How is one supposed to print the sound chamber with such massive overhangs?
Headless Multi-Scale Baritone Ukulele
An almost entirely 3d-printed Strandberg Inspired Headless Multi-Scale Baritone Ukulele!
In the contest Musical Instruments
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updated June 5, 2023
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Amazing design!
I'm planning on building one soon but I'd like the fretboard to be a single piece.
I tried to fit it on my 300x300 bed in a diagonal and it fits just about if I scale it down to 94%, do you see any issue that could arise with a scaled down version?
If not, would you mind sharing the fretboard parts as a single piece variant please?
What size screws?
I used a red/blue/orange tri-color filament for the colorful parts. For the black parts, I used PLA+ hoping for maximum strength, with a color change to Galaxy Silver for the frets/bridge.
I also tediously placed supports inside the sound chamber, which I was able to dig out with a screwdriver and some o-ring pullers (tiny screw drivers with hooks on the ends).
The colorful parts used standard 15% infil. The black parts used 50% infil, with the triangle pattern, as I've read it's the strongest, and it's quite a bit faster than the default infil pattern in Prusa Slicer. All-in with the supports, the sound chamber took about 1.5days to print.
I also added a re-mix, which are parts to make a tuner adapter. I wanted to use tuners from a bass guitar, so needed to drill out two of the holes, as well as make the associated adapters.
I ended up buying some GCEA baritone strings, but intend to swap them for DGBE strings, which make it basically the same as the bottom 4 strings on a guitar.
As noted in the last photos, the neck is bowing pretty badly, making the instrument unplayable. I may have to re-print it... hopefully not too much epoxy got onto it. :)
(if I can fix the bowed neck, I'd rate this a lot higher. I think it's pretty awesome looking!)
Update, Nov 27:
The neck was unusably bowing, all the strings were rattling off the frets, etc.
So I took some scrap oak and made a new neck. I also cut the nut off and increased its height, as well as increasing the height of the bridge. The addition of DGBE strings makes this and excellent little instrument. (edited)
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@BJay_1903621 hi there,
The new neck works great. I’m not much of a musician, so I’ve played around with it just goofing off, not much more. I think I’d do the bass tuners differently, but overall it’s a great-looking instrument, so I do love it!
Oddly, my strings broke recently, even though I rarely use them. Is that a common ukulele thing? Anyway, thanks for reaching out!
@cunninghamd_150195 Ah ok, sounds like, at least worth it to get! Is it loud enough or pretty quiet? Guess will be ok, but i think about turning the hexagon part into a normal body too.
About the strings: they should last for years, my soprano ukulele strings are about 4 years old now and always in tune. But you can always have bad luck, usually they should last long like guitar strings. (or made some major mistake(?))
@NicholasTupper_75469 could you provide more woodworking details? Is it a piece of top plywood, glued to a base? Etc? I’m going to print this soon, but may be tempted by making it out of wood, too. Thx!
@cunninghamd_150195 It's all solid walnut! The top is about 1/8" think and bookmatched. Same with the back. I took the slightly lazy way out by just roughly cutting and filing solid blocks for the sides, then flush trimming them. Definitely easier than doing it right and bending the sides! The neck is laminated maple and walnut with a walnut fretboard. The next generation for me is going to be a fiberglass or carbon fiber back with a walnut top.
Great job mate! She's quite the beauty. The strings come in tomorrow and I'm excited to see how she sounds. The sound chamber caved in a bit, but not bad enough for me to reprint.
Thank you and well done!
Not the traditional make you might find on this website, but the platform was rock solid, so I expanded upon it! Still a bit more work to do on the action, but It's a great instrument! If you take the plans from Fusion 360, they are adaptable to woodworking easily.
Awesome design! Glue is still wet so not set up or played it yet. Mirrored my print because Lefties need cool stuff too!
@FLYNINDUSTRIES Looks fantastic! I love the color swap for the frets!
@NicholasTupper_75469 thanks so much! Yeah the frets turned out great! I still need to adjust the saddle height a little to get a good action but it turned out real nice. Oh I also cut the nut off the neck to allow for easier printing face down. This might be worth looking at as a printing option. Maybe with a couple of placement markers embossed front? Printing like this made the back of the neck smooth & consistent over the whole length. (edited)
@NicholasTupper_75469 Hi there. I love this design and intend to print one soon. Just wondering if there's a file for the bridge? It appears to be missing. (edited)
@Reecetafarian_399267 Hey! Thank you for letting me know! It's uploaded now!
Lovely design but is there any reason for such a narrow neck? 31mm at the nut seems insanely small when 35mm is standard for smaller ukuleles, baritones normally go towards 37-38mm. id love to build this but widening by scale is really throwing out some of the other dimensions
@GlenHay_336452 That's a great question! I really struggled to find information about dimensions for baritone ukuleles, so I estimated based on my experience building guitars. I think the string spacing is likely slightly tighter than most ukuleles and I just added 3mm outside of the strings to get enough room to get the strings down. I'm looking at making a few tweaks to the neck in the near future (basic aluminum stiffening rod), so while I'm at it, I'll make that tweak too!