As the luthiers building experience grows, they will want to add additional luthier tools to their shop, which will give more versatility and focused attention to certain tasks, and at the same time giving better accuracy and repeatability to the build. The adjustable inside form is one of those tools. The adjustable inside form is a variation of our standard fixed inside forms that we offer with every ukulele drawing we have listed on our site GenOne Luthier Supply. This tool does many tasks and does them well, with minimal time and maintains a high degree of accuracy in the instrument building process.
The adjustable inside form gives you the freedom to use this tool with any size ukulele that we offer and therefore you don't need a different form for each ukulele size. The process that makes this form adjustable is the use of a series of (6) adjustable retainers at the upper bout, the lower bout, and at the waist of each instrument.
The Form Base: The base is the 19mm piece of cabinet grade plywood where all the other adjustable elements are anchored. It consists of several curved channels which allow for complex adjustment angles of the side retainers. Also you can optionally install an option to this base so the form can easily be clamped into a woodworkers vice. This give the form incredible rigidity so major operations such as crown sanding can be completed without the concern of the form sliding around on the workbench.
The Inside Form Shape Insert: This is an additional insert made from 19mm plywood fits onto the top surface of the base. By installing smooth-shanked pocket screws around the perimeter of each of these inserts, you can glue down top and back plates with surprising speed. We include ample pocket screws to easily go around the edges of the insert for either rubber band attachment or elastic banding.
Side Retainer Clamps: The 6 retainers are key to the working of this form. Each retainers is attached to the base with a carriage bolt/free-spinning knob assembly, giving the luthier easy adjustability for any size instrument. The retainers can easily retracted to release the the instrument body, and again easily tightened to secure the instrument back in the form. The form is shipped with the front surface of the retainers that contact the instrument body curved to easily fit the subtle curves of the body. The retainer bases are slotted giving a lot a adjustability for different instrument body types.
If it is your intent you use this tool for attaching strapping or rubber bands to clamp
the plates of the instrument, you will need to install the included pocket screws into the Form Insert. Here is the procedure to accurately accomplish this task:
These forms basically operate and are setup identically. Of course the Guitar Form has a much larger footprint and the Retainer Clamps are large for more stability. The biggest difference is the Guitar Form has optional head and tail block retainers available as an additional option. Again this is for more stability for certain tasks. These instructions apply equally to both the guitar and ukulele versions of this tool.
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