Houston, we have a problem

Well, I've been quiet for a few days. The last work on the uke I was shaping the neck and putting final shape on the fretboard and it came out very nice. Then I started measuring out placement of the bridge, that's when our uke world changed. The 12th fret should be in the middle of the 388mm scale length which would make it 194mm, then another 194mm to the bridge. Well, when I measured the fretboard I came up with 201mm to the 12th fret.... that throws everything out of wack.

So I started measuring around things and came up with this: The fretboard came preslotted and I assumed the end of the board was the nut end of the fretboard, well it turns out it wasn't. The space between the end and the first slot is for if the builder wants to have a zero fret, so the first slot is really the end of the fretboard. I started thinking of how I could work around this but everything I came up with put something else out of wack... like the placement of the inlay, the join to the body and ultimately the placement of the bridge on the body which would affect the sound.

I popped open a barley pop and stared at the thing for an hour.

An e-mail to Bob at Pegasus Guitars & Ukuleles confirmed this, he's the guy that put together the kit and a great guy. His suggestion is to remove the fretboard and replace it. He says it should be pretty easy to heat the fretboard with an iron and remove it. He seemed to understand exactly how I made the error, remember this kit is just the materials and a drawing, not step by step instructions. Given that, he's gonna send a new board and inlay dots... what a great guy!!!!

So I took the uke in to work and showed Stew, Amie and Dana before I start taking it apart. Dana's eyes got huge when Stew pulled it out of the case. I guess it's looking pretty good.

So right now, the new fretboard is on it's way from Hawaii and I've been drinking more barley pop.