Lapulele - A headless ukulele

This is my first attempt at a headless soprano ukulele. Here's how it sounds.

Instructions

I've moved the tuning pegs down to the body to try and simplify things. They work ok but have plenty of room for improvement.

THE TRICKY PART: There currently isn't a good way to adjust the action so attaching the neck needs to be done with this in mind. This version requires you to glue the body to the neck and neck support. You should first glue the neck support to the body and let it dry. Before gluing the neck to the body, stick the saddle into the holes on the body butdon't glue the saddle in place. Next, dry fit the neck and turn it upside down so the fretboard is facing down on a perfectly flat counter top with the nut (fret 0) hanging off the edge of the counter. Place something thin (about 2-3mm thick) under the 12th fret. The ukulele should now be supported in three spots; 1) the saddle on one end, 2) the first fret on the other and 3) the 12th fret in the middle. This is roughly the position the neck will need to be glued.(I know this is probably not the right way to do this. Please let me know a better way of attaching the neck.)

Hopefully the action will turn out fine but if not, you may be able to correct it by printing out a new saddle. Stretch or shrink the saddle on the Z-axis to raise or lower the strings.

I'd never played a ukulele before or even tuned one so it took me a little while to tune it the first time but it did eventually sound like a ukulele.

I printed all the parts in PLA with 20% infill, 4 shells, 0.25 layers 0.6 wall thickness and no support. The only extra help was printing the tuning peg on a grid.

Category: Music

(Originally posted in 2013 on Thingiverse)