Functional 3D Printed Ukulele

Having dabbled in several instruments over the years, having stuck mainly with guitar, I've been thinking about 3D printing something musical, utilizing some of the larger format printers in our arsenal.

I found this fully 3D printable ukulele on Thingiverse, and decided it would be a fun, quick project. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4037461

I received some fancier Prusament PETG (Red Carmine) that I've been saving for a special aesthetic project, and decided this was it. The larger parts for the body were printed on the largest format printer we have, while the neck, headstock, and fretboard were printed on the MK3S+. The fretboard were also printed in PETG, with dual colours.

I tried to print tuning machines (a scaled version of ttps://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3028305) as well in Galaxy Silver Prusa PLA, which were very cool, but I later found that the scaled parts were too small and fragile for regular use.

I added a small piece of wood to the neck cavity to add some rigidity. PETG is quite flexible, and under load with tuned strings, the neck flexes a good amount. The wood helped, but tuning can still be a challenge.

All parts were glued together with 5 minute epoxy, (which in removing the tuning machines, I found didn't stick very well to PETG, but it was better than nothing). Here is the fully assembled Uke before changing to the tapered pegs and installing strings.

The tapered pegs can be found here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4417254. I saled them down to fit the holes in this model's headstock.

Here's a short clip where I poorly played a few chords after getting it somewhat tuned. Tuning was very challenging, and clearly I need more practice! I think I'll get some store-bought tuning machines to make this easier for regular use.

Thanks for getting this far, and stay tuned for more projects!