T004 Tap Tuning

Once the body of the ukulele had been closed up, the soundboard felt a little on the stiff side. The tap tone of the soundboard also suggested that the soundboard was too stiff, with a very short tone that was a little too high in pitch. I decided at this point to loosen the soundboard up by thinning the soundboard over the whole lower bout/bridge region. Using a small finger plane, I was able to carefully shave about 0.3 mm off the thickness of the whole lower bout area, and a further 0.5 mm in thickness off the outer perimeter of the soundboard. While thinning the soundboard, I progressively checked the tap tone until I was happy with the volume and the body resonance pitch had dropped suitably. At this point the soundboard started to become significantly more lively when tapped, with a clear increase in the sustain of the tone. It also became evident at this point that the whole body chamber was significantly more lively, as the soundboard resonated nicely when air was blown across the soundhole.