Workshop notes...

From the age of 13 I have always built musical instruments. I remember struggling in my dad's shed to fashion a Les Paul body out of some insufferably hard maple using a coping saw and a Marples wooden spoke-shave not unlike the one in the image to the right. It was an agony: I didn't know how to sharpen tools, how to work with the grain and the rudimentary nature of the workshop meant it was my first unfinished project!

40 years on I am much wiser and have, along the way, acquired some essential skills: I know when to get the waterstones out to sharpen tools, how to set up for maximum efficiency any of the 9 routers I possess and most important of all, how to work with wood rather than against it.

This section gives you a little insight to how I use these skills to create Uklectic ukulele.