For a few months now, in my spare time, I have been making a Ukulele from scratch, using a cigar box as the starting point. The basic idea is to take a wooden Cigar Box (though you can use non wooden ones as well, resulting in different acoustics), build and attach the neck, fret board etc, cut a hold in the box, string it up and you have yourself a musical instrument! The neck was certainly the most challenging part, as it required the most finessing. First the wood, (which was salvaged from a scrap bin, and so I am unsure of what kind it was, but Birch is my guess from the color) had to be cut at a precise angle, glued, and then cut to rough size with a band saw, planed down and finally sanded to the final shape. Once assembled, I stained the fretboard to give it a little contrast, and then coated the whole thing with a few coats of a polyurethane to protect it. The sound it makes is decent, not quite as loud as my other, store-bought one, but it has a more rustic quality, which I like.
