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I recently decided to replace the head or vellum on the above
Dixie banjo uke. Iwas able to obtain a new vellum made of
goatskin inexpensively from ukuleleworld
.com. Jimmy Young of Amarillo, who plays violin with the
Bob Wills Texas Playboys, put it on for me. You can find him
at Scales Strings 805 S. polk Street. If you decide to do
the job yourself be sure and read the directions at themusicroom-online.co.uk/advise.php.
This operation greatly improved the sound of the uke.
This picture shows a way of regluing the bridge on your uke
even if you can't get clamps of the right size. The devices
are made of wood and guitar tuners. The nylon strings are
attached to buttons inside the uke. See my book for more details.
The uke pictured above is an Oscar Schmidt by Washburn OU2-L
which I got on eBay from P. Hill Auctions. This one is a light-weight
birch model that is louder than the more common mahogany model.
The OU2 models which are inexpensive are listed as having
a satin finish but could be said to be unfinished. I sprayed
this one with Bulls Eye shellac obtained in a spray can from
Lowe's Hardware and later gave it a slight going over with
steel wool. It sounds and feels great--maybe better than it
would with a lacquer finish. See the article on this site
for more details. For a lot more information on refinishing
ukes see my book the UKULELE PLAYERS GUIDE.
When you obtain an old ukulele,very often it will have broken
or missing tuners. On the less expensive models there will
be small holes through the wood that will not fit any currently
made tuners. If you have this problem, an easy fix can be
accomplished by using the Ping tuners, one of which is shown
above, or Grover 2B tuners which look the same but have black
buttons. These can be obtained inexpensively from ukuleleworld.com.
The first step is to carefully drill out the hole so that
the shaft will just fit the hole. Then the top of the hole
must be tapered as shown above so that the tapered part of
the tuner assembly will fit in the tapered part of the hole,
an operation that can be accomplished using a countersink
mounted in a tapholder or drill chuck as shown below.
After you have drilled out the hole and cut the tapered indention
in the top of the hole, you are ready to install the tuner
which will work much better than the original one. Notice
that this repair can be performed entirely with hand tools
and without placing your ukulele in a vice which might damage
it.
This picture shows the ukulele with the ping tuners installed.
The Ping tuners work much better than most of the older ones.
Of course, if your ukulele is a rare or expensive model, you
should try to keep it as original as possible. A lot of the
old Martin and Kamaka ukes came with tuning pegs which are
similar to the Grover 4W tuners that are still available today
from ukuleleworld.com
and other sources. These tuners have a metal bushing that
must be fitted into the headstock. If your ukulele came with
these tuners, the bushing is usually still in there and all
you have to do is attach the rest of the parts.
This picture shows the bushing that was part of the old Grover
4W tuners with a new Grover tuning peg that fits into it.
If your ukulele has the bushing, all you have to do is put
in the rest off the parts and you are ready to play. If the
bushiing is not there, you may be able to press in the new
bushings without modifying the hole. If this is not the case,
you better head for the repair shop or find parts that fit.
This ukulele was described as having a back made out of rosewood.
It wasn't until I started hanging around the instrument-repair
department that I was able to explain how this happened. The
instrument repairmen acquire all kinds of severely damaged
instruments and use parts of them to fix the others. In this
case the back probably came from a classical guitar. The rest
of the body of the instrument is of old fashioned mahogany.
Except for the back, the instrument, which has no brand name,
seems completely original. The tuning pegs are very old but
are not cracked. I was unable to tighten them sufficiently
until I took out the screws and applied oil to the threads,
after which all was well. As you might imagine, this instrument
has a superior tone and is quite loud which probably was the
reason so much effort was made to repair it. As is the case
with a lot of the very old ukuleles, this one has a narrow
neck, which makes it more difficult to play.
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