a truss rod in a guitar, And I used it to get the best action possible. 

The other place of note that I have is with the optional tuning block (I would not do this kit unless I had it). Since the box is a bit shallower that a normal cigar box I had to shorten it about 1/8th of an inch to make it flush with the bottom of the box. With that I also rounded all the edges and did a few coats of the Tung oil. Beyond that I attached it as center as possible, this time I used the extra fret wire to make sure the strings don’t dig into the box. 

Tuning Block

Beyond that I put the strings on and slipped the bridge into place,  and tuned it. From there it is just some minor adjustments of moving the bridge for intonation (If you look it is a little crooked, that is to compensate for the minor differences that are needed between the G and A strings), and tightening the screw that attaches the neck to the body to lower the strings a little bit. 

Final Thoughts 

I have a long way until I would say that this ukulele is finished. I want to tweak it until I am absolutely happy with it, don’t get me wrong I could stop here but that is not my style. My plan is to change the strings to either Worth or Aquila, install some strap buttons, and make sure the strings don’t pop out while playing. 

Decrotive Hindges

The kits from Papa’s Boxes are the best I have seen around. You can go to places like Mainland Ukes and buy a premade neck and then figure out the bridge, or even go and make a neck yourself. Both are just other paths to go. I don’t have the tools and expertise to do those, that is why this kit rocks. The neck is made, the bridge is done and since it is floating it is forgiving on placement. 

Please do not get me wrong, this is a serious kit, you can screw it up if you are not detailed oriented. The best rules to live by for this and any other project is: 

1.  Measure, Measure, and re-measure 

2. Dry fit before you commit. Don’t glue, drill, or screw until you are sure. 

3. You are never done. You can always go back and correct or at least cover up your mistakes. Sometimes the worst things can turnout good if you put your mind to it. 

The next post on this will be next year. Expect it to follow a few others, but it will be on how I made it better or at least how I tried.

Enjoy my video below.

22 Dec

Papas Boxes Concert Build: The Box

Posted by Tim in Brands, General, Papas Boxes, Products. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

  

Current Dry Fit

Being that the cigar box is the main part of a cigar box ukulele I felt I had to make it really interesting and fun. Since I used a box that never held a cigar in its life I also had to make it look like a cigar box, but how to do that is a challenge.  On the other hand since it was not a real cigar box it gave me a great opportunity to do whatever I wanted, so I did! 

The first thing I did was separate the top from the bottom by removing the hinges, they would not let the box close and I knew I would be gluing it shut anyways. 

AnaRosa Guitars logo on the Top of the box

Since all cigar boxes have a logo or brand on the top of the lid I had to find something that would do the same thing.  I toyed with a play on Ukeeku, or my last name, and then I remembered that I have the perfect logo, a small guitar import company that my friend started called AnaRosa Guitars. It is really nice, and I have used the logo for a few other ukes that I customized. Now how do I get the logo on the ukulele? I could have painted it on, bought some transfer paper that I printed it on, but in the end I laser etched it on, essentially burned it on. The really awesome people who work in the signs and promo area at the school I work at agreed to burn the logo on the back and whatever other design I had for the front. 

Laser engraving the top design, on its first pass

Basically it is a laser engraver that can etch metal, wood, stone, just about anything. The one issue was that it was not powerful enough to cut through, no big deal. So I gave them the .eps file of the logo on the back and the design for the front. It took 3 passes to really carve the designs into the box. This type laser is found in most awards and trophy places. It is how they engrave the plaques and stuff.  I have found that they will like you better if you give them the design in a vector format like an .EPS or illustrator file. That way they have to do a lot less work to prep your design to be burned on to the wood. 

UKEEKU.COM pattern in the tiki

The top is a tiki, obviously, but I used UKEEKU.COM as the texture in the tiki to give it some interest and to promote my blog (Sorry, had to get my site on there somewhere).  I had the line for the mouth cut in by the laser but I had to go back in and cut it out with a little coping saw (not fun).  I refined the sound hole with some rasps. One note of issues that I had at this point: Since the box is plywood it kind of splintered inside around the mouth. Not a huge deal. 

T block before it was glued in

Now for Bracing. The last time I made one of these I was confused by this step. This time I read the directions several times and I referenced this book: Ukulele Design and Construction by Henry Wickman. Since the top was thick I figured that I would need less bracing to keep it flat, hence the single brace near the sound hole.  Where I messed up my last build was with the T block that you use for the side the neck will attach to the box. On my first cigar box uke I glued the top of the T to the top of the box. When really what that is for is to be a brace for the side of the box so it has more structure for when you attach the neck. 

Close up of the brace glued to the top

As you can see I modified the bracing by cutting some wood off and making it more like regular bracing you would see in a professionally made instrument. I even rounded off all the corners that were not going to be glued down. I then glued the end blocks in and the bracing in the middle. As you can see I used 2 basic clips with a small piece of wood on the outside part of the box so I did not dent it. The bracing in the middle I just held in place with my hand for an hour. (I don’t have a clamp that would work that did not tip it on its side) 

Lable on the inside.

Top with clamps holding the end blocks in place

GRRRRR. Pickup plug damage

The last thing I did, before gluing the box shut, was to install the pickup, should have been easy. I figured out where to put it, marked the hole, and then drilled what I thought would be the right size hole, I was really wrong. The hole was way too small and I do not have a bit big enough to make the hole any bigger. So I fudged it a little, but that only lead me to realize that the pickup plug is too shallow to make it all the way through the side wall. At this point I was pissed because I accidentally chipped the wood on the outside when I drilled the hole. I ended up carving out the hole on the inside to a depth that I could secure the end (See picture to see the damage).

Pickup glued and taped down

I then glued down the pickup and taped down the wire, so it wouldn’t buzz, with Gorilla tape. 

After everything was burned, the sound hole cut, supports in place, pickup installed, and box glued shut I started to sand. One of the things that I look for in a nice instrument is how it was finished. I am not just talking about the lacquer, but if the person making it thought about comfort. Since you hold most ukuleles up by wedging it between your body and arm, the edges need to be rounded.  In general I like no hard edges at all. I rounded every corner on the box with some rough 80 grit sandpaper (DO NOT SAND THE TOP OR BOTTOM, YOU COULD SAND OFF THE DESIGN). I then moved to a 400 Grit to sand the rest of the box and the edges I sanded down. The box was pretty smooth when I bought it so not much sanding was needed. 

Box in bondage

This is already long enough. Thank you for sticking with me this far, I am currently working on a tung oil finish for the neck and box. That is where I will start in the next post when I am assembling the thing.

4 Dec

Papas Boxes Concert Build

Posted by Tim in Brands, Papas Boxes, Products. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

New Kit from Papas Boxes

A month or so ago the kind folks at Papas Boxes sent me an e-mail saying that they were back to taking orders again. On a whim I e-mailed them and told them about my blog and they responded really quickly and asked what size, I went with concert. Not very many people have seen the soprano cigar box ukulele that I made 2 years ago, but I found the kit on EBay and it was basically a fret board, rough neck, floating bridge, and zither pins for tuning, Very basic and well-made kit.  It played ok and the tuning was a little hard to do, so I bought the tuner kit and also replaced the bridge that came with it with a Grover 4 string banjo bridge. Now it plays really well and is a ton of fun.  That is one of the best things about the kit. You can either put it together and play, or keep changing it and adjusting it until it is what you want.

Neck

I do not have the tools to make a full ukulele at my house which is why I bought the first kit. The new kit I received from Papas Boxes is a major upgrade from the first one that I made. The fret board has really nice light wood inlays and it is already glued to the neck. Another big thing that they did that I like with the neck is the little head piece. If you use a clip tuner this makes it possible to clip it to the head and not on the floating bridge. The L bracket is still there but recessed along with the floating bridge. I did not go with the zither pins for tuners on this kit and got the tuners and they also included the pickup (I think they make the pickups, looks kind of steam punk inspired). They also sent a cigar box but I really wanted to find something that was all wood and did not sound so dead. I ended up finding out that almost no one makes nice sounding cigar boxes big enough to make a concert sized ukulele, so I ended up buying a plain box at a craft store. Trust me the box will not look plain Jane when I am done with it!

Bridge, L Bracket, and Drill bit

 The great thing about the kits that I have received from them is that they come with everything except the drill, screw drivers, and saw. The drill bits, templates, and many other little doo-dads are included so you can make the best instrument you can. How far you take the build is up to you.

The build will be several posts in the next few weeks, hopefully done by Christmas, and will begin with prepping the body (cigar box) then putting it together, and ending it with tweaking it. My end goal will be a full review and then next summer giving it away at a ukulele festival.

Stay tuned.

Other Pics.

Dry Fit of Bridge and Neck

Pickup and Another Drill Bit

****UPDATES****
The building of the box is posted!! Click HERE

The Post on final assembly and a video is posted! Click HERE

6 Nov

Oscar Schmidt OU-2 Deal $49.99 Shipped

Posted by Tim in Oscar Schmidt, Products. Tagged: , , , , , , .

Oscar Schmidt OU-2 Deal at JR.com

Oscar Schmidt OU-2So….I got an e-mail from JR.com about black Friday deals. I guess they are doing “deals” on every Friday of November. Well today they happen to have a ukulele. This is a place where I buy a lot of my electronics, but hey its a pretty good price. $49.99 Shipped

NOTE: This is one of my first ukuleles, I love it. They did have some issues back in the day with quality, but they have been resolved. Go to my other post on Oscar Schmidt to read more about it.

DEAL LASTS UNTIL SUNDAY AT MIDNIGHT SO HURRY!!!!

1 Oct

2009 Bushaman Ukulele Contest

Posted by Tim in General.

HEY ALL SUBMIT YOUR ENTRIES!!!

bushman-music-logo

John Just e-mailed everyone to tell them the very popular Bushman Ukulele Contest is back! YEAH!!!

So go and submit your best ukulele performaces before December 1, 2009.

29 Sep

Milwaukee Uke Fest Quick Note

Posted by Tim in Events. Tagged: , , , , , .

lilrevThis past Saturday I went to the 1st Annual Milwaukee Ukulele Festival. It was really awesome for so many reasons, beside the fact that some of the biggest names in the ukulele world (Victoria Vox, Jim Beloff, Aarom Keim, and Lil Rev just to name a few) where there performing and teaching. What makes it great for me is meeting so many new people and also seeing people I know from past fests and luaus, it’s like going to your favorite bar.

Beside all that, for a first time fest it was really good. the Milwaukee ukulele club that helped Lil Rev did a great job, along with the talent/teachers, gotta love having a class with someone you have cds and books from,  and vendors there where worth the $60 to get in. The best class for me was the one where we discussed making ukuleles. What a great idea!!

My only concerns are really small and I learned a few lessons.

1. Parking was a concern; I had to move my car a few times so I would not get a ticket or have it broken into.
2. Stay at the hotel. the real fun to be had is after the fest when you hang out til the wee hours with fellow uke nuts, plus you have a place to park for the fest.
3. There were no shirts or other swag with the fest logo on them. I love my Windy City Ukulele Fest shirt and you see others with their past festival shirts on. It’s a way to say to others that this is not my first rodeo, I know the gig.
4. Make it 2 days. Start at 1pm on Friday and end it at 10pm on Saturday. That would make it possible for things like lunch breaks and give people time to play a little and ask questions the next day. Also 2 nights of party/jam time.
5. Start it with a big assembly where it is kicked off and things explained right up front. An informed fest goer is a happy fest goer.
6. Have a way for people to sign-up and pay in advance through a payment gateway or a PayPal account.

In the end I loved it and I will be there next year.

5 Sep

PAPA IS BACK!!!!

Posted by Tim in Brands, Papas Boxes. Tagged: , , , .

Papa (AKA: Bill Moore) is back!!!

 You don’t know who he is?

Well, I believe he is the best cigar box ukulele kit makers and after about a year or so of not selling his ukes and his kits he is back, and by back I mean back in full force.

My Papas Boxes Soprano with optional Tuners

My Papas Boxes Soprano with optional geared tuners

I bought one of his kits from eBay (He does not sell there any more, just his site) about a year and a half ago. I found a nice cigar box at a flea market and away I went to building my first cigar box ukulele. It went really well, it was very easy and it came with great directions. The things sounds so good.

The funny part and a warning for all before building one. When I finished my uke I was looking to build another and I had been searching for more cigar boxes to make them and I came across one just like mine, but in worse condition. The cigar box was going for $300. I was like “CRAP”. I learned that is better to figure out if you have a collectable cigar box before cutting, drilling and gluing it to make a ukulele out of it. cool part is I paid $5 for the cigar box. Please keep in mind that he has changed the kit, they are really nice looking now. Mine was one of his first kits.

I recommend the kits and I am hoping to get another one so I can write about it and share my experience with all of you. More than likely the concert, but this time with a less valuable cigar box.

Head on over and check out the site. plenty of videos up and you can buy the kits for all 3 main sizes of ukuleles or make a banjo. He also has finished ukes already made starting at $170 (If you don’t have the tools or time this is the way to go)

Clcik to Go to the site

Click to Go to the site

***UPDATE****
They Sent me a Kit click HERE to go to the first build post!
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