Ukulele Electric Pickup

George

Ukuleles are really popular these days.  This one is really nice and the owner wants an electric pickup fitted.  Not a particularly difficult job, but lots of scope to cause a lot of damage….

 

The pickup sits under the bridge saddle, but the pickup is quite tall so if I just put it under the saddle the action will come up considerably.

A Piezoelectric pickup to be fitted to a Ukulele

I measured the depth of the slot for the saddle……

Measuring the depth of the slot for a piezoelectric pickup

and the thickness of the bridge.  That gave me about 3mm to spare, which might just be enough.

Measuring the thickness of the bridge on the Ukulele

How to cut the slot for the saddle a little deeper, but accurately.

Firstly, to protect the surface, some low adhesive drafting tape.  On top of that some double sided tape….

Masking the top of the Ukulele to protect it whist working

stuck to that, a couple of blocks of MDF to give me an even surface for the router.

2 blocks of MDF fixed to the top of the Ukulele with double sided tape to form a base for the router.

To keep the straight line, another block as a guide.

Deepening the bridge slot with a router in order to accommodate the electric pickup.

and a hole for the pickup cable.

Drilling a hole for the pickup cable

The pre-amp needs to go about there…

Assessing where the pre-amplifier is to be fitted to the ukulele

Carefully marking out the cut-out, to make sure it’s central and square, then drill a few holes.

Holes drilled in the side of the ukulele for the pre amplifier cut-out

Carefully joining the holes gives me a start so I can get a fine saw blade in.

Cutting the hole for the amplifier with a flat saw blade

That gave me a rough opening…….

The roughly cut hole in the side of the ukulele

finishing it off carefully with a sharp chisel.

Finishing off the hole in the ukulele to fit the pre amplifier

So that’s the amp in place.

Pre-amplifier tuner mounted in the side of a ukulele

Next the battery box and jack socket, around about there, using the same principles…

The position of the battery box and jack socket to be cut into a ukulele

Starting with the drill…..

Initial rough cut hole for jack socket and battery box

That’s coming along just nicely.

Battery box and jack socket mounted in the side of a ukulele

So there it is back together.

Strings and bridge saddle re-fitted to the ukulele

Unfortunately the action height was still a high….

Measuring the action height of a ukulele

I can’t cut the slot for the saddle any lower or I’ll cut through the top so I need to take a bit off the bridge saddle.

The easiest way to do that is to clamp it in the saddle tool, with just the right amount sticking out…

Bridge saddle clamped in the sanding guide

Using a flat board and sandpaper all I need t do is grind it down to the level of the clamp…

Sanding down the bridge saddle using the sanding guide

Since the clamp has bearings at each corner it’s impossible to go too far…

After sanding the bridge saddle

And by definition the bottom has to be perfectly flat and square.

Once it was back together again this time the action was spot on.

checking the action height of the ukulele

While I’m at it and the string were off I also gave the fretboard a little lemon-oil as it was rather dry.

Applying lemon oil to the fretboard of a ukulele

And there it is, good to go.

Finished Ukulele with electric pickup and pre-amp fitted

A few words from the owner:

“Thankyou George for a really professional job fitting a tuner and pre amp  and jack plug in my ukelele . As a novice  and never having used an amp i now look forward to  the new experience of playing through the said  amp. Many thanks.”