Big Island Ukulele Guild
Minutes from 06/10/2017
Aloha BIUG members - minutes from the June 10th meeting.
Twenty members and spouses were in attendance at our second meeting of the year this past Saturday at Gary and Pat Cassel’s Waikoloa Village home.
Aloha BIUG members - minutes from the June 10th meeting.
Twenty members and spouses were in attendance at our second meeting of the year this past Saturday at Gary and Pat Cassel’s Waikoloa Village home.
Tad Humble got us revved up with a kanikapila before Dave Stokes brought the meeting to order.
Dave announced that our next meeting would be September 2nd - location still to be determined. He also reported that our new nametags are in the works. Tom Russell is waiting for a few test samples from the laser shop before approving production.
Mike Perdue brought us up to date on the Wailoa Art Center exhibit. It will be a shorter three-week exhibit, October 6-26 and includes a juried show one day before the exhibit opens. Let Mike or Dave know if you plan to enter an instrument for the judging and/or the exhibit. We’ll still have two Saturday kanikapila, one lead by Alan Hale and one by Andy Andrews, but only one weekend work demo. Mike and Dave are looking for volunteers to help with the building demo and the show set up on October 3rd and 4th.
Gary Cassel is in talks with the new Kahilu Theatre exhibit person so details will be forthcoming regarding our involvement in the annual Waimea 'Ukulele and Slack Key Guitar Festival. Gary did say that we would have a short weekend show in a smaller space. The event usually occurs in mid-November.
Roger Johnson offered up a treasure trove of luthier magazines, courtesy of Bob Gleason’s house keeping efforts.
Wood worker Mats Fogelvik, a friend of Dave Stokes, displayed some incredible koa ukulele sets for sale. He has more sets; so contact him at 808-280-8405 or mats@fogelvik.com if you’re interested.
I still have many of Mark Bilan’s small power tools for sale and will resend the email describing them.
Sam Rosen and Woodley White spoke to the legal difficulties of building and shipping out of country any instruments built with rosewood.
Show and tell began with Gary Cassel and his two concert ukes – one of bearclaw spruce and pheasant wood; the other of bearclaw spruce and strawberry guava wood.
Mike Perdue showed off a Port Orford cedar and canary wood uke, complete with a eucalyptus bridge.
Lewis Draxlir had another beautifully made ukulele made of African padauk wood with some incredible neck detail.
Dave Stokes again presented another one of his near-complete koa ukes for our inspection.
Rodney Crusat tipped us off to a clever neck-shaping tool: plastic plumbing pipe cut in half with sandpaper adhered to the inside. Gary Cassel makes kerfing clips out of the same material.
Woodley White has a clever jig for routing slotted headstocks and drilling the tuning machine holes. The online link is: http://www.luthiertool.com/slot_head_fixture.html. Look for the Slot head Ukulele jig.
Dave, Gary and Rodney won the show and tell drawing and received $25 StewMac gift certificates.
Pat and Gary Cassel generously provided lunch and refreshments. Mahalo nui loa Pat and Gary!
Mike Perdue’s post-lunch demonstration was on making tie block bridges and correcting intonation. He likes eucalyptus wood bridges and used Gary’s table saw to cut the saddle slot and another slot for the tie block that Mike cleaned out with a ¼” chisel. Then he used an old bridge with nails inserted in the string holes to mark string hole locations on the new bridge, before drilling them at an angle on a drill press.
Mike then addressed correcting intonation, including a compensated nut and moving the first two frets closer to the headstock by about a half millimeter to adjust for string stretching when playing chords near the headstock. He got the moving frets idea based on a Guild of American Luthiers magazine article by Mark French. He is also exploring adjustable saddles to provide individual string lengths.
Hope to see all of you at our September 2nd meeting!
Chris Stewart, BIUG Secretary