Multi-Uke Hanger – Getting Started

I've started on the carved multi-uke hanger I mentioned a little while back. I found a nice wide mahogany board, printed out my pattern and used spray adhesive to stick it down. Then I started carving the first flower and leaf. I've got a lot to learn, but this project seems totally doable. It will take a while, but it's sort of a relaxing activity. I'm in no rush to finish it, so I'm just going to chip away at it as the mood strikes.

Banjolele

I've been waiting for the lacquer to cure on the cherry soprano uke before I can finish it up. While I've been waiting, I started working on something I saw in a recent issue of Make magazine - a banjolele. It's a cross between a ukuelele and a banjo, as you might have guessed. It is essentially a ukulele with a metal resonator rather than a wooden body. It was super quick to build - only took a half-dozen hours on a weekend - and is pretty fun to play. I figure the whole thing cost me maybe $30, and it sounds surprisingly good too. There is no proper fretboard - the frets are just laid right into the neck itself (which is some leftover quartersawn cherry I had lying around). The resonator is just a pair of aluminum cake pans!

Day at the Beach

Lori and the kids went to visit a friend who was renting a house at the beach. The kids all worked together to bury Sean in the sand.

Multi-Ukulele Wall Hanger

Now that I've been finishing some of the new ukuleles - and I've got plans to build a couple more - I need to come up with a wall hanger that can hold more than one uke. I've seen a few online, but for the most part they are pretty boring - just a long board with multiple hanger hooks screwed into it. I had this idea to do a bunch of Hawaiian flowers in a sort of flowing, irregular blob-ish shape, and relief carve them into one 4-5 foot board and then add four or so hangers to that. I've always wanted to give relief carving a try, so I figured here was a decent excuse. Below is the pattern I put together in Photoshop. I've ordered my tools already. I'm going to try and post pics as the project progresses, so you can see the process as I go. This will be my first time - so I suspect I will do some things that aren't quite the normal way to do it, but it should be a lot of fun!

More Sketches

I've been sketching a lot lately, and decided it was time for an update. These first two are a couple of watercolors I did recently. The one on the left is from Maudslay State Park while the Rhododendrons were in bloom. The one on the right is a duck Lori and I saw at the San Diego zoo, just wandering around on the walkway.


These next two are just pencil sketches. The one on the left is a church we saw in La Jolla, while wandering around town. The one on the right I call "old man Ryan" - it's a drawing of my nephew in his big winter coat, but for some reason every time I try to draw one of the kids' faces they always end up looking a lot older than they actually are. I think it might be that I'm not drawing their faces wide enough for kid proportions - but I'm not sure.


This last one is a pencil sketch of a tortoise we saw at the San Diego zoo - the sketch doesn't get across the size of this thing, though. He was big enough that I could have climbed on his back and taken a ride around his enclosure - my feet might have touched the ground, but not by much.

Geocaching – First Time Out

The kids and I tried geocaching for the first time today. If you haven't heard of it before, think of it as a real-life, GPS-based treasure hunt. People hide containers and post the GPS coordinates online. Your job is to find the container. They always contain a small log book you can sign, and sometimes they contain trinkets - if you take one, you leave one. The kids loved it - especially the part where the GPS tells you that you're in the right place and you have to start searching every nook and cranny in the area to find the container. We found four caches today, and the photo on the right shows the stuff we brought home from the caches we found. Hopefully the next people to find them like what we left ourselves! If you want to know more about it, here is the link to the main site: geocaching.com.

Jake Shimabukuro

Dad and I took Carter to her first real concert last night - we saw Jake Shimabukuro at the Stockbridge Theater. This guy is phenomenal - he started playing when he was 4 (he's 36 now), and became famous by accident, essentially. Check out his wiki page to read the story. It was a great show last night - it was just Jake and a ukulele, blowing us away for two hours. He can make that thing do anything, from bluegrass, to flamenco, to classical music - at one point he even plugged into some effects pedals and pulled of some hard rock style, all-over-the -fretboard-at-lightning-speed craziness. Carter's eyes were as big as dinner plates half the time - and I'd have to admit my own probably were too. We got to meet him after the show, and I took Dad's picture with him. My only regret is that I didn't bring one of my ukuleles for him to sign! You'd better believe that I will next time, though!

Black Cap 2013

We were up north for our yearly vacation last week - but didn't actually take many pictures this year. But we did get this one, from our yearly hike with the kids up to the summit of Black Cap. We were too early for the blueberries this year though, unfortunately.

Curly Maple Uke Finished

Three days ago I finished the second of the trio of new ukuleles I've been building. This one is for me - it's got a mahogany top, curly maple back and sides, and a curly maple neck. I love the look of that curly maple! I've been playing it for the last couple days and it sounds pretty good. I've got a couple of very minor buzzes to work out - I think the saddle needs a sharper crown on one end. Pretty minor change, but I'll need to take the strings off to do it and I don't want to stop playing it. :) It's got a nice bright sound due to the maple back and sides, the intonation is really good, and the action is really low. Now just one more of the trio left to go! Think I might start a tenor size once the cherry soprano is finished.