Cutting the Ukulele Dovetail Joint

The ukulele body and neck were set up on their respective dovetail jigs. With several months of work on the line, I cautiously proceeded to cut the dovetails. The neck was aligned, clamped and routed to the dovetail specifications with no issues. However, I had problems aligning the ukulele body on to the jig. The sound board would not lay flat against the jig leaving about a 1/16" gap at the top. I checked the jig setup and body. The jig and template were perpendicular and true. The body had some issues because the sound board was not completely flat and the back radius made clamping a challenge. I leveled the protruding binding and raised the upper body clamp to help close the gap. The body dovetail was routed. There was a depth difference between the top and bottom of the dovetail. I checked the jig with another tenor body (#007). The gap was less but not completely perpendicular. I concluded the jig setup didn't accommodate the uke body variations so I shimmed up the template until the body was true and was able to properly route the dovetail.