Repairing Back Cracks on Gretsch Ukulele

The top seam is dry and looks good.  Now I can keep going onto the next crack.

This one is actually two - one large one I can open up easily, and one smaller one to its left.  I can't open the second one much at all - but hopefully I can get some glue into it. 

Both cracks seal up pretty tightly - a good thing.  I just pushed gently from the inside of the uku to make the big one open as you see here.  And, if you look closely, you'll see that this is indeed a solid piece of wood.  I read somewhere on the interweb recently that these little Gretsches only have solid tops.  Not so.  The tops, back and sides are definitely solid mahogany.  This picture proves it - the edge is solid, not a laminate. 

This repair technique is straight out of Dan Erlewine's guitar repair book.  Open the cracks, then spread glue into them.    I don't think I'm going to put any reinforcing patch on the inside since the cracks are tight when they're closed up.  But we shall see.  I'll make that decision after this dries.

Then close the cracks and clean up the remaining glue with a damp rag.  You can see the glue line in the bigger crack.  This is a good thing.

I also wiped the glue coming out of the crack on the inside of the ukulele as well.  This should turn out to be a nice clean repair.

Then we have good quality masking tape that has some stretch to put over the cracks.  What I did was put it on one side, then stretch over the crack, not pressing it down on the crack itself, and then attaching the other side.  The bit of stretch in the tape helps hold the crack closed.

Then let it dry.