Glue that Back back On

You may be wondering, why so many clamps?

I had to remove the back (which was already lifting in various places around the seam) on this Kamaka ukulele to replace a back-brace and reglue another brace on the underside of the top. This is a small soprano uke, so the only way to get inside was to remove the back. The problem was originally caused by dryness. Coming from Hawaii, the instrument did not take well to the dry climate of northern Arizona. Because the instrument had been dried out, braces were lifting and the body was slightly warped.

So, this is why I needed so many clamps to properly glue the back in place. Four of the clamps are being used to simply hold the sides in the correct shape to accept the back into proper position. Because the wood had dried and warped, after the back was removed the sides didn't stay in the same shape... i.e. they were being held in place by the back prior to its removal.

As to why so many different types of clamps were used... I didn't have enough spool clamps for the entire job... also, spool clamps would've gotten in the way of the the clamps that were used to keep the sides in the correct position.

This was a beautiful, authentic Hawaiian uke with some great pieces of koa wood. It was a pleasure to bring this instrument back to life. After the structural work, I did some minor fret work and made a new bone saddle.

-- Ryan Elewaut