I went a little crazy last week and picked up a Jet 1020 thickness sander. The local supplier had it on a clearance sale. These things normally go for about $1200 including tax. I walked out the door for $628. I've read mixed reviews about this machine, but I couldn't let it go at that price. So far I'm really happy with it.

The back, sides and soundboard of a ukulele are typically about 3/32" thick. Until now I would resaw the stock to 1/4", give or take, then run it through the planer. Unless the wood is really straight-grained, I can't get thinner than 5/32 to 1/8 inch before it starts to shred. Then I would finish it to final thickness with a hand plane and hand sanding. That's a problem because long, thin pieces of wood don't like to stay flat when hand planing. It's also difficult to maintain a consistent thickness throughout the length and width of the panel. With this machine I can resaw to 3/16" then a few passes through the thickness sander and I have a finished part.

I laminated some scrap 3/4" thick stock and cut out the mold on the bandsaw, then cleaned it up on the spindle sander. Soaked one of the side panels in water for a few hours, bent it over a hot pipe and clamped it in the mold for a few days.

While waiting for the side panel to dry and get comfortable in the mold, I made the center strip detail. I cut out the main strip from Tulip on the laser, then glued the colored strips of very thin black walnut and even thinner mystery wood to the tulip strips. Finally the diamond shaped colored bits were glued in place. Pretty happy with how this turned out.