The Froo-its of Me Labors | I have gotten in big trouble with a couple of my followers for not posting any final pics of my guitar and Sara's uke. Well here we go: just some shots of the finished pieces.

Although I really beat the guitar up, especially the top, I am very pleased with the way this first build came out - especially the tone and playability.

The rosette is made of rosewood cut in 30 degree pie pieces and glued together to give the radial pattern.

You can see my awesome chisel gouge in the upper left. Learned a big lesson about concentration, patience, and small moves on that one.

Very pleased with the way the mahogany finished on the back and sides. You can't see it in the photos, but it has beautiful iridescent banding running through the grain as you often get with these woods.

The grain in the cedar top is very nice too; just wish I had been more careful not to beat it up so much.

Sara's Uke

Not to toot my own horn (to use the parlance of a previous time) - the craftsmanship in Sara's uke is a couple of levels above the work on my guitar. We learn best through failure and I learned a lot on that first build.

The abalone inlay in the rosette is really striking against the light spruce top. Going to do more of this on future builds.

The african black limba Sara picked out for the back and sides is bold and strong.

Because I broke a set of sides the first go around and had to buy another set, I had some extra wood to tie in a boldly striped head plate.

For the fret marker inlays, I used a technique I saw somewhere a while back and really liked. Some small pieces of maple sit on the top of the fretboard and hang over the top so that the one set of markers can be seen from the front and top of the uke.

The spruce on the top is very nice. It too has the iridescent banding.

Well that is all for now. I am about 3/4 of the way through building my second guitar, an all mahogany short scale. I will post some pics up of that real soon.