I was hesitating a long time before I made my first ukulele. I thought, it must be very difficult. I was afraid of investments for expensive tools and machines, and I didn’t have any experience and know-how at that time. I started to read a book about guitar building. Even though, it was very interesting, and I learned a lot from this book, I still didn’t believe that I could make it.

The idea of this documentation

The idea of “The Homemade Ukulele Project” is to make it easier to get started. If you really decide to handcraft ukuleles, you should also read some standard books about instrument making.
If you will craft more than one ukulele, you probably will invest in some tools and machines to follow the standard methods of making an instrument. With other words: This project is about workarounds. And for some difficulties you might find your own methods and workarounds. If problems come up, I use two approaches to solve them:

1. Design
Can I change the ukulele design in a way that this production step gets easier? I will for example suggest different neck designs, which are easier to manufacture than a traditional neck.

2. Production method
Is there a way to get things done differently with the available tools? And differently doesn’t necessarily mean easier or more efficient. Because we are not aiming for a series production. We don’t care, if things take longer than the standard way. But we do care, if we have to buy expensive tools and machines.