r ransom

Neat!

I can see the logicof how it would work to change the nut and saddle height as a family member who used to make violins said this part took the longest of any stage.  Most of violin making is math (and tapping on wood), mhe would say, but math can only take one so far before we have to adjust the machine to the person.

A good starting place for adjusting the issues my ukulele has.

But not today.  That's something for much later,

Mapping out a composition study with pan pastels.  It's like eyeshadow for paper.

One thing to remember is my ukulele was on the extremely affordable end.  Although it seems much higher sound quality than the price, am i am really happy with it.

I asked at the local shop and set up for an instrument they didn't sell would be about 8 times what was paid for my ukulele.

Changing the strings is a pain, so I can see the value of having a second one...when the time is right.  One for high-g and one for low-G.  The universe will let me know when the time is right.  

When that happens, I might experiment with set up.  It looks pretty easy to do and easier to do wrong,  but these nuts and white-bridge-things seem affordable to buy if things go horribly wrong.

The library books say the way to test the action on a ukulele is to press the 12 fret and the tuner should read the same letter as the open string.  Mine all read extremely sharp or the next note up the alphabet.

Which is fine for me right now because my skill is poor and i need to learn more how to put my hands than care about perfection. It doesn't seem to make a difference for cords and strumming.

But once I start the classical music fingerstyle, it is probably going to bother me.  Even I can hear the tuning is wrong the further away from the head I get.

Ukulele set up is pretty common, according to the library books.  The music store usually does this, but internet ukulele almost never have the intonation (their word) checked.

Still loving ukulele practice

No courage yet to test if the chickens like it

I went to a shop and looked at used musical instruments. The prices were not friendly, but it was interesting to see how small mandolins are in person (one of the other instruments I considered) and to see the different ware pattern and damage to the instruments.  There was a lot wrong.  Except the yamaha guitars that looked and sounded pristine, and suspiciously low priced.  I always thought yamaha were the workhorse guitar at a nag price.   But not one had been played in anger.  Is there something wrong with these guitars?

Although I am glad I didn't buy one as looking up the price of a new yamaha guitars the same model and colour, the used ones in the shop were about the same price as the new one on Amazon.

All of the guitars were far to big for me.  The mandolin were broken,  the ukulele were sold out.  

But all the string instruments had one thing in common, almost no distance between strings and frets.  Some of the better loved ones required just a whisper of pressure to press the string down and fret a note.  

It makes me think it's time to learn about "set up" for my ukulele as the distance between string and fret one is several strings wide.  But I'm afraid of missing a day practice and it's not that hard to press my ukulele strings.

Maybe one day when there is a second instrument, I'll try my hand at adjusting my ukulele string height.

And now, the ukulele



More production line style of making, but interesting how much is done by hand.

Great song.  
Anyone else feel this way about school projects?

Cleaning an old neglected clove box with gicky oil paint

1. Scrape out as much paint as possible with a palette knife or whatever.
2. Add some linseed or walnut oil to the remaining paint
3. Wipe out with paper towel or cloth
4. Repeat 2 and 3 a couple more times
5, some stubborn paint wouldn't come out, so I added a drop of clove essential oil to that spot, close lid of oil to prevent spilling. Immediately start rubbing the oil with a cloth and watch how most of the paint desolves.
6. (Optional) curse at your own stupidity as nail polish melts from the clove oil fumes and contact.  Metaphorically slap forehead in frustration as you remember that although most nasty artist solvents don't care about nail polish, clove essential oil is about 50 times more powerful than OMS.  Clove essential oil, like all essential oils, are powerful stuff and need respect.
7. If wood, wipe with a mixture of linseed oil and clove essential oil, about 10:1 (mostly linseed)

The tin clove box from upcycled crayon container that was closed and forgotten about the same,  75% dry paint.

These are mostly fast and medium drying pigments like Prussian blue, yellow ochre, etc.  Whereas the wooden box had mostly medium drying paint.

A quarter of the oil paint still usable after 6 weeks of neglect in the clove box is impressive, if not as good as the wood (or as nice looking)

I say wood, but it's some sort of composite wood with plastic sticker to look like wood.