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Well I just finished the french polish on this uke and was quite pleased with the results. I hung up my uke, like I do with all of my freshly finished instruments so it could cure and then left the shop. about five minutes later I heard a bang sound and immediately ran down to the shop. What I found wasn't pretty:




So my question is, what do I do know? Do I pretend I'm Pete Townshend and just smash the uke against the floor, or do I replace the top (which is the only part that was damaged)? The neck is a glued butt joint so I would imagine that taking off the fretboard, then removing the top would be the best way to go. Any help is appreciated.

Ouch! That doesn't really look fixable without taking the top off anyway, unless you have (or know someone with) really small hands that can fit in an uke soundhole. So yeah, I'd just replace the top entirely. Sad that you never got to hear this one with strings on

Although once you get it off, you may as well try gluing the pieces back together just for the practice and to see how good it turns out. I've made some pretty miraculous saves of dead looking things with a bit of hot hide glue and patience.

On the bright side, the finish looks great, and it's not that large of an area to have to redo. What caused it to fall?

Yes, but only if you get paid for doing so.
If there is no filming team and paying public in sight, get first the fingerboard off, then the top. Depending on the glue you used you even can salvage the binding if you care. Not worth to fiddle around with this broken top (in my opinion).

How did it happen? Did the hook let go or did it just "explode" by its own?

Why don't you carve a little sound port there.
You could re-top it later.
Or take a cut-off from the top,
and make it a 3 piece top.
I wouldn't take the top off.

Never mind.
I looked again and saw the damage at the tail!

I was ready to say that shouldn't be hard to fix then I thought again and realized we are talking a uke. Does anyone know anyone with tiny hands or a three year old that is good at repairs?

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Another day, another dollar.

I think what you need to do now is make sure that you have your shops humidify under control. Is that what the problem is here>?? I've never seen nor heard of anything quite like that before. I did know a luthier that used to also do gun repairs in his shop but...

That really sucks, I would think that a new top is in order if there is other damage that is. I think I would also revisit my hanging techniques. I would give it a little time before starting the repair.

Fred

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Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
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The humidity is 40% like it always is. The problem was that the uke was hanging on a hook, the hook broke (still trying to figure out how), and the uke fell 8 feet to the ground.

After thinking it over I realized that I had $25 in this uke, with $20 for the fingerboard and frets. After I realized this I decided to salvage the fingerboard and attempt a repair on the uke. Well I attempted and it wasn't going so great so I decided to just eat the $5 I spent on materials and build a new uke with this fingerboard. On the plus side, the old uke makes a great pool toy

Because it had 5 substantial splits (much bigger than a normal crack), a giant hole in the top, and a brace was broken...

Well it's at 100% humidity now

Oh ok I see, it fell, bummer. But you could have just retopped it yeah?

May I ask why the fret board looks so wide relative to the body? Is that a specific design?

Mike

oops. double post