Big Island Ukulele Guild
Minutes from 03/10/2018
Aloha guild members. We had a good post-holiday season turn out at our weekend meeting. Twenty-three members met at the Waikoloa Village home of gracious hosts Gary and Pat Cassel.
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While membership is down this past year, we welcomed several new members to the meeting: Judy and Terry Jacobson and Garth David, who all joined earlier this year; and brand new members Barbara Bach and Neil Scott. Welcome to the guild!
Tad Humble led us in a spirited kanikapila, which got us in the right mood for the meeting.
Treasury Report: Treasurer Tom Russell reported us to be in good financial health, although our coffers are declining a bit due to lower membership - currently about forty active members. We did receive $250 for our exhibit at the recent 18th Annual Great Waikoloa Ukulele Festival.
General Business
Dave praised the efforts of guild Vice President Carlos Newcomb, Gary Cassel and Terry Davis, who did a great job pulling together and staffing our festival exhibit. Carlos reported good traffic and interest at our table display. And he even solved the matter of our constantly disappearing banner by having a new one made in just a couple of days. Mahalo Carlos!
Dave suggested creating an introduction to building ukulele seminar on the Kona side to promote interest in the process. Discussion will continue on this topic.
WAILOA SHOW 2018
Duties for this year’s Wailoa Center have been divided among many members who have stepped up. The Guild officers will take point in overall task coordination and we have a number of volunteers to spread out the responsibilities.
Bob Gleason is arranging permits needed for the show, Chris Stewart is handling publicity, Doug Powdrell will oversee the set up and tear down of the show and Rodney Crusat’s wife Candace once again will design posters and graphics for the show. Jane Klassen will handle printing entry labels and programs. Terry Davis will organize the opening night food. Sam Rosen and Gary Cassel will take care of the Saturday building demos. Bob Gleason has agreed to take one of the final outstanding tasks; ‘key master’ to open and close the facility on the two Saturdays.
And we need plenty of instruments for the show. Fifty ukuleles are considered a good number, so get building!
Dave suggested a members’ kanikapila as entertainment for the October 5th opening night and is looking for a few volunteers. Tad Humble has offered to help pull together a small band of builders and a leader for the two Saturday public kanikapila.
The terrible damage to Lewis Draxlir’s ukulele during the 2017 Wailoa Center show lead to a discussion about revising our system for installing the instruments, including extra screws to more securely attach the display boards and hangers to the walls. Dave also said that we install the boards and hangers the day before the exhibit begins, reducing the chaos of pulling everything together on opening day. Doug Powdrell has offered to help inspect the display boards and hangers and supervise installing and removing the display materials.
SHOW & TELL
During show and tell, Tom Russell began with a sample of ColorTone wipe-on poly finish from Stew-Mac that is resistant to problems due to the humid environment of Hawai’i. He began with a sanding sealer coat, a couple coats of grain sealer and finally seven coats of the wipe-on poly applied with a soft cloth. Light sanding between every other poly coat and even before buffing, it looked very nice!
Tom also brought a hand-made depth gauge he built using a $20 depth gauge and some hardwood that allows him to check thicknesses all over a piece of wood. Very clever!
Dave Stokes used a router table to remove the cedar top on a damaged ukulele, but left the binding/purfling intact. Nice save!
Gary Cassel also came up with a good save when he removed the back of an ukulele he had built of spalted maple. The maple cracked, so Gary used a steam iron and damp cloth to remove it, replacing the damaged wood with quilted maple. And he revealed a good source of the maple and inexpensive off cuts of Sitka spruce:
Whale Bay Woods
290336 US-101
Quilcene, WA 98376
Mailing address: P.O. Box 127
Telephone: (360) 774-3806
Email: whalebay@olypen.com
Doug Powdrell suggested having suppliers cut the wood to fit into USPS flat rate shipping boxes. If it fits, it ships!
Lewis Draxlir discovered a blemish on an ukulele that he had already sprayed with lacquer. The uke had a sap pocket on the Sitka spruce top and Lewis wanted to protect the finish as he repaired it. His solution was to wrap the uke in Saran wrap, glue the Hawaii islands inlay design in position atop the wrap and then cut the inlay recesses with his Dremel. He then glued the paua abalone pieces into place before dripped-filling it with lacquer.
Barbara Bach brought to the meeting film-backed sandpaper available at Lowe’s and Home Depot - very flexible and less likely to clog. 3M Pro Grade Precision Ultra Flexible Sanding Sheets. She also displayed contour sanding grips from Lee Valley Tools that fit into all types of shapes. Available at http://www.leevalley.com/. And she came up with a flexible scrapbook centering ruler that could be very useful for luthiers. You can find it all over the web. Look up EK tools Pro Centering Craft Ruler, 16-Inch. Mahalo Barb!
Carlos Newcomb, who is also a good musician, played his uke using a Pignose Hog 30 amp and an Electroharmonix B9 Organ simulator. The amp is battery powered and Carlos made a power source out of 6 AAs in series for the simulator. Amazing to listen to!
Carlos also added a preamp and an additional piece of ebony to cover a hole in the side of his uke.
Garth David used a Dremel to cut a binding channel on the back of an ukulele, but had gap issues as he glued it into place. Members gathered around to offer suggestions.
Gary Cassel knows of someone on Kona-side who can inexpensively stitch our guild logo onto any shirt. You supply the shirt - she adds the logo. More to come on this.
Roger Johnson showed off a couple small and rechargeable ukulele-shaped speakers he built from plywood and covered with koa. Very cute idea!
For the players among us, Jim Skibby showed a useful phone app, Ukulele Toolkit that features a tuner, metronome and strumming patterns to teach you different rhythmic approaches to songs. Available at the online Apple Store.
Chris Stewart suggested Riffstation, an app that will play any song you load into it and display the chords as you play along. The program also can change the tempo and pitch. Available at: https://pro.riffstation.com/
Dave Stokes spoke about the problems he encountered after shipping a mango ukulele to the drier, colder mainland where it fell apart after the owner failed to keep it humidified. His suggestion was to be careful about selling or sending instruments to the mainland.
DEMO
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Following lunch, Lewis Draxlir showed us how he fixed his badly damaged show ukulele. To see the damage first hand was heart breaking, especially because the instrument is his personal ukulele, but his repairs brought it back to life again. He began by removing the neck and fretboard, before routing off most of the top binding, leaving a thin strip, much like a purling. Lewis preserved the kerfing by using a razor to cut away the damaged cedar face. He also saved the bridge and rosette using a hot water kettle to soften and release the glue. After creating a new Lewis decided to add an arm bevel and has provided photos to document his process. “It's a success. I learned a ton and I think we can all learn from it,” he said.
Lewis finished by inviting members to explore tuning their instruments to 432 Hz (cycles per second), rather than the traditional 440 tuning. Here’s a example on YouTube you can listen to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVoVr9UwOQM
Lewis and his wife Carla are moving to the mainland very soon. We will miss his passion and enthusiasm for building ukuleles. And long-time member Leo Koschella is also returning to the mainland wife his wife. A hui hou – we will miss all of you.
Chuck Bennett continues his medical treatment on O’ahu and welcomes messages from guild members. You can reach him at charleswbennett@mac.com.
New member Dr. Neil Scott, CEO and Founder of The Makery in Hilo and a steel guitar enthusiast, offered his shop as a future meeting location where members can learn how his CNC router, 3D Printer and laser systems help create The Makery’s diverse collection on display in its gallery.
Our next meeting location is yet to be determined, but will be on the Hilo side, probably in June.
Chris Stewart, BIUG Secretary