Printing a ukelele on a laser-cutter

The folks at NYC Resistor laser-cut this sweet little flying-V ukelele, designed with open source tools. It's just a half-size prototype. but there's some there there for sure.

2) With the help from a kind friend, I got this file into the proper format for printing, stuck a sheet of 1/8″ x 24″ x 12″ plywood into the laser, and then hit the “GO” button. Just before you hit that button, you are required to shout “FIRE THE LAZZZZOR”, just so people know, well, that something magic is about to happen.

3) After about twenty minutes of laazzzoor (which costs me $20… $1 per minute of laser use), out came the piece of wood, from which I could easily pop out the various parts of my new uku. From there, some simple wood glue and human hand pressure produced the outcome seen below.

Open-Source Ukulele Proto Uno Lazzzzored FTW! (Thanks, Nathan!)

[#1 posted by jesseg , March 27, 2009 6:43 AM]

I set up a Yahoo! Pipes RSS feed that filters out any Boing Boing post about ukeleles.

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=LiPwqNQa3hGfr2p6BR50VA

[#2 posted by zymeck , March 27, 2009 7:28 AM]

It was as if a million Luthiers cried out and were suddenly silenced

[#3 posted by EH , March 27, 2009 8:54 AM]

do not stare into ukelele with remaining eye

[#4 posted by MrScience , March 27, 2009 9:39 AM]

#1 Can you inverse that Pipe?

Let's see... clone, a few minor tweaks...

Tadah!

Though I do wish there were a "current month" feed so there were more entries. :/

[#5 posted by FutureNerd , March 27, 2009 10:05 AM]

To really test whether there is there there, you must fab twenty ukes, and twenty ukeliers must play in unison...

Little boxes on the hill top,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.

...then listen to the sound of the universe pulsing.

Gertrude Stein was talking about Oakland, and Malvina Reynolds was singing about Daly City, but that's neither here nor there.

[#6 posted by toxonix , March 27, 2009 11:12 AM]

Good luck with the plywood neck, bridge, nut, tuner, braces, etc.
Laser cutters suck anyway.

[#7 posted by thequickbrownfox , March 27, 2009 11:38 AM]

Nuke the uke.

[#8 posted by trimeta , March 27, 2009 11:49 AM]

An article about ukuleles that doesn't consist entirely of a cute girl in a YouTube video? Awesome! This is the sort of creative direction Mark should branch out into.

[#9 posted by lysdexia , March 27, 2009 12:53 PM]

toxonix: I think if one layered/glued the plywood then filled in the edges with a bit of bondo, the neck might be acceptable.

Er not.

Still, a vee uke is pretty fun. I live in Cinti and believe that one should make any custom stringed instrument with a neck look like Bootsey's star bass. It's the least we can do.

[#10 posted by Anonymous , March 29, 2009 9:46 PM]

I think it would be much more fun to shout,

"Pree-pare to fire theee Wave Motion Guhhhn!"