Zimo DIY Ukulele Make Your Own Ukulele Hawaii Ukulele Kit (21inch)

My rating is premature, but if I have second thoughts, I'll find a way to post them. For now I think it's going to be a great little ukulele for my granddaughter. I think it will be playable. I did a little filing to smooth the sharp edges of the frets. Went quickly. Now I'm decorating the top side with a collage of her favorite things. My plan is to use a transfer or two to apply the design. I've already put down a base coat of purple. (Sanded the wood first.) I stained the back with maple stain. I expect tuning to be problematic at first, but I think it will settle in and stay more in tune as time goes by -- like by the time my granddaughter becomes concerned about really playing it. (She's too young but I think this little instrument will stay intact until she reaches a teachable age. Or maybe she'll be a prodigy at age 5.) These are my thoughts and hopes. Am looking forward to the assembly process. Plan to use Titebond wood glue. Just wanted to get my initial review online for whatever it's worth to others who may be interested in buying one of these nice little kits.

The only reason I didn't give this five stars was because the instructions were SHIT. Everything else was manageable.Okay, so, right out of the box, the bottom of the neck of the ukelele was too deep (compared to the body). It's circled in red in the second picture. It was about 1/4" longer in depth, so I had to saw it down to make it flush with the rest of the body.After I did that, everything fit together pretty well. I used wood glue for the neck and body join, and tied some ribbons around it to keep it tight. There was a slight gap on each side of the join after they dried, so I filled the gap with wood filler and sanded it down. Worked out great.The wood itself was nice and smooth, but I sanded it with 600 grit just for funsies. I recommend you make a stencil of the fretboard and bridge out of painters tape, and place them exactly where you want both, and keep them there throughout the ENTIRE painting process. That way, when you remove them, you have raw wood to glue the fretboard and bridge to the ukelele. Wood glue binds wood to wood a lot better than it binds wood to Paint, Mod Podge or Polyurethane.I then proceeded to cover the entire thing in several layers of Acrylic Gesso (I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS, it keeps the acrylic from soaking into the wood, makes your colors pop, and makes it so you don't have to do a billion layers of paint - it will save you so much time and make the end result look so much better), and then painted it all nice and pretty with acrylic paints and covered it in about a thousand layers of Satin Mod Podge (because I was too lazy to dig out my polyurethane). I should not have used Mod Podge. Use a water-based poly, y'all. Mod Podge takes FOREVER to dry.Anyway, after that, I sanded the ever-loving christ out of it with 400, 600, 800, and 1000 grit sandpaper, because for some reason I had a lot of high-grit sandpaper lying around, and a lot of time on my hands.I then removed the painters tape and glued the fretboard and bridge to the ukelele, installed the tuners, and strung the strings. That was about a month ago, and the damn thing still doesn't want to stay tuned, but it's gotten a lot better as the strings have stretched out.Anyway, it was fun, and I enjoyed making it, even though it took forever (I blame the Mod Podge. Don't use Mod Podge.) and I'll probably get another one to make for myself, since this one is a gift for a friend.

My daughter was interest in a ukelule and we wanted one that wasn't professional quality for hundreds of dollars, but wasn't junk either and my daughter love it .she is planing draw some cartoon on itThis is not a toy. It is made of wood and sounds nice after tuning.This isn't something a professional would use, but is a very good value for only 33dollars.I was pleased with it right out of the box. Good started for little kids.

Overall this kit is well worth the money for a fun project or for a first time build. I purchased this to build for a simple gift, and it worked well for what I needed it to be. That said, there are some considerations. As others have observed, the instructions are nearly useless if you have any common sense, since they lack any actual details. Additionally, at least on the kit I received, the neck was considerably wider than the fretboard, and required considerable reshaping. There is no indication as to the scale length, which is key to placing the bridge, luckily it was easy enough to measure and place the bridge. The edges fo the frets were extraordinarily sharp, and required reshaping. Additionally, as I found after finishing, the frets are not placed correctly so the intonation is off. The first 5 frets are more-or-less in usable, but they get progressively worse the further along you go. Once finished the uke looks pretty good. However, don't expect a top of the line instrument out of this kit unless you're going to do a LOT of work to fix the flaws. Overall the effort saved by not doing all the work from scratch was worth the downsides.

Just follow the instructions, and this kit is easy to install. If you think the instructions are too simple, then I suggest you just go to youtube and search the instructions video that will be very helpful. It is clean enough to show you all the steps what you should know. I just use a normal glue to put the parts together, so far the ukulele works well, I hope the parts won't come out. This kit is not expensive, it is good for the people who are interested to learn a new instrument.