My Photo
Blog powered by TypePad

Links!

« The Natural Wonder is Finished! | Main | Dobro Headstock Disaster »

April 03, 2008

Weissenborn Ukulele Repair

This stunning little 1920s Weissenborn style 3 ukulele fell into my lap on Ebay. I'm very happy. There are so few of these in existence, that even most hardcore Weissenborn collectors have never seen one. It is said that only a couple dozen ukes were built by him.

This one was missing about 4 inches of the checkered maple and rosewood binding known as "rope binding".
I decided to make it myself using a glue-up of strips, trimming at an angle across the glue-up to get the check pattern, gluing the strip in place, then leveling it to the top. I then applied a light finish over the new strip to match. It is so close now you'd have to really look hard to tell at all. It plays and sounds amazing too!

Please feel free to contactme about any guitar repair issues, or if someone you know has a Weissenborn,
Kona, or other instrument needing rope binding repair!


Before1small
Stripssmall
Glueupsmall
Stripsmall
Glueonsmall
Finished2small

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83420933253ef00e551acf2728834

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Weissenborn Ukulele Repair:

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Nice work. I love the look of those Weissenborn ukes - particularly the way the rope binding goes all the way up the neck. That's just showing off.

Does the inlay effect the sound of the final instrument

I located a Weissenborn ukulele for sale in a antique shop.
They are asking less then $650.00 for it. The bridge needs repair or replacement.It has the rope pattern around the sound hole and around the upper outside edge of the ukulele.
The rope pattern also is along the side and end of the fret board. There are some minor scrathes in the varnish but no cracks or seperating of glue joints that I could find. No strings are installed. It appears the rope design may be missing in a section along the top bottom area It has the burned in label which seems correct. I have photos if you would need them. Can you the me something about this Ukulele, model, approx date made, where made, etc.
Thanks Jim Hannon

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Working...
Your comment could not be posted. Error type:
Your comment has been saved. Comments are moderated and will not appear until approved by the author. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.

Working...

Post a comment

Comments are moderated, and will not appear until the author has approved them.